E-MAIL

Email stands for Electronic Mail.

So how does it work? Just like your regular mail. Take a moment to understand how your message reaches a relative in the distant US.

First, you write a letter, address the envelope and drop it at the post-office after sticking a stamp on it. In case you're writing a business letter, you may want to make copies for filing or for sending to another department in your organization. The letter passes through a series of post offices till it reaches the receiver"s local post office. From there, it is delivered to his doorstep. You can also send a parcel with the letter in much the same way.

And e-mail? Similar procedure, minus the stamp-licking routine. Instead of post-offices, e-mail passes through servers. You’ll have to dial-up your e-mail service provider whenever you want to send and receive mail. Besides an e-mail account, a program called an e-mail client is required to send and receive electronic mail. The client provides facilities to like letters and fax is that it is almost instantaneous. More importantly, it directly reaches the concerned individual’s electronic mail-box without getting buried under a mountain of paper.

In some cases, you can even confirm whether your message as been received and read by the recipient-something next to impossible with a letter or fax. Sure the good old telephone offers advantages similar to that of a letter or fax, but what do you do when the person you are calling is not on his table? Or if the person is a few continents away.... With e-mail, even if the recipient is not around, the message is delivered into his mailbox and is available the next time he checks in. Compared to other mediums, e-mail is dirt-cheap. The cost of sending an electronic message across the world is same as sending one across the city-in most cases, a local telephone call.

Further, as the message is in an electronic form you save money on printing, fax paper and ink. Used correctly, e-mail offers many advantages over a physical mail or message. For example, using encryption technology you could electronically deliver confidential documents saving time and money over the standard practice of having a `reliable" person- who could be waylaid-hand-delivering a sealed document.

What really happens backstage E-mail works in the same way as the postal system does. When you write an e-mail message and `mail" it, it gets posted on a mail server, which could be on your private network or the Internet. This is analogous to your local post office where all your letters land up after you deposit them in the letterbox. Like letters, which are transferred from one post office to another, the mail server forwards all e-mail to the next server which temporarily stores them before re-forwarding them to the next one. This mail server too temporarily stores all the e-mail before transferring them to the next mail server. This store-and-forward cycle continues until the e-mail messages reach their destination mail server. The mail server also plays a large part in controlling the data traffic on the network. It stores messages when network traffic is high and forwards them when it is low thereby reducing chances of network congestion. It also acts as a gateway or a translator between different types of e-mail systems like the Internet’s POP3

Once the messages reach their destination mail server, they are stored until collected by the recipients. E-mail protocols to send and retrieve messages between computers on the Internet, every computer involved must follow the same set of rules or protocols. For e-mail there are special protocols like SMTP, POP, IMAP and MIME.

Mainly one can separate it in to category.

Web based Email and another is Protocol based email.

Web mail email is the one which one can use it by going to the web site of the email provider and by entering the site. In this type of mail the email are mainly sent in the text only format, but you can also sent it in a html format, which is more time consuming than protocol base email. Some of the popular free web based email sites is: www.hotmail.com, www.netaddress.com, www.yahoo.com etc.

The Protocol based emails are those which one can do from his/her email client viz. Microsoft Outlook Express. In this case you can send the email with html format or in text format very quickly than the web based email. For protocol based emails you need the service providers mail servers POP3 (In coming Mail server address) and SMTP(Out going mail server Address) addresses. Some of the popular free protocol based email providers are: http://mail.yahoo.com, http://mail.zeenext.com and your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

Creating e-mail account for Web based and Protocol based environment.

Creating the Account in Yahoo.

1. Connect to the Internet.

2. Open to the site http://mail.yahoo.com by typing this address in the location text box/address box area for (Netscape user/Internet Explorer user).

3. The site will appear on your browser.

4. Click on the email link.

5. The new web page will appear. On that screen click on Sign Me up link of I’m a New User Section.

6. You will be presented with the terms and the condition page of the services. Scroll down the screen and click on the Accept Button to move further.

7. The necessary Registration Form will be presented to you. Viz. Your desired mail name, password, retype password, first name last name etc.

8. After filling up all the information in the Registration Form, click the “Submit this Form” button.

9. If all the required information in the Registration form is filled up in the desired form, then a screen is displayed welcoming the user with Yahoo mail name (Which was selected by you in the form). Now you can use the account by going the mail section and providing the password and login name. Your email Address is yourloginname@yahho.co.uk

For Protocol based environment after creating the account by steps shown above:

1. Open your email client software.(i.e. Outlook Express)

For Outlook users:

1. Go to Tools menu.

2. Select Accounts..

3. You will be presented by all available accounts.

4. From right side menu select ADD > Mail Account

5. Add your name or the name you want to send with your email.

6. Click > Next

7. Select no thanks I already have mail account and in that text area write your Yahoo email address. (i.e. loginname@yahoo.co.uk)

8. Click > Next

9. In the Next menu you will asked to provide the POP3 and SMTP address. They are POP3: pop.mail.yahoo.co.uk SMTP: smtp.mail.yahoo.co.uk

10. Click > Next

11. Now you will be presented with the screen asking your yahoo login name and password.

12. Write your login name and Password and select the Remember Password option.

13. Click > Next

14. Click > Finish

15. Now you can send or receive your mail from your mail client by going in to massage menu and selecting new massage.

For Netscape User:

Go to Edit > preferences and in to Mail and News Group of the browser and do the same stapes as Outlook.

SOME TIPS:

In your account where you see INBOX (Your incoming mail box) consider is as Read mail and Compose consider is as Write mail. Rest will be easy for you.

Don’t open unsolicited attached file mainly with extension of .exe to avoid virus activities.

Do protect your system with good anti virus software.