Road Runner is a high-speed Internet service offered by Time Warner Cable. When you subscribe to Road Runner, you also get an e-mail address. Thunderbird is an e-mail application developed by Mozilla that allows you to access your e-mail inbox without the use of a web browser. Road Runner and Thunderbird have complementary functions. Knowing how they work together allows a better understanding of both.
Receiving E-mail
Road Runner assigns its customers an e-mail gateway based on location. For example, if you subscribe in New York City your e-mail address is of the form "username@nyc.rr.com," while in Richlands, Virginia, for example, e-mail addresses have the form "username@roadrunner.com." E-mail messages sent to your e-mail address are delivered to your inbox. To receive Road Runner e-mail using Thunderbird you must configure it to access the e-mail account's POP3 server. Thunderbird is not associated with any e-mail service by default, so it only has whatever inboxes you set up for it.
Sending Email
Time Warner provides a Web-based account interface to send e-mail. To use this interface, you must launch a Web browser, enter the URL and then enter a user name and password. To use the Thunderbird e-mail client, you must configure Thunderbird to access Road Runner's outgoing (SMTP) server. To send e-mail, launch the properly configured Thunderbird application and then click "Write" to compose an e-mail. Logging in is not required because your user name and password are saved in Thunderbird.
POP and IMAP
POP3 and IMAP are protocols for accessing e-mail remotely for use in e-mail clients. "POP3" stands for Post Office Protocol and like a postal service, it delivers your message from a remote location to an inbox that resides on your personal computer, in this in your Thunderbird software. IMAP works by automatically synchronizing messages between the server and client (deleting a message on the server deletes it from the client). Thunderbird can handle POP3 and IMAP. However, Road Runner e-mail is only accessible using the POP3 protocol.
Address Books
Both Road Runner e-mail and the Thunderbird application allow you to store contact information connected to each e-mail account such as name, phone numbers and address. Road Runner customers are limited to 1,000 people per address book per household. No such limit exists in the Thunderbird client. It allows you to store an unlimited number of contacts in your address book. Because Thunderbird resides on your computer, storing information in the application uses hard drive space.
References
- Time Warner Cable Road Runner: Email Server Addresses
- Mozilla Messaging: Thunderbird 3.1
- Time Warner Cable Road Runner: Webmail Address Book