Computing for the Bewildered. By Bill Hayles Hello again. Since this is the last column I will be writing for the CB Freebie, I'd like to thank everybody who has taken the trouble to offer me comments - even those few of you who were less than complimentary. The paper is expanding and going weekly. I just don't have the time or energy to commit myself to a weekly column with which I would be happy. So, in this final edition of my ramblings, I'd like to tidy up a few odds and ends and "matters arising". E-Mail Many people with e-mail accounts at Terra, Teleline and Telefonica have been complaining to me that they are having trouble sending their e-mail to anybody except others with the same ISP. Their undoutedly is a big problem with the Telefonica (who also own Terra and Teleline) SMTP server. One solution which has worked for many people is to authenticate their SMTP connection. How you do this depends on your e-mail client. If you're using Outlook Express, what you do is to go to Tools - Accounts - Mail, and open the properties tab of your account (your Terra account if you have more than one). Under "Outgoing mail server" tick the box "My server requires authenitcation". Open the "Settings" box and select "Use same settings as my incoming mail server". Any ISP can have problems. That's why I think it's always a good idea to have a backup socket and e-mail address. I have been very impressed with a newcomer to the scene. The silly name, GoNuts4Free, hides what really is a very sensible idea. A universal, one-size-fits-all "free" (i.e. you pay for a local rate phone call) socket available from both Spain and the UK with no indiviual user name or password. Their web site http://www.gonuts4free.com explains it all in very simple terms, and takes the less technically courageous through all the steps necessary. However, for those who have read my articles, and are happy to configure their settings manually, these are all the details you need to know to get the socket up and running: Phone number, Spain: 901505055 Phone number, UK: 0845 604 1251 User Name: CONNECT750@free Password: 123456 Primary DNS: 80.58.0.33 Secondary DNS: 80.58.32.97 Not only can GoNuts4Free give you a backup (or even main) socket, they'll also give you an e-mail address; their web site explains how. Be aware that you can only sign up for one of their e-mail addresses if you are connected through their socket. However, once you have it, there seems to be no problem accessing your mail, either on the web or through POP/SMTP, using any socket you wish. Their SMTP server has a very sensible method of authentication called SMTP after POP, which means that you enable the sending of mail simply by checking for any incoming mail. Radio on the Internet Most of us are aware that we will soon be losing easy Sky Digital access to BBC television and (possibly) radio stations in this area. For television the Internet cannot, as yet help, although I have no doubt that within a few years streaming video (as it is termed) will be as widely available as streaming audio is today. But for the radio stations, it is a very different matter. Thousands of radio stations, all over the world, are already available to listen to over the Internet including all the BBC radio stations. Some of these use the Windows Media Player, but others, including the BBC, need the Real One Player. A free version of this can be downloaded from http://www.real.com. But you need to be careful. The website is designed to trap you into downloading a trial version of the (more powerful) paid-for version of the player. You have to be on your wits to navigate through the menus, making sure you choose the less-prominently placed free player link each time. The free player is all you need to listen to radio stations. Obviously, reception will be smoother if you have ADSL or any other broadband connection, but perfectly acceptable results can be achieved from a dial-up connection. To listen to any BBC station, your starting point is http://www.bbc.co.uk. On the left hand side of this homepage, about halfway down, is a section marked Radio with a link "Launch Radio Player". Click the link and a screen will open from which you can select the current output of the station of your choice, as well as the latest editions of many of the most popular programmes which you may have missed when they were broadcast. If you wish to listen to radio from all over the world, a good starting point is http://www.radio-locator.com/ Using this, a Swedish friend of mine was delighted to find that she could now listen to over sixty Swedish radio stations through her ADSL connection. "It's mind blowing listening to reports of traffic jams in Stockholm whilst sitting at your desk in Javea" is what she said. Whatever your home country, the chances are its radio stations are just a few mouse clicks away. Keyboards And finally; Of all the articles I've written for the paper over the last year, none has created as much correspondence as my two parter on tricks with the keyboard. There has been a certain amount of confusion as to the marrying of the (country) layout of your keyboard with the rest of your set up. If you recall, I strongly recommended the use of a Spanish layout keyboard, whether or not you speak Spanish or even whether or not you're in Spain. This is because the Spanish keyboard gives direct access to many characters, such as ñ, ç and accented letters, not available on the US or UK layouts and, unlike its French or German counterparts, retains the standard "qwerty" layout with which we are familiar. You WILL need to tell Windows which keyboard you are using. The place to do this is not obvious. Using Windows95/98/ME, you look under My Computer - Control Panel - Keyboard - Language. Using Windows 2000/XP, it's under Control Panel - Regional and Language Options - Languages - Details - Settings. There is NO need to change anything else. You do NOT have to change any other language settings to Spanish and you can continue to have all your menus etc in English. That's all for today (and the foreseeable future). If you wish to contact me, you can do so by e-mail to questions@billnot.com. Although I can't promise to give everybody an individual reply, I do read everything. My main computer related website is http://cftb.net. If you wish to join our computer chat discussion group (mailing list) you can do so by sending an e-mail to computerchat@billnot.com with the single word SUBSCRIBE as the subject. Computing for the Bewildered classes at The Oasis Centre in Javea will be restarting in October. Details will be available both on the web site and in the local press. As always. if you have been, thanks for reading this, and good luck!