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Retrieving
your emails when away from your home or office PC
Using a laptop with a fixed line
Once connected to a telephone line, you dial up from Outlook Express
in the usual way and log-on with your ISP to send and receive emails.
However getting connected will need some preparation and possibly
some adjustments to your dial up settings.
First you will need to connect your laptop to a fixed line
with a cable fitted with the correct plug at either end. If you
did not get one with your laptop, suitable cables are available
in most shops with good computer departments like PC World and John
Lewis. For connections in the UK, you will need to get hold
of an adapter compatible with the BT telephone outlet, but for connections
overseas you will often need other connectors or adapter to
connect to an outlet on the wall. In some hotels you find both a
telephone and data outlet. You may find it worthwhile carrying a
selection of phone plugs and adapter with you (travel packs are
advertised in magazines and the press) but if your lead does not
match the plug in the outlet, you can very often simply pull out
the lead from the phone which comes from the telephone socket and
pop the connector that had been in the phone into the laptop telephone
cable socket.
Second.
The next check worth making is to determine what telephone system
you have to connect to - it is tone or pulse? Most telephone
systems are tone dial these days but just occasionally you get a
surprise! I found a pulse
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system just outside Milan for example and in Moscow. You need to be
alert to this because, if you find repeated failures to connect, it
could be you are faced with a pulse system and then you have to make
the necessary changes to your dial up settings in Outlook Express.
Third. Ensuring you have a working dial up access number
is the next item to check. In the UK most ISPs give you an 0800
dial up number but that will not work overseas. So contact your
ISP in advance and get an international dial up number they know
will work! Some of the larger ISPs like CompuServe have regional
dial up numbers - for example in Hong Kong - which may be closer
for call charges. The fail-safe is to get a UK number - often a
London 0207 number - which you can dial up as an international call.
Fourth. Before making the call from your laptop, you will
need to get the international call access number and the country
code you need to use before the international dial up number
you have been given by your ISP. You also need to check whether
you have to dial a number to get a line - often the case in hotels
and offices. Armed with the full combination of numbers for the
call, you then need to change your dial up settings in Outlook Express
to include the complete number you need dial.
Fifth.
Now the acid test - the dial up!
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