What is an E-mail

mail?

What is an E-mail
Email, also sometimes written as e-mail, is simply the shortened form of electronic mail, a protocol for receiving, sending, and storing electronic messages. Email has gained popularity with the spread of the Internet. In many cases, email has become the preferred method of communication. Though there is some degree of uncertainty as to when email was invented, the father of the modern version is generally regarded to be American Ray Tomlinson. Before Tomlinson, messages could be sent between users, but only when they were connected to the same computer. Even once computers were networked, messages could not be targeted to a particular individual. Tomlinson devised a way to address email to certain users, and thus was credited for one of the most important communication inventions in the 20th century. Tomlinson's idea was to identify the name of the user and the computer at which he or she was located. As a result, the basic formula for addressing an email was

username@usercomputer. This standard has not changed much over the years, other than the user computer now commonly being replaced by the name of an email provider. In some cases, this is the same as the user's Internet service provider. The influence of email cannot be overstated. The United States Postal Service, for example, notes that it handles 212 billion pieces of mail per year. Many sources have nearly that many emails being sent back and forth every single day. In other words, email handles more than 300 times the amount of mail of the largest postal system in the world. Users receive and send email using simple message transfer protocol (SMTP). Other protocols, including Post Office Protocol (POP) and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), allow users to retrieve and store messages. Although there are other protocols for message retrieval and storage, SMTP is the standard protocol for sending and receiving messages via Internet Protocol (IP).

In the beginning, email usage required having a program dedicated to the application, or at least having an email service provider with a system set up to handle it. The software for the application is called email client software. There are many different email applications available, some of which cost money to use while others are free. In addition to accessing electronic mail through email client software, Webmail has also become very popular. Most email service providers offer this as an additional benefit, where the user can access their mailbox over the Internet. Some email services are specifically designed using the World Wide Web as its primary interface. These sites have become very popular, as they usually offer individuals a chance to open an email account at no charge.

How Email work

Senders email server

Receivers email server

Sender

Receiver

The parts of an email message

An email message consists of the following general components: Headers The message headers contain information concerning the sender and recipients. The exact content of mail headers can vary depending on the email system that generated the message. Generally, headers contain the following information:

Subject: Subject is a description of the topic of the message and displays in most email systems that list email messages individually. A subject line could be something like "2007 company mission statement" or, if your spam filtering application is too lenient, "Lose weight fast!!! Ask me how."

Sender (From): This is the senders Internet email address. It is usually presumed to be the same as the Reply-to address, unless a different one is provided.

Date and time received (On): The time the message was received. Reply-to. This is the Internet email address that will become the recipient of your reply if you click the Reply button.

Recipient (To): First/last name of email recipient, as configured by the sender. Recipient email address: The Internet mail address of the recipient, or where the message was actually sent.

Carbon copies-Cc: When sending e-mail copies to number of people this Cc is using for that.

Blind Carbon copies-Bcc: when you send a blind carbon copy, the e-mail addresses of the people receiving it do not appear on the message for all recipients to see. This means the e-mail recipients will not know who else has received the message.

Body The body of a message contains text that is the actual content, such as "Employees who are eligible for the new health care program should contact their supervisors by next Friday if they want to switch." The message body also may include signatures or automatically generated text that is inserted by the sender's email system.

Attachments Attachments are optional and include any separate files that may be part of the message. You can attach any Documents, Pictures, Sound..etc.

The parts of an email

Header part of an email

Body of an email

Carbon copies

You can include any separate files

You can type the message in here what you want to send

Required Components for send & receive an E-mail

We need several things to send and receive email:

Internet connection email account email software package

Internet connection These are connections via the phone lines and modems to a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP), a company that provides access to the Internet. This type of service turns your own personal computer into a temporary Internet node, and enables you to use software from your own machine.

E mail account That is set up with a unique user name and server name. At Yahoo the server is yahoo.com and your user name is the same as your user name to log on the network. Usually when you sign up with an Internet Service Provider, you also receive an email address. Email software package. There are numerous ones on the market. Because email system is web based, all you will need is a web browser - Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, etcAll email software works essentially the same way. The software allows you to enter the settings for your email account user name and server, send and receive email and store email addresses. There are also numerous other "extras" you can get with some email packages, but essentially email packages allow you to do these three things:

set up your email preferences send email pick up email

What is an E-mail Address?

An email address is unique, just like a Post Office street, city, state and zip address. As you learned in a previous section, email addresses have two parts:

The user name The email server or host address

The host address is similar to a post office address. When you send snail mail (regular mail) to someone in another city, the address on the envelope is read and that piece of mail is directed to a post office for delivery. That is the purpose of the host or email server.

The user name is separated from the host address by the @ (pronounced "at") sign. Each user name is unique to a particular host address. For instance Brayan A. Randy email address at Yahoo would be: RandyB@yahoo.com

User name

at Server symbol name

RandyBr@gmail.com

User at Server name symbol name

What is an Internet address? (IP Address)

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the method or protocol by which data is sent from one computer to another on the Internet. Each computer (known as a host) on the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquely identifies it from all other computers on the Internet. When you send or receive data (for example, an e-mail note or a Web page), the message gets divided into little chunks called packets. Each of these packets contains both the sender's Internet address and the receiver's address. Any packet is sent first to a gateway computer that understands a small part of the Internet. The gateway computer reads the destination address and forwards the packet to an adjacent gateway that in turn reads the destination address and so forth across the Internet until one gateway recognizes the packet as belonging to a computer within its immediate neighborhood or domain. That gateway then forwards the packet directly to the computer whose address is specified. Because a message is divided into a number of packets, each packet can, if necessary, be sent by a different route across the Internet. Packets can arrive in a different order than the order they were sent in. The Internet Protocol just delivers them. It's up to another protocol, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to put them back in the right order. IP is a connectionless protocol, which means that there is no continuing connection between the end points that are communicating. Each packet that travels through the Internet is treated as an independent unit of data without any relation to any other unit of data. (The reason the packets do get put in the right order is because of TCP, the connection-oriented protocol that keeps track of the packet sequence in a message.) In the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) communication model, IP is in layer 3, the Networking Layer. The most widely used version of IP today is Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4). However, IP Version 6 (IPv6) is also beginning to be supported. IPv6 provides for much longer addresses and therefore for the possibility of many more Internet users. IPv6 includes the capabilities of IPv4 and any server that can support IPv6 packets can also support IPv4 packets.

Email Service Providers

Email communication is-in so many of our lives-the preferred means of communication with our personal and professional list of contacts, though few of us consider how email is provided to us. There are hundreds of email providers that offer us the ability to send and receive messages through their particular web platform, and if you are like many, you probably use more than one with more than one email account. Some popular and free email service providers are below:

Yahoo Yahoo has a great and easy-to-use interface and an excellent SPAM protection. You can send and store pictures, text and documents. You can also send 10 MB files as email attachments. If you want more space, the ability to send 20 MB files as email attachments, and no ads, you can buy Yahoo! Mail Plus which comes for $19.95 per year. Gmail Gmail has extensively used AJAX technology which helps it to load quickly. You can store files with third party applications and resources in Gmail. Windows Live Hotmail This too uses AJAX technology. Aside from the 5 GB storage, it comes with some better security measures, so, hopefully, it won't wind up being the Hotbed of Spammers. Windows Live Hotmail has the usual features like Contacts, Calendar and Windows Live Messenger. You can write emails in 35 different languages, My Trash Mail If you want a temporary email address that is disposable, anonymous and doesn't require any registration or password, this is a good place. They've now gone to a new domain name @trashymail.com because, according to their site 'Receiving over 10,000,000 emails per day is just way to much for a single dedicated server.' Hush Mail Go for this if you're in the hush-hush business and need to encrypt every email you send. Attachments are also encrypted, so the secret data can be exchanged in duesafety. Mucho Mail That's 'Mucho', not 'Macho'. Just to be clear. You get 25 MB of storage 1000 MB if you go paid Premium - and can send up to 3 unlimited-size attachments.

How to make an e-mail account

You can use many service providers to make your email account. Yahoo You can make an email account using the Yahoo- yahoomail. Below Picture shows the interface that you can make your yahoo mail account.

14

Google-Gmail You can also make an email account using the Google- Gmail. Below Picture shows the interface that you can make your Gmail account.

15

Windows Live-Hotmail You can also make an email account using the Windows Live-Hotmail. Below Picture shows the interface that you can make your Hotmail account. Filling the below application you can make your email account.

16

Advantages of Email

Easy to use: E-mail frees us from the tedious task of managing data of daily use. It helps us to manage our contacts, send mails quickly, maintain our mail history, store the required information, etc.

Speed: The e-mail is delivered instantly, anywhere across the globe. No other service matches the e-mail in terms of speed.

Easy to prioritize: Since the mails have subject lines, it is easy to prioritize them and ignore unwanted mails.

Reliable and secure: Constant efforts are being taken to improve the security in electronic mails. Thus making it one of the secured ways of communication.

Informal and conversational: The language used in e-mails is generally simple and thus makes the communication informal. Sending and receiving e-mails takes less time, so it can be used as a tool for interaction.

Easier for reference: When one needs to reply to a mail, there is a provision in the mailing system to attach the previous mails as references. This refreshes the recipient's knowledge, on what he is reading.

Automated e-mails: It is possible to send automated e-mails using special programs like the auto responders. The auto responders reply back to the sender with generalized pre-written text messages.

Environment friendly: Postal mails use paper as a medium to send letters. Electronic mail thus, saves a lot of trees from being axed. It also saves fuel needed in transportation.

Use of graphics: Colorful greeting cards and interesting pictures can be sent through e-mails. This adds value to the e-mail service.

Advertising tool: Many individuals and companies are using e-mails to advertise their products, services, etc.

17

Disadvantages of Email

Viruses: These are computer programs having the potential to harm a computer system. These programs copy themselves and further infect the computer. The recipient needs to scan the mails, as viruses are transmitted through them and have the potential to harm computer systems.

Spam: E-mails when used to send unsolicited messages and unwanted advertisements create nuisance and is termed as Spam. Checking and deleting these unwanted mails can unnecessarily consume a lot of time, and it has become necessary to block or filter the unwanted e-mails by means of spam filters. Spamming includes, sending hoax emails. E-mail spoofing is another common practice, used for spamming. Spoofing involves deceiving the recipient by altering the e-mail headers or the addresses from which the mail is sent.

Hacking: The act of breaking into computer security is termed as hacking. After the e-mail is sent and before it is received by the desired recipient, it "bounces" between servers located in different parts of the world. Hence, the e-mail can be hacked by a professional hacker.

Misinterpretation: One has to be careful while posting any kind of content through an e-mail. If typed in a hurry, the matter could be misinterpreted.

Lengthy mails: If the mail is too long and not properly presented the reader may lose interest in reading it.

Not suitable for business: Since the content posted via e-mails is considered informal, there is a chance of business documents going unnoticed. Thus, urgent transactions and especially those requiring signatures are not managed through emails.

Crowded inbox: Over a period of time, the e-mail inbox may get crowded with mails. It becomes difficult for the user to manage such a huge chunk of mails.

Need to check the inbox regularly: In order to be updated, one has to check his email account regularly.

18

19