[full time Mom]

I have my lovely new iMac OSX 10.4.10 sitting on my desk. My Son has set up Firefox for Internet access but I don't know what to do about email. The computer comes with the mail program .mac but we have our own dedicated domain and can't use .mac. My old iMac came with Outlook Express and we've used that for years. Can anyone recommend a new email program that works well? What about Thunderbird?
Thank you for any info. or thoughts.

[Yankee Rose]

Hi - welcome to TSG. I love your username as I am a full-time mom, too.

Have you considered using Mail? It is the email program that comes with OS X, and it works flawlessly for me. You don't need to have a .Mac account - you can use your regular ISP's email with it. Here's a link on how to set up your email:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...0/en/ml89.html

Hope that helps.

[macmeister]

Mail is an excellent email client thingy

An alternative might be Mozilla Thunderbird, by the creators of Firefox.

http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

[full time Mom]

I now have "Mail" up and running. There are a few features I'm not crazy about and I may give Thunderbird a try. Thanks for your help.

[SoltoN]

What features are you not crazy about?

[full time Mom]

I guess I'm just not familiar with this program - a number of us in this household have accounts: do we all have to use the same address book and integrate our contacts? I don't see any other way around this. When I quickly retrieve my email using "get mail" everyone's mail is retrieved. It's not the end of the world; it's just quite different than Outlook Express.

[SoltoN]

It is best for every user on a mac to have a separate user account, that way everyones mail, calendar, contacts, display preferences, bookmarks, docks, etc, etc are all separate. The environment is designed to have one user on at a time, this resonates through all the built in programs. (Mail, iCal, iLife suite, etc). This also enables your kids to have a cluttered, icon filled desktop, while yours is neat and tidy, without effecting each other.

Just create different user accounts for each person accessing the machine (this allows you to control what your kids can and can not do on the machine as well)

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h.../en/mh168.html

[Yankee Rose]

You can also enable Fast User Switching by clicking System Preferences/Accounts/Login Options. That way everyone can login to their account quickly and easily.

[wickedjetben]

I can recommend thunderbird, it is very good.