Trouble configuring Thunderbird when installing Zen Cart on my home PC

I recently purchased the Zen Cart manual and am trying to follow the instructions, step by step, to set up everything on my pc as the manual instructs. My problem is when it comes to setting up Thunderbird the instruction examples are not the same as I am seeing in Thunderbird. I thought I was doing it correctly but I keep getting an error stating it cannot connect to email.example.com; the connection was refused. I also get a message stating that I need to change the authentication for the server when I try to send a test message, but nothing in the manual says anything about this. Obviously I am a noob, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Are you using the actual entry "mail.example.com" as that is an example. The setting should be set as per your hosting account specifications.

The SSL warning thing is an advanced setting on your account itself as set up in Thunderbird, you need to turn off the authentication for your outgoing server.

I don't have the book so I can't tell you exactly what the instructions are telling you to do, but it appears that it is explaining that you should have your email setup to use the same email addresses you are using in your zen admin. If that is the case you should follow your hosting company's instructions for how to set up your pop email in Thunderbird.

Hope that helps!

In the manual it shows how to set up xampp with mercury mail on my computer as the local host. I set it up as described (using example.com as the local host name) Mercury mail works fine to send and receive emails to the different accounts that I set up as instructed. But Thunderbird cannot access the local host setting (mail.example.com), the ports (80 and 443) are open and accessible. According to the manual, I can set up xampp and zen cart on my pc so as to test everything before sending it live to my actual web page. Is this correct or do I really have to do it all live and work it that way?

Which version of XAMPP and Windows are you working on?

Since the shop running on your PC is not live, you have no need to use email with it.
So, in your store, simply go to Admin->Configuration->Email Options, and set the "Send Email" option to false.
You can turn it back on when you actually put the site onto a live server.

canopy:

Which version of XAMPP and Windows are you working on?

XAMPP v 1.4.16
Windows 7 Pro
Thunderbird v 3.0.4

Could be a problem with your hosts file. If you are running Windows 7, editing your hosts file will require the steps mentioned on this website when you reach pg 37 of the book.

If you are having too much trouble with configuring email on your local computer, you can save time and avoid further hassles by following DrByte's suggestion in the previous post.

Thank you for the responses. I think to save me time (and stress...lol) I will just stick to editing on the host site before linking the cart to my web page. The E-book has been a great help in assisting me with other issues, though.