Mac OS X Unleashed

Mac OS X Unleashed

By John Ray and William C. Ray

System Preferences: Internet & Network

The Internet & Network section of the System Preferences panel includes panes for customizing your Internet and network settings. With the controls in this section, you can customize settings for your network connection, Internet use, QuickTime, and remote access to your machine. In this section, however, we look at only the Internet pane because the other panes included in this part of the System Preferences are discussed in other chapters of the book.

Internet

You can specify various Internet-related settings in the Internet pane. The settings are for iTools, E-mail, Web, and News.

iTools

In the iTools tab, shown in Figure 11.46, you enter information about your iTools account. The iTools services were first introduced with Mac OS 9. The iTools Apple provides include an e-mail account, disk storage, and a Web server to serve your Web pages. If you are new to iTools, definitely check http://www.apple.com/itools/ for more information. Because the basic iTools are free, be especially considerate in your usage of the services.

11fig46.jpg

Figure 11.46 Enter your iTools member name and password under the iTools tab of the Internet pane. If you do not have an iTools account, you can sign up for one here.

With the e-mail account that comes as part of iTools, you can store up to 5MB of e-mail, or you can choose to have the e-mail forwarded to another e-mail account. The e-mail account has the form <membername>@mac.com. You have up to 20MB of free storage space available on your iDisk. The iDisk appears as a volume on your desktop, which allows you to conveniently use it to store files. The iDisk icon is also a part of the Finder toolbar, readily allowing you access to your iDisk. In addition, the iDisk uses the WebDAV protocol built into OSX. WebDAV speaks the same language as a Web browser. Consequently, you are connected to your iDisk only as needed. Be sure to check your iDisk from time to time because Apple leaves software there for you. If you become addicted to this service, you can purchase up to 1GB additional storage space. Your iDisk space is also where you store your Web site, if you choose to create one. Your URL has the form http://homepage.mac.com/<membername>/. The size of your Web site is restricted to only the amount of iDisk storage space you have.

Under the iTools tab, you enter your iTools member name and password. If you do not have an iTools account, you can sign up for one by clicking the Sign Up button.

Email

The Email tab, shown in Figure 11.47, is where you can configure information about an e-mail account. The Email tab allows you to configure the default e-mail reader. You can select from Mail or Outlook Express, or you can specify another reader. The Email tab provides a box that you can check to tell it to use your iTools account. It then automatically fills in the rest of the tab for you, based on the information you entered in the iTools tab.

11fig47.jpg

Figure 11.47 You can enter e-mail account information under the Email tab of the Internet pane. If you want to use your iTools account information here, the information is automatically filled out, based on the iTools information provided under the iTools tab.

If you do not want to have iTools information entered here, you can choose to enter information for another e-mail account instead.

Check your ISP for the correct information that you should provide. The information you enter here is

Web

The Web tab, shown in Figure 11.48, is where you specify some important settings for your default Web browser. You specify the following fields:

  • Default Web Browser— Either select Internet Explorer or specify another browser.
  • Home Page— This is the home page that your default browser loads on opening. Leave this field blank if you don't want it to load any page.
  • Search Page— This setting has no obvious effect in Internet Explorer.
  • Download Files To— This is where files you download are stored.
11fig48.jpg

Figure 11.48 Enter settings for your default Web browser under the Web tab of the Internet pane.

News

Preferences for your news reader are specified in the News tab, shown in Figure 11.49. The following settings can be specified:

  • Default News Reader— Either select Outlook Express or specify something else
  • News Server
  • Connect As— Select either registered user or guest
  • User Account ID
  • Password
11fig49.jpg

Figure 11.49 Enter settings for your default news reader under the News tab of the Internet pane.

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