Introduction to Email
This lesson will be a general discussion of electronic mail (or email for short. Note that the hyphen [as in "e-mail"] is usually not used any longer). In this lesson I will explain email addresses, teach you how to send email, and show you how to find email addresses for folks you wish to contact. Electronic mail is a major component of the Internet and can be used to participate in nearly every available online activity. It's faster than the U.S. Mail (or snail mail, as it's called on the Net) yet has all the positive factors of a written note. Unlike faxes or phone calls, you can't get tied up with a busy signal or an answering machine. Your message goes through and can be read by its receiver in its full length prose form. Of course, the email reading habits of the person you're emailing makes a huge difference in how quickly they receive the message.
What the Heck is a Domain, or What Does this Address Mean?
You should now have an Internet email address. For those of you who don't know your full address (past your username), here's my full email address:
erickson@mail.augsburg.edu
(Note: Currently, most Augsburg email addresses leave out the "mail" part of the address. For the purposes of this lesson, we will leave it in order to discuss its function).
The first part, "erickson," is my login. This is the public name by which I am identified on the Internet. A login (also called a user name or user ID) can be any combination of letters and/or numbers, but in my case, it is pretty straight forward--it is my last name. Many folks at larger organizations (such as the U. of Minn.) get logins such as "eric0001" and "spectre" (a nickname) since too many people possess similar real names (there are literally hundreds of Johnsons at the U. of Minn.).
What about the rest? The "@" means "at," as in "erickson is at... ." That's pretty easy to understand. But what does this gobbledygook after the "@" mean? It's called a domain name, and this one is composed of three parts or subdomains. Let's take it bit by bit, from right to left:
"edu" tells us that this account is at an educational institution. This is the top-level domain.
"augsburg" is the name of the institution where the computer is located.
"mail" is the name of the computer on which my email account resides.
More often than not, at least with educational institutions, the institution domain will be an abbreviation of an actual college or university. Let me show you a few more examples before explaining the individual domains a bit more.
There will not always be only three subdomains in an address. While this is most common, two, four, or five subdomain addresses show up quite a bit.
mason@utkvx.utcc.utk.edu
This address tells us we're sending to a person at an educational institution, which is the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, who is attached to the University of Tennessee Computing Center, and who's account is on a computer called utkvx (a VAX computer). The extra subdomain here tells us what specific area of the university this person works in or has an account through.
fred@aol.com
This address tells us that this person has a commercial account, provided by the vendor America Online. It's more common to see two subdomains in commercial account.
Now let's talk about these 2, 3, and 4-letter (and more), also known as top-level, domains. The following list contains domains that are commonly used in the United States. I'll cover other countries in a moment. Alphabetically, the original top-level domains are:
com - commercial organization
edu - educational institution
gov - government agency
int - international organization
mil - military group or agency
net - networking organization
org - nonprofit organization
Just knowing these domains may let you identify immediately what sort of account a person has and perhaps what their position is within an institution or organization (.gov, .mil, and .edu actually mean something), although some domains have little fidelity to their original purpose (e.g., .com, .net). There are many more top-level domains created in the early 2000s such as .info, .mobi, .name, etc., and it will be interesting to see whether these newer domains will maintain any intrinsic meaning. The next innovation was the use of non-Roman characters in domain names, but most of us in English-speaking countries haven't seem these. The Internet continues to evolve.
Things do get trickier on an international level even using exclusively Roman characters. Each country in the world has been assigned a two-letter country code to use in their domain names. What countries will do is place this two-letter subdomain farthest to the right. Then they may add a subdomain which tells you what type of institution is represented (much like the U.S. top-level domains). Let me give you an example.
carlos@compsci.ox.ac.uk is the address of a person in the Computer Science department at Oxford University ("ac" stands for academic, "uk" is the country code for the United Kingdom).
Use of the institution type subdomain varies from country to country, but especially in Europe "ac" is used to denote academic sites. It can be fun trying to work out where a person is located when you see their email address. After a while it becomes second-nature.
For many years, U.S. Internet addresses did not make use of the country code, but as more sites form it is becoming more standard. State names may be included as another subdomain. In Minnesota, for example, an addresses on a local freenet might look like this:
smith@vax.freenet.mn.us
As I mentioned above, there are more domain names because the Internet was running out of names! These new domains have abbreviations like <.coop>, <.name>, <.info>, <.biz>, <.tv> and <.museum> so look for these. (By the way, the ".tv" domain is sort of interesting. It doesn't stand for television, as it would appear, although that's the customer for which it was developed. It is the registered domain abbreviation for the small South Pacific nation of Tuvalu. They sort of "hit the jackpot" for domain names--at least in English. Due to global warming, the country is slowly sinking. They have used at least part of the proceeds from the sale of the <.tv> top-level domain to purchase land at higher elevations--some day they may need to move there if their island country is completely submerged!)
But there's another layer to this story. Internet domains are actually just stand-ins for the real addressing system used on the Internet: Internet Protocol addresses (aka IP addresses) which are similar to, and function like, phone numbers. The original system in use until the summer of 2011 was called IPv4. IPv4 addresses, which consist of 32 zeros and ones in different sequences, was devised without consideration for how big the Internet would eventually become as a means for buying diapers, downloading music and sending risque photos. There are roughly 4.3 billion such addresses. The problem is that with IPv4 we were at risk of running out of addresses--yes, we nearly ran out of 4.3 billion addresses!
IPv6, as the new Internet address system is known, is intended to relieve the strain on a system that has been used since the Internet’s inception. IPv6 addresses consist of 128 numbers. Given all the possible combinations of zeros and ones, the system offers around 320 undecillion numbers. How many is that? Leslie Daigle, chief technology officer for the Internet Society, a nonprofit group put it this way: There are more IPv6 addresses “than there are grains of sand on Earth.”
Setting Up an Email Account
Several years ago, the college initiated Augsburg AugNet WebMail. Since most new users prefer this web-based alternative, we will focus on WebMail in this course. Traditional email programs such as Eudora and Outlook will continue to work--WebMail is just an alternate way to interact with an email system.
In order to access AugNet WebMail, you need an email account and password. These are obtained from the Augsburg IT Department Student Computing Help Desk on the second floor of the Lindell Library. Please get an account if you do not already have one. In additional to receiving Augsburg email, the login and password will grant you access to AugNet, the college's intranet, and other password-protected college resources. It is also possible to obtain an AugNet username and password without setting up an email account, but of course you won't get AugNet WebMail without an Augsburg email account.
If you already have an external web-based email account, you may be able to consolidate your email accounts into one by forwarding your other account to your Augsburg account (or vice versa). Then you'll only have to check for your mail at one place. Keep your other account for the day when you (sniff, sniff, sigh_:-( _) leave Augsburg.
Sending, Receiving, Forwarding and Replying
In this section, I will discuss some routine and advanced features of webmail programs. I'll be using AugNet Webmail as an example, but these general principles apply to nearly all webmail sites to which you might subscribe such as GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.
In order to begin your AugNet WebMail
session, you need to start your web browser and type in the following
URL: <http://inside.augsburg.edu/>, and then validate yourself by typing your AugNet username and password. This will take you to your "INBOX" Folder.
By default, AugNet WebMail will check to see if you have any new email. Unread messages will be bold. Messages you've seen before will be in normal text. In order to file or delete an item in the list view, first select the message by clicking in the checkbox next to that item's subject. Then click the button from the left-hand column that corresponds to your intended task.
To open a message, click on the message title text under the subject heading. Your open message will appear in a new window.
When you open a message, more buttons will appear which include options such as reply and forward. Ciick the button which corresponds to your intended task.You will need to address forwarded messages. Simple reply messages are automatically addressed to the sender of the current message. "Reply All" sends your reply to the person who sent the message, and to everyone else who received the message (in the To: or Cc: fields).
New messages can be started by clicking on the "Compose" button.
AugNet WebMail is a HTML mail client, which means that a full set of text formatting tools are available, including bolding, underlining, colors, etc. Select your text effects from the formatting tool row.
You may send copies to other parties
by including their email addresses in the "To," "Cc," or "Bcc" lines,
depending on whether you want the person to be a first recipient, to
only receive a copy, or to receive a "blind" copy, which means the
other recipients won't know who the "blind" recipient is. The "Bcc"
is helpful in certain confidential situations.
Spam
Of course, junk email, or "spam," is a constant problem for email users. Some estimate as much as 70% of all email sent is spam. What a staggering waste of resources! While I know of no reliable way to rid yourself of all spam, using your spam filter is one good way to trap much of it.
In general, spam filters are sets of rules used by your email program or your provider's email delivery system that look for certain sets of words, phrases, senders, and punctuation (spammers like to use multiple exclamation points!!!!!!!!) to detect email messages that are most likely to be junk. Each time you reject or accept an email trapped by your spam filter, you are teaching your spam filter for what to look. It's as if each time you reject a message you "vote" that this kind of email is actually spam. Over time, you train your spam filter to become ever more skilled at detecting the good and bad messages.
If a spam email requests more information from you, or appears to permit you to "opt out" of additional emails, resist the urge to respond. It's the surest way to get your self in trouble. Here are a few particularly blatant spam messages I received recently. While I doubt you'd be tricked by these, some one is. Be spam savvy and use your spam filter.
Attachments
Attachments (other computer files
such as pictures or word processing documents) can be affixed to your
outgoing mail by clicking the "Attachments" button. A new window
appears
which displays a "Browse... " button. Click the
button--this will return a dialogue box used to navigate to the file
you want to attach. Browse your storage device (hard disk drive,
network storage drive, etc.) to locate the file you intend to attach.
Double-click
on the file's name to designate the file for attachment. The file's
name and path will
appear in the box next to the "Browse" button. The selected file will
be copied and attached to your e-mail message. When the process is
finished, the name and size of your file will be displayed in the Attachments area.
Repeat if desired. If you want to attach more files to the same
message, go through steps 1 and 2 again to add the additional files. As
you add them, their names and sizes will be added to the listing in the
lower part of the Attachments area. Click "Done" to dismiss the
Attachments utility. (Of course, your Attachments window may look
slightly different from this one, but the general principle is the
same.)
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When you send this email message, the attached file(s) will also be sent.
Be forewarned: Attachments often don't work if the intended recipient doesn't have the appropriate software to read the attachment. Good email etiquette suggests you clearly indicate to your correspondent with what program they can open your attachment. For example, in the illustration above I might say to my correspondent, "use Microsoft Word to read the 'To Do' document." Remember: if they don't have the right software, they won't be able to open the attachment.
An article describing in detail the issues involved in email attachment problems can be found at this link. While this page has much useful information, it is fairly technical. As a result, it is not included in the "official" lesson on email. Read it if you want some extra in-depth discussion of this topic.
Also, Augsburg IT recommends (as do I)
that you send Microsoft Word attachments in the more universal ".doc"
format instead of the newer but less compatible ".docx" format. This
also applies to ".xls" and ".ppt" files as well. While the most recent
version of Microsoft Office are fine programs, they introduced a new
file format that is incompatible with the versions on many users'
computers. Saving in the older format is easy: just select "Save As..."
from the FIle menu and then select "Word 97-2004 document (.doc)."
Finding Email Addresses at Augsburg
All right, now you can capably send email across the globe. To whom will you send it? Better yet, how can you find someone out there and get their email address? No problem, I say. Let's talk about a few situations.
First, you want to know the email address for someone on campus. The college maintains an online web-based directory. You must have an Augsburg AugNet account (username and password) in order to access the Augsburg directory page. To get to this page you will be asked to provide your username and password in order to proceed.
The directory address is: http://inside.augsburg.edu/. Once at the Inside Augsburg page, click on "Directory Search" which is in the left-hand column.
It is very easy to use--just type in the name of the person whom you're seeking.
You can click on the highlighted
address (above) to go directly to the directory. Remember to come
back to this page (hit the [BACK] button on your browser) to
continue the lesson.
Finding Email Addresses Away From Augsburg
Next, you'd like to know the email address for someone in the world beyond Augsburg. This is an uneven, but not impossible, quest. At this time, there is no single "White Pages" guide to all email addresses, even though there are web sites that call themselves the White Pages. There are many ways to find addresses, but none promise complete success. It is easiest to find a person's address if you know where a person is. I'll mention a few methods of doing this, and if you have questions about other methods, please let me know.
According to Michael Woods of the Toledo Blade, finding e-mail addresses takes some luck. He suggests Lycos (http://peoplesearch.lycos.com/?tab=people), Yahoo People Search (http://people.yahoo.com), and Switchboard.com (http://www.switchboard.com). These sites usually have a search page where you keyboard information about the individual, click on Search and get a list of addresses that might be the person you want. Here are some other tricks Woods suggests for finding e-mail addresses:
Many other phonebooks are available
via the World Wide Web (see the partial list that follows). There are
many more than the few listed here. You can search these phonebooks
using a web browser. Follow the instructions which are available when
you log onto the various sites.The general-purpose sites listed here
are a hit-and-miss proposition. Unless you know a person is
affiliated with a particular web site (for example, s/he has
registered themselves with a particular directory) you may
be disappointed.
Service Name Clickable
Internet Address Augsburg College
Directory Switchboard Yahoo People
Search InfoSpace The Ultimate White
Pages Lycos WhoWhere
Page
A Phonebook for the 21st Century?
Inflection, the start-up behind genealogy site Archives.com, has introduced a people search engine. While it does not completely solve the problem of finding people on the Internet, this new approach may solve some of the thorny problems we've discussed here--but could possibly introduce new ones. Click here to read more.
Adding Signatures To Your Email (and Other Options)
If you got unsigned mail with no return address, wouldn't it make you feel a little uncomfortable? Well, that's just what you might be doing if your email doesn't have a signature. An email signature is a small piece of text which is appended to outgoing email messages. In most WebMail programs it is accessed via the "Settings," "Options," or "Preferences" dialogue box.
In the preferences window that appears, type your full name in the "Displayed Name" or "Real Name" box. You may use upper and lower case. Type your preferred "Reply To" address if it's not the default webmail account. In other words, if you'd prefer your correspondents' replies to go to a different account than your default email account, type that address here.
Generally on the same page or on another tab nearby, you'll see the option to add your email signature. Type your electronic signature in the "Email Signature" box. It should include the information people need to clearly identify you, but probably should not include things like your home address and phone number. Some people add favorite quotes and other personalizations to their signature, but be careful--signatures which are too informal may reflect poorly on you when you seek employment or conduct other serious correspondence.
Many other options
are also accessed via the "Settings" or "Options" page, including message handling
details and a choice of the font displayed when you log in. Many of
these features are not discussed in this lesson. Also, important
information about creating and maintaining online mail folders are not
discussed here, but are important. These features and other options for
your AugNetMail account are featured on a web site maintained by
Augsburg IT. It may be accessed at:
http://www.augsburg.edu/techdesk/
Conclusion
Well, I have given you a lot of
information in a single lesson. The remaining lessons will not be
this large (nor will they continue to grow in size!). Upon completing
this lesson, you should be able to send mail to anyone, anywhere,
providing that you have their address. You should also understand
several methods of finding a person's email address. Below are a few
assignments which will allow you to practice your new skills. The
only way to get good at this is to practice. Don't worry--you can't
break the computer! Experiment, enjoy, and don't be afraid to ask
questions along the way.
Internet Lessons version 2.0. Copyright of lessons (C) 2011 by Joseph A. Erickson, All Rights Reserved. Permission Granted for Individual Usage.
If you plan to distribute multiple copies of this work, please contact the author.
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