Help! Postfix and network problems

I'm having problems with Postfix....and would appreciate any help. I have tried opening smtp and pop prots using inetd, but when I try to connect to the mail server I receive an error stating that the email client cannot connect to the mail server......is this a problem with the inetd services or a problem with postfix....? ... I have not done any other configurating other than usin YAST2 and setting the hostname for the mailserver. not much info for you all, but a beginning perhaps Thomas