I understand what you mean about local caching on the one machine only,
(perhaps that is where I got confused as I do lurk here quite often) and
as the box does have access to the Internet in it's own right through
the router that will be fine, along with the other windoze box/s (this
windoze box included). Your point is also noted about using OE and I
have have installed Thunderbird and Firefox on this box in place of
OE/IE. My Linux box has KMail, KOrganizer and KAddressBook, all accessed
via Kontact, emailing is working OK and I have just downloaded the news
group listing so that is one more task that will be turned over to Linux
by the end of the day.
Once again thanks for your input, I intend to migrate the Linux box to
BOINC at the weekend and will now return to silent running.