I'm usually one who believes that anyone can use a computer, note that "use" is not "administer". Using a computer is made VERY easy these days. You don't need much in the way of tech skills to do it. Some very basic lessons and for the most part you can get on just fine to do almost all of what general users do with their computer. You're clearly not one of them.andreaborman wrote:And I read that website link you gave me about the POP servers, and I did not understand any of it. Andrea Borman.
This is fine, computers are not for everyone. The difference is that most people who can't grasp the general ideas around using a computer are self aware of that. They know they're struggling to understand it. They choose different ways to deal with it, they sometimes try to seek help and make an effort to listen to what's being explained to them and to understand it. They know it may take extra time and effort but they try. EVERY FOSS project and it's people will happily help and encourage those people.
Sadly, some will take the path of giving up altogether, taking the computer back to the store, selling it, giving it away or never switch it back on, giving up on all the value a computer could give them.
Then there's you, who seem to think of yourself as a guru, who feels the need to teach others the skills you have. This is like the Pope teaching a science class on evolution. On these subjects you are completely clueless but have taken the self appointed mantle of instructor. All your posts do is add confusion to people who come seeking information and actually WANT to try and find the right answer.
Forums are about users helping other users, not only does this spread the load, it helps set in knowledge if you try to explain it to someone else in a way that they understand. The inevitable result of this is users who don't know what they're talking about, or who have misunderstood something chip in to try and help. Often this is a genuine user who is genuinely trying to help. When others correct that info they're usually the first to thank the correcter and learn from the correction.
An important skill for instructors is to be able to explain something in various ways, to be able to tailor it to the student, so the student can grasp it. Several people have tried to explain this to you in various ways, and you still don't get it. You are unteachable. Why should we continue to beat our heads against a wall trying to explain something very basic to you when you are incapable of reading or understanding what's being said? Why should we continue to put up with the trolling, derailing rants on applications that everyone else can use just fine, except you?
For the last time, I'll lay this out in simple terms: The email / letter you got from your ISP when you signed up for broadband / dialup / cable - look at it. That letter / email has a LOT of account info, from details on what to set the router to so you can connect, and oh lookie, some email settings. Would ya look at that? All the time they're hidden in plain sight.
If you are using webmail, which I suspect you are, things are a little bit different: Most webmail like Hotmail and Yahoo don't allow clients to be used to send and receive mail, they force you to use the website where they have adverts. Gmail is the exception. Log into your Gmail account and look at the preferences, there's a button labelled something like "POP & IMAP Forwarding". You have to go there and enable it for the account. There's also links to guides from there written by Google on how to set it up in Outlook, Outlook Express.
Thunderbird is painfully easy for Gmail: Add a new account, one of the account types is Gmail. All it needs is your Gmail address and password, it does the rest for you. It queries the server, finds it's own port and security settings.
You've grasped the concept of a username and password, otherwise you wouldn't be able to sign into your webmail to get the activation email to join this forum. You would not be able to post in this forum. You would not be able to upload videos anywhere, nor have a MySpace page. All Gmail needs in Thunderbird is a username (in this case it's an email but it does clearly state that) and a password. How can this POSSIBLY be beyond you? How can this possibly be something that NOBODY can use?
As for the advice on Windows about "I don't have a username / password because I run on my own network" and "I never run an antivirus because they take over the machine", you're confusing "virus" with "antivirus". Not only that but you're leaving yourself WIDE open and inviting ANY malicious application onto your Windows computer without even the basic protection.
Many of us have Windows or OSX administration experience, many of us have to use or administer these systems at work or school. We've built up a lot of combined knowledge and common experience, best practice on not just Windows, but OSX and Linux too. We have installed more OS's that you've had hot dinners. We've set up dual boot systems, multiboot systems, RAID arrays, and a whole range of servers for a whole range of things. We know about partitions, filesystems, bootloaders and a whole lot of other things that will just sound like words to you.
This is not about showing off, it's about getting the message through to you that "we know what we're talking about, we are happy to encourage and teach others as we have repeatedly tried with you, but you're incapable of learning and still feel the need to spew your previous wisdom as truth".
We know for example that you NEVER run any Windows install without an up to date antivirus application of some form. The very first thing we do when installing Windows, is install the antivirus app we're going to use, then update it. Only after that is it safe to start getting updates from Microsoft. Yes you need an antivirus already in place BEFORE going online AT ALL. I learned that after a fresh install, where I got the Windows update first, and found the MSBlaster worm somehow infected me. I had no choice but to wipe that partition and do another fresh install of Windows.
We know that we have to jump through all of the extra security hoops when we set up Windows if we don't want to be constantly having to clean it and fix it. We know we have to constantly try to teach users not to click on links in emails from people they don't know. We know we often have to set policies in place to disable the CD drive, or USB ports, why? Because security wise Microsoft are like a tank made out of crepe paper.
We know we have to fight against Microsoft in creating user accounts, with limited rights, why? Because Microsoft choose to prefer users are full administrators, allowing them to hose their own computers due to their own incompetence. Any application you run, runs with the rights your account has. If you run an application as an administrator, it has all the rights of an administrator, meaning it can change whatever it wants anywhere on your computer. This is a HUGE part of why Windows is a malware magnet.
When you run as an administrator without ANY security applications, your computer won't last very long. Many Windows malware doesn't even need you to do anything to infect yourself, it's coded to do that part for you.
Given your woeful lack of technical knowledge, I'd bet that you didn't install Windows. You bought a computer that came with Windows already on it, you may even have had to use the recovery partition a few times. This has a DIRECT connection to your "I don't run any antivirus programs" assertion. A concept called "cause and effect", it's fascinating in it;s elegance, you should explore it sometime.
Cause: No antivirus
Effect: I've had to make good use of the recovery partition to fix my computer
When retailers sell PCs they don't install the OS for you, it's a boxed unit sent from Acer, Asus, Samsung, Dell or whoever. Windows is already there, ready to be switched on. How do they know your name to set up an account before they know you exist by coming into a store and buying it? They don't. They also can't send you home with a device that you can't administer. If you can't administer it, you can't do simple things like install a driver to make the printer work. The way around this is that they create an account called Administrator and give it administrator rights, they don't password it and have it log in without prompting for a password.
So if this is you, you're running as an administrator, without an antivirus. If I was a PC retailer in your area I'm not sure whether I'd love you or hate you, on one hand your misguided beliefs would make you a regular customer with which I can constantly charge money to repair the damage your habits cause, on the other, you're the type of person to who EVERYTHING would be "out of stock" when you inquired about it, aka "go annoy someone else, you're seriously not worth our time".
Why would you password it even at home? You may live in a safe area, but burglars do like a change of scenery from time to time. If your PC is stolen, and it logs into your account automatically, ALL of your info is there for them to see and use. If they start your web browser and it logs into your email, they can impersonate you. Google the term "identity theft". All of the info they find on your computer can be used as "proof of ID" and to help answer "security questions" which only YOU should (in theory) know. Before too long what started as a break in with the computer being stolen turns into bills and invoices arriving on your doorstep for all sorts of things you never bought. Who knows, they could even put all your private photos, letters etc online for the world to share and laugh at.
All of this private data is not like physical data, it's like a secret; after you tell a secret, the person you told can't unhear it. If you show someone something private, they can't unsee it. Read some stories about young women who think they're sharing private sex webcam videos ONLY with their boyfriend, only to have it turn up everywhere, where all her mates have it, and are calling her a slut because of it. It's out, she can't get it back, she can't turn back time and have others not see it, she can't go back and refuse to do the video. Even if she manages to get the boyfriend to delete it, plenty of others have copies, it will resurface like a persistent STD fro the rest of her life.
When you have a LOT of info on someone, they can pretend to be you, cause all sorts of trouble for you. They can get you associated with anything they think will be fun, for a laugh. As I've said before "the internet doesn't forget". You could easily find yourself more associated with stuff you didn't do, than stuff you did. If that's not enough, banks have all sorts of hoops you have to jump through to prove it wasn't you who made a purchase to get the money back. If that's not scary enough, imagine what the consequences would be if the purchase was on an FBI honey trap site to buy something like bomb making equipment.....with YOUR details? Often even the allegation of stuff like that will stick with you, your friends, family and neighbors will think there's no smoke without fire.
Do you think that only one person would use your details? Before you can start to work out why you're getting a bill for something from a company you've never heard of, your details will have been sold on many times over and will be getting used by LOTS of people, many of them outside the UK jurisdiction who do this for a living, meaning that one bill is only the start of your problems.
Is all of that REALLY worth the inconvenience of not requiring to type a few keys to log in?
Don't you think it's telling that not once did you ask "can anyone help me set up an email client to use email?" Not once. Of course we fully expect you to now try that approach in this thread to further derail it onto a different subject, because that's just how you roll.
Forums can be great places, for the most part we're all users who try to help each other when we can, enjoy a laugh with each other and are able to have different discussions where we disagree on some thing, agree on others and all of it enriches all of us. To do that there are basic netiquette rules, and things you DON'T do or you'll face a backlash. One of them is about derailing threads. This thread was about an intermittent problem with Thunderbird in Mint 10, you chose to derail it into the same WRONG rant about Outlook Express and Windows. You don't just post on any thread, you post on an appropriate thread. If there is no appropriate thread, start one in the appropriate forum. You've been warned about this before, yet it does not sink in.
When you repeatedly refuse to accept the basic concepts of courtesy and etiquette when using our forum, you have no right to be here, and those who do deserve to be free of your "wisdom".
Blocking your email / IP address is about stopping you from using THIS forum. It does not extend beyond that, although as I said before, we all swim in different pools, so plenty of other Linux community forum moderators have been forewarned and entertained by your videos and posts. If they have a manual account activation policy, you may find your outa luck and they'll delete your application to avoid what we've had to put up with. It's trivially easy to use a different IP address or email but that's way beyond your abilities, so it will be VERY effective on you.
Even the politicians who seek to write and adapt laws covering all aspects of computing and the internet are better informed than you, and that's REALLY saying something. They've shown just as much ignorance of reality. It's like the Conservative party calling the BNP "right wing".