Have you got more than one email account? Maybe you are fed up with having to access your email through a web interface or you just simply want to access all of your emails through one piece of software called an email client.
First and foremost you need an email client. I highly recommend Thunderbird which is a popular open source application that is available on Windows, Linux and Mac. There is also Windows Mail which is part of the windows live series. Outlook Express comes pre-installed on XP. Microsoft Outlook comes with the commercial Microsoft Office suite. Kmail and Evolution are very popular on Linux.
Here is a list of the settings to access your Google, Windows Live (Hotmail) and Yahoo email accounts through your preferred application.
Thunderbird now attempts to automatically configure the email server settings for you but you might still need to tweak the settings!
Know any more settings for other less known email accounts? Please share and I will add them to the list and publish it on a regular basis.