OKmail FAQ - Login screen

Once you are done reading this FAQ information, you may simply close this window

Questions

  1. What does 'Save Password' checkbox do?
  2. What does the 'Screen Size' popup menu do?
  3. What does the 'Display Style' popup menu do?
  4. What does 'Secure Login' mean?
  5. What does 'Using a public terminal' checkbox do?

Answers

  1. What does 'Save Password' checkbox do?
  2. After logging in with this checkbox set, your password will be saved locally on your machine using a 'cookie'. This means the next time you go to http://www.okmail.net, you will automatically by-pass the login screen and be logged in automatically. This is useful if you use OKmail regularly from the same machine and are not worried about other people using that machine and don't want to be prompted with a login screen every time you go to http://www.okmail.net.

    For this to work, you must have cookies enabled on your machine. Also, when you're finished using OKmail, don't click Logout, just close the browser window.

    If you want to remove the cookie so that you are no longer automatically logged in, you can go to the Preferences screen and click the 'Clear' button under the Saved password area.

    Top

  3. What does the 'Screen Size' popup menu do?
  4. To better layout the display of OKmail screens, we change the size of various onscreen items to optimise for small (640x480), medium (800x600), large (1024x768) or very large (1280x1024 or larger) screens. You can choose which screen size to optimise for when you are logging in.

    If you selected 'Default', the value stored from your Preferences screen will be used.

    Note that these screen sizes are approximate only. They have been designed around using the standard size font most graphical browsers start with. If you use a larger font, you may want to choose a smaller screen size to compensate and vice-versa.

    Top

  5. What does the 'Display Style' popup menu do?
  6. The visible appearance of OKmail is highly customisable using 'style sheets'. With the popup menu you can select from the available style sheets.

    If you selected 'Default', the value stored from your Preferences screen will be used.

    Note: Because of compatibility problems with most browsers and even the most basic style sheets, OKmail will default to not using any style sheet at all if it detects that your browser is not Internet Explorer 5.0 or above, or Netscape 6.0 or above. Coloring will still occur, but default font sizes and styles will be used. This will probably change in the future as we refine the styling capabilities.

    Top

  7. What does 'Secure Login' mean?
  8. OKmail supports secure sessions using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Click here for more information on SSL. When you click 'Secure Login', all communication between your computer and OKmail will be done using a secure channel. This means you can read and write emails without others on the Internet being able to snoop on what is happening between your browser and the OKmail server. Note though, that once an email is sent from the OKmail server, it is transported using SMTP, a standard internet mail transfer protocol that is not guaranteed to be secure.

    What does this really mean? a) When using OKmail from an Internet cafe or your work, no one at the cafe or at your work will be able to see what you are reading or sending via OKmail (unless they look over your shoulder). b) Once the email is sent, it's on the Internet like any other system.

    Using SSL is no slower for you, so if your browser supports it (most modern ones do), we recommend that you use it.

    Top

  9. What does 'Using a public terminal' checkbox do?
  10. When you use a web browser (as you are now) the software used for viewing web pages automatically saves all pages you view on the local computer. This saves time because if you view those pages again, the browser simply displays the local copy (the "cache") instead of downloading again from scratch. However, this is not a good idea if you are reading private messages on a public computer, since another user may look at a page in the cache and see your private data, without needing your password. Checking "Using a public terminal" tells OKmail that you are on a public computer, and causes it to turn off the cache for OKmail pages. When you are finished, be sure to Logout, in order to close your session.

    Top

Other FAQ sections