CompuServe Classic E-Mail: The Next Generation

As CompuServe Classic readies for its final log off on June 30, CompuServe Member Services has thrown the switch on a migration utility that allows Classic members to keep their e-mail accounts alive.

Gone will be CompuServe Classic's old number-comma-number e-mail address format and in its place will be a standard POP3 e-mail address with the familiar "@" sign. Many CompuServe Classic users already have alternate POP3 addresses for their accounts. Those addresses will be preserved in the transition. Just don't expect to connect to the Internet through a CompuServe dial-up number after June 30--those are on their way out too.

CompuServe Classic members must convert to the new e-mail system by going to the CompuServe Mail Center by June 30. Here's what happens once they get there:

You can start the conversion process by logging in with a Classic numerical e-mail address or with the alternate POP3 access information.

Once you click "continue" on the screen above, the next one asks for some basic demographic information and offers you a chance to pick a new password.

From there you need to agree to the Terms of Service by typing in the letters that appear in the image box.

If everything goes well, you'll get the following welcome screen.

Finally, clicking the right button takes you to your new inbox.

As for accessing the new e-mail service with Outlook or another e-mail client, you'll need the new server settings. You can retrieve your e-mail as a POP3 or IMAP account with or without a secure connection (SSL). The port setting is found in the advanced settings section of Outlook and other e-mail clients.

The POP3 settings are:

POP: pop.csi.com port 110 (SSL = port 995)

SMTP: smtp.csi.com port 587

The IMAP settings are:

IMAP: imap.csi.com port 143 (SSL = port 993)

SMTP: smtp.csi.com port 587

So how did it work on my CompuServe Classic account? So far so good, but other users have reported some problems.

What about you?

Copyright 2009 Stadium Circle Features

Kindle DX: A Spark on the Paper Trail?

The debut of Amazon.com's Kindle DX electronic book reader Wednesday breathed a little fresh air into the hopes of the newspaper industry. Just a little, but it was a refreshing breath just the same.

Newspaper moguls have been scratching their collective heads for a solution to their dwindling readership and ad revenue numbers and the concept of an electronic book platform that the masses could embrace has been an elusive dream.

The Kindle DX, with its 9.7-inch, 16-gray-scale E-ink display and impossibly slim 0.38-inch profile, goes a long way in providing an electronic book reader that's as usable for textbooks and technical documents as it is for reading newspapers and blogs. But no, it doesn't go all the way.

The Kindle DX supports Adobe PDF documents in addition to its native format and can download entire books wirelessly in about a minute. Its 3.3 gigabytes of available storage is enough for 3,500 books. The $489 device won't be available until this summer, but Amazon.com is already taking orders.

At a well-attended press event at Pace University, which includes a Park Row building which was once home to the New York Times, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos (above) said the new Kindle DX is meant to blend into the background, letting the user focus on the content.

"It gets out of the way so that you can enter the author's world," said Bezos amid the clicking, clacking and clunking of Twittering journalists and trigger-happy photographers. "It doesn't beep at you. It doesn't get warm in your hands."

Bezos noted that newspapers have been "an absolute best seller on Kindle." Readers can adjust the screen font and the number of words in each line and the unit automatically reorients the text if you turn the unit on its side or upside down.

Bezos said that paper survives today because it provide a better reading experience that most computer screens. "Paper is better. It's worth the hassle of printing," he said.

However he said the Kindle's low-glare paper-like display is easy enough on the eyes that eyestrain is not an issue.

The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe have signed on to deliver content to the Kindle DX and to sell the $489 unit at a discount -- in exchange for a long-term newspaper subscription. The units would be available in areas outside of a paper's delivery zone.

"This experiment ... demonstrates our commitment to reinvention," said Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the New York Times Co. He said the Kindle DX combines "the immediacy of the Web with the portability and depth of the newspaper."

Students at Pace as well as at Princeton University, Case Western Reserve University, Arizona State University, Reed College and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia will get first crack at the units through a trial program, said Bezos. Amazon.com has also inked agreements with major textbook publishers, he said.

So will the Kindle DX signal the beginning of a new generation of electronic book readers that are user friendly enough to be embraced by the public as well as those still willing to advertise in newspapers? Now there's a big "Maybe."

What do you think?

Text and top and bottom photos Copyright 2009 Stadium Circle Features

Middle photo courtesy of Amazon.com