Wireless internet and Outlook Express

We will be using our laptop for the first time on our next cruise (CB) as my daughter will be at home with her college classes.

 

In order to save a few bucks, we were going to use Outlook Express to download our emails from a gmail account and then log off. We would then take our time composing our emails and would then reconnect to send the mail.

 

Have you used this method with your laptop? Have you had any trouble sending or receiving your email this way? Does the Princess wireless system give you any trouble with this? I read some posts a year or so back where people could receive but had trouble sending because of authentication or something like that.

 

Please let me know if you have had good luck with this method, especially on the Caribbean Princess. It is the first time we are not traveling with our oldest and I will have a much more relaxing vacation if I can contact her once or twice a day.

 

Thanks!

While I'm certainly not a computer geek, I was told that you could not access Outlook E-mail from other computers. What I did years ago was establish a Yahoo E-mail address and that's what I use for sending and receiving E-mails at sea. It's free and easy.

It is the first time we are not traveling with our oldest and I will have a much more relaxing vacation if I can contact her once or twice a day.

 

From what I have read there isn't wireless in the cabins only in certain areas of the ship. I would think it would be easier to just go to the Internet cafe to send and receive email messages. And it will be one less thing to carry and keep up with.

She is talking about using her own laptop, on which her Outlook Exress resides. I don't know why this would not work.

 

Thanks, T-C Mom for the good idea.

 

I, also, have Outlook Express on my Viao Notebook through Earthlink; therefore, I, too, would appreciate comments from those who have experience using this method. ;)

 

It still costs to get on line with Yahoo, but you can always compose in a doc.

While I'm certainly not a computer geek, I was told that you could not access Outlook E-mail from other computers. What I did years ago was establish a Yahoo E-mail address and that's what I use for sending and receiving E-mails at sea. It's free and easy.

They'll be using their own laptop. To answer the OP's question, once you connect the wireless, you should be able to use all of your own computer's software. Someone who's done it (I'm bringing mine for the first time on my Sapphire cruise) would know better about whether Outlook is "always connected" to the Internet or whether you can go offline to compose and read email. I know that when I use AOL, I can be offline to read and compose email and sign on just to send but if I access my work email address, I must be connected to the internet to read, write or do anything. That's true whether I use Outlook or Thunderbird.

They are not getting it - the concept of logging in on the internet to download into OE, then log off.

 

Then, go to your cabin & compose replies (using Outlook Express), then Go back to the Atrium, connect & send.

 

Can Anybody else understand the concept ? ? ?

 

PAM gets it. Earthlink & G-Mail should perform the same as AOL.

 

PAM: Would tou please let us know upon your return??

Thank you.

Can Anybody else understand the concept ? ? ?

 

I understand the concept just fine it just seems like more hassle than it is worth to make sure someone is okay.

 

I plan on doing the same with my family since I am travelling alone. But I can compose an email on the ships computer and send it without using up that much Internet time. Write the email in notepad then copy and paste it into an email and send. No sense in lugging a laptop around when you can't use it from your cabin.

Let me preface this by saying I have not sailed Princess yet 1st cruise is 4/1/08

 

However sailed Carnival too many times to remember.

 

I use a site called Mail2Web. It is free, fast to connect and sends mail as if it were sent by your computer.

 

So I use Outlook to download all the e-mails, log off the ships connection, read the e-mails, compose replies off-line and send them through Mail2Web.

 

I save my limited time on the package for these types of quick checks. then I use my USB Broadband modem for when we are in port, all of the Hawaiian Islands have Verizon Wireless connections so I can surf, e-mail, download to my hearts content.

In order to save a few bucks, we were going to use Outlook Express to download our emails from a gmail account and then log off. We would then take our time composing our emails and would then reconnect to send the mail.

 

Have you used this method with your laptop?

Yes, I've done this. Not only does it work well, it's the most economical way to use the minutes you purchase.

 

While on a cruise we generally check our email (to keep in touch with family) every other day. We've always managed to spread out the 30 minute package across a seven day cruise.

 

As long as your confident about connecting to a wireless network you won't have any problem at all. You'll connect, download email and log off. Take your time reading and composing replies (since the "clock" isn't ticking and wasting money). Then connect, send mail and then log off. No muss, no fuss...it works great.

 

We also use the laptop to hold the pictures we take each day. While my wife is getting ready for the evening I transfer the pictures from our camera to the laptop. We like to review them while getting ready for the evening. Then I erase the memory card in the camera and it's ready for the next day. After the cruise I transfer the photos to our desktop computer for other use and to be archived.

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Hi Twin Cruiser Mum

 

We did exactly as you outlined (Sapphire) except we didn't use Gmail just our regular email address.

 

We found the best way to do it was to log on via webmail first, delete all the rubbish that one tends to get and log off. If we didn't do this and we hadn't logged on for a few days it was very slow downloading everything into Outlook. I think when we log into webmail, it doesn't actually download, just gives you a "copy" to look at, that is why that method is quicker. If for any reason we wanted to look at those emails later we could go in via the webmail and they were still sitting in trash.

 

Then open up Outlook, download the mail, log off and go back to the cabin.

 

We found it great because we could write long emails and include photos if we wanted and when we logged back on to Outlook it automatically went into send and receive mode and sent our mail.

 

We also used our laptop for downloading our photos each day (we use Picassa which we love) and we also used it for music in our cabin.

 

This minimises the cost of the internet (darn expensive).

 

Cheers

 

Beryl

We found the best way to do it was to log on via webmail first, delete all the rubbish that one tends to get and log off. If we didn't do this and we hadn't logged on for a few days it was very slow downloading everything into Outlook. I think when we log into webmail, it doesn't actually download, just gives you a "copy" to look at, that is why that method is quicker. If for any reason we wanted to look at those emails later we could go in via the webmail and they were still sitting in trash.

This is the same thing we do, when using the ship's computers. We log onto the webmail host from our service provider, delete all the junk, and respond to only those messages that need an answer - which, if we've done our pre-cruise planning properly, should be very few indeed.

 

As long as the OP's daughter uses an account that isn't bombarded by spam and other non-essential messages, the connect charges shouldn't be too high. It just depends on the volume of data sent and received.

 

Also, if your daughter connects to the ship's network when other traffic is low, she will be able to send and receive more quickly. The Princess charges are by time, not data volume, so the more bandwidth you have available on the shared system the better.

Yes I have done this.

 

The main issue is the SMTP server. Make sure you know where the settings are for this. My home smtp server has always worked but you may need to change this to the ship's smtp server.

 

If you can receive and not send - just ask them what their smtp server is and they should be able to let you know. Then, adjust the setting accordingly.

Appreciate the replies!

 

I guess this concept is confusing to some, as most people are used to web based email where you must be connected to read and write mail. And with these options, you cannot read the messages later on, only when connected.

 

Outlook Express is a program that comes with windows. What makes it unique, is you can set it up to receive and download the email from most any web based email like gmail, yahoo, etc. So, once you have a web connection with your laptop, you can bring up Outlook and it will immediately download all the email in your web based account (like gmail or yahoo) and place it directly on your computer. You can then log out of the connection so you do not have to pay for minutes.

 

What is nice about this is you can take your time reading and writing your emails and can do so anywhere on the ship, even your room as you do not need a connection. You place the messages you want to send in your Outlook outbox and when you connect again, the messages are sent. No eating up of precious, expensive minutes.

 

This is how it works in a perfect world, but how it works on a Princess ship was my original question. Thanks to those of you who have had good luck with this method and have shared your experiences. I do know how to go in and change the settings on Outlook Express, so I will have to talk to the internet person on ship to make sure there is not a particular smtp number that has to be entered.

 

The email address that I will be using is gmail, it is already set up with outlook on the laptop. That particular address is a backup one I use very infrequently and what is nice about it is I have never received any spam there. So the only messages that will be downloading are the ones from my daughter or any other person I give that specific address to. That is the wonderful thing as it will take only a short time for those messages to download. I would never use my normal email address because I get so much junk, spam and other email I do not have any desire to read while on vacation.

 

I hope that I have cleared up this Outlook confusion. It wasn't too long ago that someone had to explain it to me as I did not think that something like that was possible. In my opinion, any way I can save money by using up less wireless minutes is ok by me :)

Hi everyone...has anyone tried using Incredimail?

Outlook Express works fine. The STMP can be a problem but it has not been one on Celebrity.

 

With the same setup Princess does not allow outgoing mail from my business account. Changing to their mail server did not work either.

The main issue is the SMTP server. Make sure you know where the settings are for this. My home smtp server has always worked but you may need to change this to the ship's smtp server.

 

If you can receive and not send - just ask them what their smtp server is and they should be able to let you know. Then, adjust the setting accordingly.

One thing to try, before you change your SMTP server setting, is to change the default SMTP port from 25 to 587. Many times port 587 will work when you're not on your home network.

I've never had a problem using Outlook or Outlook Express and I have never had to change a single setting in either program. You connect to the wireless network, then you start your browser and are redirected to an internet page for log on purposes. Once you've logged on, fire up OE and you're all set. Once it's done sending and receiving, you can log off.

 

A couple of other tips that might be helpful. Disable anything that downloads automatically. In particular, virus updates or automatic windows updates. Those take far to long at the ship's internet speed. I also turn off the automatic graphic display in OE. Then I don't have to download pictures in advertising emails. Also, when I send pictures I use a picture resizer to downsize them to 40 or 50k so they don't take long to send. I've also used the dedicated email address to avoid the spam.

 

Do all those things and you can probably do email for a dollar or so a connection.

Appreciate the replies!

What is nice about this is you can take your time reading and writing your emails and can do so anywhere on the ship, even your room as you do not need a connection. You place the messages you want to send in your Outlook outbox and when you connect again, the messages are sent. No eating up of precious, expensive minutes.

 

This is how it works in a perfect world, but how it works on a Princess ship was my original question. Thanks to those of you who have had good luck with this method and have shared your experiences. I do know how to go in and change the settings on Outlook Express, so I will have to talk to the internet person on ship to make sure there is not a particular smtp number that has to be entered.

 

The email address that I will be using is gmail, it is already set up with outlook on the laptop. That particular address is a backup one I use very infrequently and what is nice about it is I have never received any spam there. So the only messages that will be downloading are the ones from my daughter or any other person I give that specific address to. That is the wonderful thing as it will take only a short time for those messages to download. I would never use my normal email address because I get so much junk, spam and other email I do not have any desire to read while on vacation.

 

I have never been able to send email through my ISP account if I wasn't connected to the ISP's network first. For example, I can download my messages from roadrunner.com, but I can't upload replies. Their servers check where the "sendmail" is coming from, and block access if you aren't connecting through their network.

 

It sounds like Gmail and yahoo might be different; I guess they expect you to connect and send mail from anywhere. I'll have to try that. I'm now using Gmail as my main mail server, allowing it to filter out the spam I get on all my accounts, so I have the settings already. That would definitely save me some money!

 

Anyone wanting to test this just has to go to a coffee shop with free wifi; buy a latte and see if you can download and then upload mail.

One thing to try, before you change your SMTP server setting, is to change the default SMTP port from 25 to 587. Many times port 587 will work when you're not on your home network.

 

Princess blocks default SMTP ports on the layer3 level. Simply changing the port to 587 like you stated above should mitigate the problem. :)

I have tried this a few times, when I had Road Runner(time warner cable) could not use outlook, had to use webmail, time warner deal. I now have a local carrier consolidated, and it does not work either, except webmail. What does work is my 3rd party hosted company mail, the dont have the restrictions on the SMTP server. In other words, you dont have to be on there network to send and recieve, like a lot of them. With like time warner, you have to be on there network.

 

So I take my Windows Moble smart phone with outlook, when I am in port, turn on the service, do a download. I can also go to the internet cafe wifi, turn my phones wifi on, use a couple of my minutes, send/recieve my mail.

 

Still the cheapest way to communicate is with your cell carrier, and text message. Tmoble charges me .50 when offshore cruising in the ocean. Make sure you have call forwarding on, so no calls hit your cell phone, or you are in for a fun suprise when you get home $4.99 per minute. They are suposed to turn off AT&T on board cell network before the get into port, using international roaming is the way to go for calls.

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So the bottom line is that most home users will not ba able to use there outlook based software due to the local ISP.

 

So the bottom line is that most home users will not ba able to use there outlook based software due to the local ISP.

 

I have never had a problem. Though the 2 email accounts I send out from (home and work) do not use my ISP as my SMTP server. For work, I do use port 587.

I truly appreciate all of this information! I am making a word document with all of your replies so DH and I can hopefully get this up and running with little effort.

 

What does your home network have to do with the wireless on Princess? (we have AT&T Yahoo) I am not very tech savvy so maybe I just do not understand this. If my laptop is wireless enabled, (it uses wireless at home) shouldn't I just be using the network on Princess? My laptop is configured with Outlook Express to receive and send from my gmail account wherever I may be. I just went to the gmail site and followed the instructions for setting up Outlook Express - very simple.

 

I may just go to a local restaurant with wireless to check out the system with a different server. Thanks for that suggestion. Never hurts to be prepared and it is easier to play around with it before paying per minute charges.

 

Thanks so much, everyone!

What does your home network have to do with the wireless on Princess? (we have AT&T Yahoo) I am not very tech savvy so maybe I just do not understand this. If my laptop is wireless enabled, (it uses wireless at home) shouldn't I just be using the network on Princess? My laptop is configured with Outlook Express to receive and send from my gmail account wherever I may be. I just went to the gmail site and followed the instructions for setting up Outlook Express - very simple.

 

I may just go to a local restaurant with wireless to check out the system with a different server. Thanks for that suggestion. Never hurts to be prepared and it is easier to play around with it before paying per minute charges.

The problem of not being on your home network is what the other poster mentioned, the SMTP port. At home you're most likely using port 25, the default setting. Many ISP's block inbound traffic on port 25 _unless_ it has originated on their network. If it's from their network, it's from one of their customers -- so they let it go. Changing the SMTP port to 587 can often solve this problem.

 

If you're a Gmail user it's almost certain that you won't have any problem at all. Gmail is designed to be used from anywhere -- and it'll work from anywhere. You're good to go.

 

Most Gmail users access their email via a web browser. You're a step ahead, you're using a dedicated mail client (Outlook Express). That'll make it possible to minimize your connect times (and charges) by logging on, downloading email, then logging off. Take your time reading and composing replies. Then log on, send email, log off.

I honestly can't remember what we had to do to access the wireless internet and thus Outlook but we certainly did not have to change anything on our computer settings. I think we were just given some sort of password, once we hooked up initally that was it, it automatically detected it after that.

 

Beryl