E-Mail (Electronic Mail)
Why should I use email?
The transmission of memos and messages over a network. Within an enterprise, users can send mail to a single recipient or broadcast it to multiple users. With multitasking workstations, mail can be delivered and announced while the user is working in an application. Otherwise, mail is sent to a simulated mailbox in the network server or host computer, which must be interrogated.
An e-mail system requires a messaging system, which provides store and forward capability, and a mail program that provides the user interface with send and receive functions.
The Internet revolutionized email by turning countless incompatible islands into one global system. The Internet initially served its own members, of course, but then began to act as a mail gateway between the major online services. It then became "the" messaging system for the planet. In 1998, it delivered more than 3.4 trillion messages in the U.S.
Sending Mail
Most Internet users have an email address which takes the form of his or her name, the @ (at), and a domain name, such as roconnor@yahoo.com. The domain name contains the name of the person’s service provider or organization and often its country, each separated by a dot. The domain name yahoo.com stands for Yahoo, which is a commercial Internet organization (com).
E-mail offers you more than a quick and easy way to send people written messages. It is possible to use e-mail to send computer data, such as word-processed documents and images.
Composing an email message is similar to writing a letter and sending it to someone via the United States Postal Service. You create text, you address it with an accurate address, and sometimes you even write a note on the envelope to indicate something special about the contents inside, such as "personal" or "urgent."
The biggest difference between email and USPS mail is the speed at which your message is delivered to the recipient. After you use email and get used to its almost instantaneous delivery system, you’ll begin to understand why computer users have adopted the jargon "snail mail" for mail sent through the USPS. To compose a message in most email programs, you carry out the following three steps, all of which are quite easy:
- Fill out the message header. (The message header is the top part of the message form, where you insert the name/s) of the recipient, the subject, and other information about the message.)
- Write the message.
- Send the message.
Opening Mail
Mail you receive is stored in the Inbox of your mailbox. You can see the list of messages in the Contents pane by selecting the Inbox object in your E-mail’s Folder pane.
When you see the list of messages in the Contents pane, the header information helps you decide which messages to read immediately and which messages to leave for later. You can use the priority icons and the subject matter to decide, or you can just pick messages sent by people you like to hear from.
Scroll through the list to find a message you want to open. Double-click it, and the message opens in a message window. The buttons on the message window toolbar provide quick access to many of the options you might need for working with received messages.
Attachments
What is an attachment?
An attachment is a file or an object that is attached to a message. You can place attachments in messages you send, and you can receive messages with attachments.
The usefulness of attachments is unlimited, but the most common reason for attaching a file to a message is to send some information without having to type it into the original message. For example, if you want to send information you received (or wrote) in a word processing document to your instructor, you can compose a message that explains that you have this information and then you can attach the specified document to the message so the recipient can read the information.
The mailing program allows just such possibilities. Not surprisingly, the command to do this is "Attach", and it can be initiated by clicking on the browser button having this name.
Sending Attachments
Most email programs allow you to attach one or more files to your email message. The program automatically encodes attachments when you send your message. However, the recipient’s email program may or may not be able to automatically decode the attachment back to its original format. It is important to keep in mind that your recipients must have a machine and program capable of using the attachment after it is received, whether or not their email programs can decode the file. For example, if you attach a Word Perfect file and send it to someone who does not have Word Perfect itself (or a program capable of translating the file), the attachment will not be useful to them. If you send a Macintosh program to someone reading email on a Unix machine, it will be useless.
Create a new message in the Send Message or Compose menu bar and then click on the Edit Attachments hyperlink.
The following dialogue box (figure 4.4). or something similar will appear. You will need to identify the location of the document you want to attach by either typing in the location in the File text box, or by clicking on the Browse button and locating and highlighting the name of the document on either your disk, or your hard drive. Once you OPEN the file in the browse dialogue box, it will take you back to the Add Attachments window and will have the name and location or path of the file.
You can then click on the Attach button and then click on the Done button the program will take you back to the Compose Message Window.
Figure 4.4 Attachments Dialogue Box
You will notice that next to Attachments below the message box contains the attachment (figure 4.5). You can then either send the message with the attachment, or, if you have chosen the incorrect file, you can delete it and start over.
Figure 4.5 Email Message with Attachment.
When a message with an attachment arrives in your mailbox, a paper clip icon appears next to the message in your Inbox (figure 4.6). To open the message, click on the Attached File hyper link. The dialogue box appears with options for the attachment.
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