Introduction
For those with access, email has revolutionized communications in a way no one had foreseen even a few years ago. Where "snail mail" might take several days or even weeks, email is delivered nearly instantaneously. In fact, email played a key role in the toppling of the Soviet dictatorship in Russia, as it once demonstrated that if you cannot control the people's access to information you will lose your grip on their minds.

Email stresses content over form as it is basically limited to plain text. When there is no letterhead or fancy stationary, it's really the words that count. Some people seem to think that their capitalization, spelling, punctuation, and grammer doesn't matter because "it's just email", but when all that is there are is the words, these things really do matter.

How Email works
You compose a message in an email program, and send it to a mail server (a host computer providing mail service) using a protocol called SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

1. The mail server uses SMTP to send the email on to the appropriate mail server for the recipient
2. The receiving mail server places the email message in the incoming message queue, or inbox belonging to the recipient
3. The recipient retrieves their mail using one of several protocols and finds your message in their inbox or new mail folder
4. They select and read your message

Reading your mail
Unless you intend to have your machine hooked up 24 hours a day and run your own mail server, there four valid options as to how to retrieve and read your email:

On the server
Using a terminal or telnet connection, we can use programs that run on the server to read our mail directly from the incoming mail queue where the server places it. These are generally character-based programs with few bells or whistles, although Pine is pretty nice. They allow you to manage your mail on the server and sort your mail into folders that remain on the server

• Advantages
  • read your email from any Internet-capable computer anywhere, anytime
  • keep email you save on the server
• Disadvantages
  • character-based interface only; no bells & whistles, no drag & drop, etc.
  • attachments are extracted to the server and must be attached from the server

Using POP mail (Post Office Protocol)
POPmail clients are programs that run on your local personal computer or workstation and download the contents of your incoming mail queue from the server onto your computer. Most are graphical programs with user-friendly interfaces. All mail is retained in folders on your own computer. Outgoing mail is written on your own computer and sent to the SMTP server; any attachments are sent from your own computer locally.

• Advantages
  • graphical interface
  • manage email on your own PC
  • attachments easy to manage
• Disadvantages
  • cannot read your email anywhere other than at your own computer
  • loooong downloads when mailbox is full or with large attachments (not a problem on networks but can be serious over a modem)
  • risk of virus infection from executable attachments

Using IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol)
An IMAP client is very similar to a POPmail client (in fact sometimes they are the same program...). IMAP allows you to download only the headers from your email; the messages are then downloaded only as you read them. You can read a message without downloading the attachments. If you delete a message, it is deleted on the server. You have the option of sorting your messages into folders on the server; you can also choose to store them on your own computer. Outgoing mail is written on your own computer and sent to the SMTP server; any attachments are sent from your own computer locally.

• Advantages
  • read your email from any Internet-capable computer anywhere, anytime
  • keep email you save on the server
  • graphical interface
  • attachments easy to manage
• Disadvantages
  • must have a properly configured graphical client installed on the computer you will use to read your mail.

Using the World Wide Web
Various Web-based email interfaces allow you to receive and send mail using your Web browser. A great many of these are offered as free services by Web portals as an incentive to come to their site. Some of the companies offering these services include Yahoo!, Altavista, Netscape, Hotmail, Lycos, and more; there is a whole list available at http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/>Business_to_Business/
Communications_and_Networking/Internet_and_World_Wide_Web/
Email_Providers/Free_Email/. If you have only a few messages in your account, there is even a free service offered by thatWeb that will let you read your email directly from your own account here on campus via the Web.

• Advantages
  • read your email from any Web browser, anywhere, anytime
  • keep email you save on the server
• Disadvantages
  • services tend to be slow, sometimes painfully so

Internet Domain Names and Email Addresses

1. An example of a computer on campus offering electronic mail services is itwebmaster.iit.edu
   1. itwebmaster is the name of the computer
   2. iit is the name of the institution (NOT i t t !)
   3. the edu suffix indicates that this is an educational institution
       
      1. iit.edu is the "domain name" for all IIT computers. A domain name is the "surname" of all Internet computers serving a particular school, company or organization.
          
      2. Other suffixes in the United States domain names include
         1. .com businesses
         2. .org non-profit organizations
         3. .gov government agencies
         4. .mil military agencies
         5. .net companies or organizations that run large networks
         6. .int International organizations (but the United Nations is un.org—go figure!)
             
      3. Other countries may use these same suffixes but their domain name will always end in a two letter suffix indicating their country (ours don't have to; we invented the net—it's just like British postage stamps which don't have the name of the country on them because they invented postage stamps). Some example country suffixes include:
         1. .au Australia
         2. .ch Switzerland
         3. .fi Finland
         4. .fr France
         5. .id Indonesia
         6. .in India
         7. .sg Singapore
         8. .uk United Kingdom
             
      4. K-12 schools and governmental bodies at the state level or lower are required to use the .us domain. Normal configurations in Illinois would be:
         1. school.district.k12.il.us
         2. cityname.ci.il.us
         3. countyname.co.il.us
             
   4. Each of these computers also has a distinctive numerical address, or IP number, which is four sets of one to three digit numerals separated by periods (or "dots" in Net-speak). The names are an easy-to-remember alias for the IP number.
       
2. Your email address is your username followed by the "at" sign, followed by the full name of the computer where your mail account is
    
   1. Consequently your e-mail address on itwebmaster would be:
      username@itwebmaster.iit.edu
       
   2. All e-mail addresses on the Internet look like this. The @, of course, means at
       

      President Clinton's e-mail address is:
      president@whitehouse.gov (really!)
       

      When spoken this would be:
      president at whitehouse dot gov

Email Format
E-mail messages follow a specific format.

Date: (automatically inserted by the system)

From: (who sent the message)

To: (who the message is to)

Cc: (copy/copies to these addressees, also)

Bcc: (copy/copies to these addressees without their name/address appearing anywhere on the message)

Attach: (attachments to the message)

Subj: (the subject of the message)

Body of the the message...

"Sig" (signature)

1. When you compose a message you will not see the Date: line (it's automatically inserted by the system)
2. When you compose a message you will not see the From: line (it's from you...)
3. The complete email address of the recipient must be in the To: line (unless they are on the same computer you are on...then you can just type their user name)
4. You may want to send yourself a copy of your first message in the Cc: line, just to check it out
5. Attachments allow you to attach text of even programs or graphics to your e-mail; we won't use any now
6. The Subject line is important as it appears in the index of your inbox so you can get some idea of what the topic of ecah message is
7. The body of the message (and the subject) can contain both upper and lower case letters
8. The "Sig" is an e-mail signature designed to identify the sender more fully, and can contain business or academic titles, business or school, phone numbers, and more

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Last Updated by Ray Trygstad on 09/05/05 | Copyright 2004 Illinois Institute of Technology