Q.1) What is an email address?
Your email address is made up of several parts. By convention, addresses use lowercase letters with no spaces. The first part of the address, the username, identifies a unique user on a server. The "@" (pronounced "at") separates the username from the host name. The host name uniquely identifies the server computer and is the last part of the Internet email address (for example, my email address is user@vippn.com ). Large servers, such as those used at universities or large companies sometimes contain multiple parts, called subdomains. Subdomains and the host name are separated by a "." (pronounced "dot"). The three-letter suffix in the host name identifies the kind of organization operating the server (some locations use a two-letter geographical suffix). The most common suffixes are: .com (commercial) .edu (educational) .gov (government) .mil (military) .net (networking) .org (non-commercial). Addresses outside of the U.S. sometimes use a two-letter suffix that identifies the country in which the server is located. Some examples are: .jp (Japan), .nl (The Netherlands), .uk (United Kingdom), .ca (Canada), .tw (Taiwan).

Q.2) How do I check for my email?
Open VIP PowerNet browser and click on Mail Room icon at the top left corner of the browser, and then select Mail Room from the drop down menu. If you are connected using a dial-up connection, it will directly take you to the mailroom. If you are connected using LAN, then it will ask you to select the user name and type the password for that user name.

Q.3) Can I send a message to many people at once?
To send messages to more than one person, simply enter additional email addresses, separated by commas, in the To, CC, or BCC fields of the email message window. Be careful when sending to many people at once, many users do not like to receive large amounts of unsolicited email.

Q.4) Can I send Word documents in email?
You can send Word documents, spreadsheets, graphics files, and even small applications as email attachments. When you attach a file to an email message, a copy of the file is sent inside the email message. The file is automatically downloaded to your recipient's hard drive when he or she checks for new email.

Q.5) What should I do if I get junk emails?
Unsolicited commercial email, or "spam," is a big problem for the Internet. If you get a junk email, DO NOT reply to the sender. Many spammers send email blindly, so your response tells them that they found an active email box.

Q.6) Should I change my password? If so, how often?
We recommend changing your password every 90 days. If you suspect that someone might have stolen your password, you should change it immediately.

Q.7) What is the best way to choose a password?
When choosing a password, try to pick something that is easy for you to remember but difficult for others to guess. DO NOT CHOOSE YOUR USERNAME OR YOUR REAL NAME. You should also avoid easily guessed words like "password" or "secret." The safest passwords include both letters and numbers. Once you have selected a password, write it down and keep it in a secure place.

Q.8) How large of a file can be sent to my email address as an attachment through the Internet?
The limitation on attachment size would be dependent on the server, but typically this limitation would be around 500k.

Q.9) How can I subscribe to email newsletters or mailing lists?
To subscribe to most email newsletters and mailing lists, you must send a message containing your name and email address to a central computer. This computer adds you to the list. Most email newsletters and mailing lists publish a Web page with subscription information, and many let you subscribe directly from the Web page.

Q.10) How can I get off an email newsletter or mailing list?
When you subscribe to most email newsletters or mailing lists, you will receive an email that includes information on how to leave the list. Generally, this involves sending an email containing the word "unsubscribe" to the list's central computer, but the exact process varies from list to list. If you did not receive an email explaining how to unsubscribe, you may be able to get the information from the mailing list's Web site or from the list's owner or publisher. Read any messages you may have received from the owner for more information.

Q.11) I heard that newsgroups are a good way to get information - what are they?
Newsgroups are global message boards that cover a wide range of topics. They let people around the world swap information, share tips, and give advice. Learn how to subscribe to and read newsgroups . To save computer space, newsgroup messages automatically vanish off the news servers within a few days or weeks. These older messages are recorded in Deja.com , a searchable archive of the past several years of Usenet postings. You can use Deja.com to research a subject, find a newsgroup you're interested in reading, or even post your own messages to newsgroups.

Q.12) Someone sent me an attachment and I can't find it. Where did it go?
Your email program automatically saves email attachments on your hard drive and notifies you with a special paperclip icon. If someone sends you an email message with an attached file, you can open and use the file by opening the message and clicking the paperclip icon in the message window. If your computer can open the file, it will launch the appropriate program (or ask you which program you want to use to open the file. · Is there a maximum size for sending email attachments? No, but it's a good idea to limit your attachments to documents or files smaller than 1,000 Kilobytes (1MB). Large attachments increase the size of your email messages and make it more likely that the message will be rejected or mangled during its voyage to your recipient.

Q.13) How much space at VIP PowerNet do I have to store email messages?
When someone sends you an email message, it is stored on VIP PowerNet mail servers until you check for your mail. Then it is downloaded to the inbox on your hard drive. Your inbox can store as much mail as you have room on your hard drive, but each VIP PowerNet member has a 10MB limit for mail on our servers.

Q.14) Can my friends using other Internet companies or AOL send me email?
You can receive email from people around the world - no matter what Internet service provider they use. Tell your friends to address their messages to your_username@vippn.com. Replace the words your_username with your actual VIP PowerNet username

Q.15) Why can't I check my e-mail at the office?
Sometimes a firewall will prevent a user form logging into the VIP PowerNet's mail server. There isn't much that can be done about an employers firewalls.

Q.16) What is my address with VIP PowerNet?
As with almost any Internet Service Provider, your e-mail address starts with your userID/login, and ends with the domain name. If your userID was "userid", then your e-mail address with VIP PowerNet's Internet would be userid@vippn.com. Anyone with the suffix "@vippn.com" is an VIP PowerNet's Internet user. If you happen to have a web hosting account with your own domain, then your e-mail addresses will have your domain name rather than vippn.com.

Q.17) What are your incoming/outgoing mail server names?
Our incoming mail server uses the POP3 mail protocol and the name of the server is pop.vippn.com. Our outgoing mail server uses the SMTP mail protocol and the name of the server is smtp.vippn.com. If you setup your connection using our CD, then the e-mail client you chose to use during setup will already have these servers entered into that client.

Q.18) How can I access my Email?
You can use either your web browser or an Email client such as Outlook.

Q.19) Can I access my VIP PowerNet e-mail from other computers?
Yes. Simply go to the control panel in the browser and click on Configure New Account and then enter your user name and password and click on OK. A small dialog box will pop up in front of the screen with the message "Account Configured Successfully". Now Sign Off and then go back to the Sign On screen and select your user name from the Sign On select box and type in your password and then click on Sign On. Please make sure that you don't click on Save Password check box if the computer you are using does not belong to you. After you are done checking your email, delete your user name from the sign on screen.

Q.20) What is MIME?
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions Encoding (MIME Encoding), is a standardized method for organizing divergent file formats. The method organizes file formats according to the file's MIME type. When Internet (usually email) software retrieves a file from a server, the server provides the MIME type of the file, and the file is decoded correctly when transferred to your machine. · What is an SMTP server? SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a protocol used to transfer email. SMTP transfers mail from server to server, and the end user must use POP to transfer the messages to their machine. The SMTP server at VIP PowerNet is: mail.vippn.com

Q.21) What is "flaming"?
A negative response to an email message or newsgroup posting. If you post an article or send an email to an audience that deems your message inappropriate, expect to get "flamed." The most common recipients of flames are users who post commercial messages in public forums, those who post adult material in non-adult areas of the Internet, and users who post or send make racial or gender-biased comments. The worst sort of flame is known as a "mail-bomb," which occurs when the user being flamed opens his or her email and receives a flood of letters with unusually long file attachments that make his or her computer "crash."

Q.22) What is a POP Account? And what is my POP Account?
POP stands for Post Office Protocol, a protocol designed to allow single users to read mail from a server. When email is sent to you, it is stored on the server until accessed by you. Once you are verified, the POP is used to transmit the stored mail from the server to your local mailbox on your machine. Your POP account is the same as your email address: username@vippn.com