E-mail

E-mail is one of the most popular features of the Internet. E-mail allows you to send and receive messages instantaneously to anyone on the Internet. Additionally, e-mail allows you to send files as attachments to messages. E-mail is the electronic equivalent of postal mail, only much faster.

About Clients

As with everything else on the Internet, there are many different programs that you can use to access e-mail. Many of the latest web browser packages come complete with an e-mail reader built into them. However, some people prefer other programs, such as Eudora, Pegasus Mail, or Claris E-mail. These programs normally come with more features than most of the web based mail readers.

Of the many different e-mail programs available, most share the same basic features. These features include the ability to send and receive, save, and include attachments.

Getting E-mail

Once the e-mail software is setup, sending and receiving is done without much effort from the user. Most mail programs will check for mail when you first open the program up. You can also set the mail programs to check for mail at regular intervals. This is convenient if you are logged on for extended periods of time using the system and would like to be notified when you receive mail without actively looking for it.

Sending mail, much like receiving mail, is done automatically in most cases. Once you have completed your message and clicked the send button, the mail is instantaneously sent. Some mail programs, such as Microsoft Internet Mail, will queue the mail, or place it into a holding bin until the next mail run is initiated. A user can have the mail server check for new mail at regular intervals in an automated process, or by clicking the designated button for receiving and sending messages.

Addresses

Everyone who has access to the Internet has an e-mail address. E-mail addresses are similar to postal mailing addresses, in that they include a name and a location. However, unlike postal mailing addresses, if you do not enter the e-mail address in exactly as it should be, the mail will not be delivered. E-mail addresses are also case sensitive, so be sure that if the e-mail address is in all upper or lower case, it is typed in exactly as it appears.

An e-mail address consists of a username and a domain, or location where that user resides. For instance, if you were to e-mail our support staff here at ETI, the address would look like the following:

support@eticomm.net

That is read support at eticomm.net. Support is the username. The '@' ,or 'at' sign, then tells the mail program that the rest of this address is where the username resides. Eticomm.net is the actual domain, or address on the Internet where all of ETI's users reside.

E-mail Attachments

Most e-mail programs today provide the ability to send and receive attachments. An attachment is simply a file or text document that can be attached to an e-mail message. This is very useful if you need to send one or more small files to someone. It makes sending and receiving files over the Internet very easy.

Because the Internet e-mail system was originally designed for sending text-only messages, sending attachments can sometimes be difficult. When a file is attached to an e-mail, the file itself has to be encoded in one of many encoding formats. The three most popular attachment formats — MIME, UUEncoding, and Base64 — are supported by most of the popular mail clients. On the user end, you do not have to worry about the type of encoding, as this is done automatically through the mail program. The only time users need to know about encoding is when they receive a message that their mail program can not decode. In this case, the easiest thing to do is to write back to the sender explaining that your program could not decode the document.

Another downfall to a text based mail system is the file size. Because the e-mail system was originally designed for text only it does not handle large files very well. You cannot send out a file larger than 2 megabytes through ETI. So, if you're sending an attachment, and you receive an error, check the size of the file you are sending to be sure it is not too large. Remember that the total size of the e-mail message is based upon both the size of the actual message, as well as the size of its attachment.