 2000 Major Internet Tutorials 1
Using Email
Background Information
WHAT IS EMAIL? Email is short for electronic mail. Email is an amazing communication system which allows one computer user to send a message to one or more computers users via the Internet. Email has two distinct advantages over the postal system. First, it can be sent to any email address, anywhere around the world, in just an instant. Second, it is incredibly cheap. Just one, or even hundreds, of email messages can be sent locally, or around the world, for the cost of short telephone call (which usually takes only several seconds).
HOW IS EMAIL SENT? The message you type in is converted to digital form and sent automatically to a special computer that acts like an electronic post office. This computer is called a mail server. The mail server directs the email message through to the recipient. Mail servers can be within an organisation or with an Internet Service Provider.
WHAT SOFTWARE DO YOU NEED? In order to receive or send email, one option is to install special software. Eudora is one of the most popular email software packages and is IBM and Macintosh compatible. It comes in two forms - Eudora Lite, which can be downloaded for free from the manufacturers at Qualcomm. Eudora Pro 4.3 can also be downloaded for free from this site, providing you are prepared to accept the accompanying advertising (if not, you can pay for the ad-free version). Another popular email software package is Microsoft Outlook, which is included with Microsoft Windows software. Some other packages are Lotus Notes and Pegasus. The Netscape browser, if you are using that, has its own built-in email program. An excellent tutorial on how to use Eudora is provided at the Eudora web site.
DO YOU NECESSARILY NEED 'REGULAR' EMAIL SOFTWARE PACKAGES TO USE EMAIL? No! You can also use web-based email, such as Yahoo Mail, Excite or Hotmail - there are lots of free web-mail sites. These are funded by advertisers, which is why you don't have to pay. In this case, you have to check your mail by using a web browser to log onto a dedicated Internet web mail site, and then typing in your name and password. This is not as secure as an ISP email service and can sometimes be slower. One free Internet email site is Hotmail at www.hotmail.com . Another is Yahoo at www.mail.yahoo.com
HOW DO YOU OPEN AN EMAIL ACCOUNT? In order to use email, you must have an email account. This is usually arranged by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or your employer. Usually, an email account would be set up when you first organise an Internet connection with the ISP or your employer. You would be given an email address, a Username and a password you would use to access your email.
WHAT ABOUT EMAIL ON HOLIDAYS? Many people find it convenient to have a free web mail account, like Hotmail, as well as their regular email account. This means they can download their email wherever there is an Internet café (and these are proliferating, even in the most unlikely places, all over the world). The beauty of Hotmail is that it can be configured so as to download email from your 'everyday' email account'. Compared to the telephone and regular mail, this is a cheap and convenient way to keep in touch with family and friends while you're away.
HOW DO YOU ACCESS YOUR EMAIL? Once you have an email address, and have made that address publicly known, you are then obliged to check your email regularly. Once a day would be a reasonable minimum. Otherwise, it's like having a telephone installed, and then only answering it when you're in a good mood or alternatively, putting up a letter box outside your house and only checking it on sunny days.
To check if you have any new email, you have to login to your email software with your account using your username and password. After you type these in, your email program will then connect to your mailbox at your mail server, to check if there is any new mail waiting for you. If there is, it will download (send) the messages to your computer, and a message will be shown on your screen saying that you have new mail. Click on O.K. and then click on the new messages, one by one, to open them. Unopened mail is easily distinguished from already opened email because it has a coloured dot or some other sort of 'unopened marker' next to them. This marker disappears once the email has been opened for the first time.
WHAT IS AN EMAIL ADDRESS? This is much the same as your street address, albeit in cyberspace. You must have an email address if you want to receive email.
INTERPRETING EMAIL ADDRESSES. You can usually obtain information about the sender of an email by looking at his or her email address. The following email address components give you an indication of the sort of organisation the sender is associated with:
mil: a military government organisation
net: a network
org: a non-profit organisation
edu: an educational institution
com: a commercial organisation
int: an international organisation
Email addresses usually (but not always) include a country code at the very end, with the exception of those from the USA.
The following countries are indicated at the end of most (but not all) email and Internet addresses, as shown in these examples:
|  | ae: United Arab Emirates
at: Austria
au: Australia
bb: Barbados
bm: Bermuda
br: Brazil
ca: Canada
ch: Switzerland
cl: Chile
dk: Germany
es: Spain
fr: France | |
fi: Finland
gr: Greece
il: Israel
it: Italy
jp: Japan
kr: Korea
no: Norway
pl: Poland
se: Sweden
tw: Taiwan
uk: United Kingdom
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HOW DO YOU SEND AN EMAIL? First, you need the email address of the person you want to send an email to. With email, near enough isn't close enough. Even a missing 'dot' will prevent your message from getting through. (And on that subject, when you're giving your email address to other people, make sure you write it very clearly, and if there are dots, make them very obvious).
HOW DO YOU DESIGN AN EMAIL MESSAGE? Keep your message brief (most emails are only one or two informally written sentences). Some people get a lot of email and the longer your message, the more likely the recipient will defer reading the whole of its contents. State the most important point, or the action required, at the top of the message. Keep paragraphs very short and use white space to improve readability if you're writing a longer message. If you refer to a URL or another email address in your message, write them on a separate line, to increase clarity. If you want to send a really large message, send a few lines of explanation as the email message, and the bulk of your information as an attachment, which can be opened by the recipient later, when convenient. Don't use capital letters for the whole email message unless you intentionally wish to 'shout' (this is what the exclusive use of capitals mean in cyberculture). By all means, however, use capitals now and then in your email text to emphasise something particularly important.
SPELLING IN CYBERCULTURE. Cyberculture is different to traditional 'paper culture' in that speed is one of its most valued features. Many people who can spell perfectly will rush off email messages full of typos they don't fix up (even if they spot them), knowing that the recipient isn't requiring literary perfection but rather a short fast response 'in the rough'. However, careless spelling should still be avoided in web sites or when sending emails to VIPs.
ACKNOWLEDGE IMPORTANT EMAILS. Always acknowledge your receipt of an important email, even if you are unable to formally reply to its contents immediately. Don't leave the sender wondering if you have received a vital or urgent message.
Useful Vocabulary
ADDRESS BOOK. All email programs have some form of Address Book, where you can store frequently used email addresses. Many email programs enable you to enter the Address of the sender directly into your Address Book. When drafting an email message, enter the address last, so that you can't inadvertently send the email before you're ready. Most Address Books will allow you to have 'single entry' addresses or 'group' of email addresses.
ATTACHMENTS. These are extra files that are attached to your email message and are seen as little boxes/icons at the end of the recipient's email message. Attachments can be graphics, text documents or software files. The email recipient has to be able to open the attachment to be able to see it. However, if recipients don't have compatible software, then they won't be able to open the attachment. For instance, there's no point in sending a JPEG photo file attachment to someone if they don't have a graphics program that will open the file and allow them to see it. As well, there's no point sending attached 'zipped' or 'compressed' files (which can be transmitted faster because the file size is smaller) if the person at the other end doesn't have decompressing or 'unzipping' software.
NEVER send very large attached files (500K or more) without first consulting the recipient. First, the recipient may have to pay extra download costs to his or her Internet Service Provider (ISP). Second, very large files can 'fill up' the recipient's Internet Service Provider mail box (which is different from the recipient's email program mail box). This will effectively block the receipt of all further email until the offending large file is removed (all subsequent new messages will be bounced back to their sender, with the message 'mailbox full', or words to that effect). Sometimes this may mean the recipient has phone to his or her ISP to sort out the problem, which will undoubtedly waste time and cause annoyance. Third, if you're sending a very large email attachment to someone with a slow Internet connection, it could take minutes, sometimes even hours, to download the file. Some recipients may not be able to use their computer for other activities during this download time. They won't be too impressed when they find it's only a photo of you relaxing on the beach in Thailand, during your most recent holiday!
BLIND CARBON COPY (BCC). This is a way of sending a copy of an email you have sent to one person to another person/s, without the first addressee knowing about it. Type the address of the 'secret recipient' of your email into the BCC section. BCC addresses are not displayed on incoming messages. Some email users believe this practice to be a form of deception and therefore ethically improper. Others believe that the practice is O.K., so long as you have a good reason for not letting the first addressee know that the email is being copied to someone else. Some users BCC to themselves, just to make sure an important email has at least made it as far as the Internet backbone.
There is one security problem in the BCC feature, however. BCC addresses are removed from the email only at the destination email server. In the case where the addressee has their own on-site email server, or can access it, they could (if they wanted to) examine the BCC addresses on every email they receive. So be careful if the material is especially sensitive!
BOUNCED EMAIL. This is email that has been returned to you because it couldn't be delivered to the intended recipient. This may happen for several reasons. First, the email address you used may have been incorrect. Second, the recipient's mail box (at their mail server) may have been full. Third, the recipient may have cancelled his or her email account, and now uses a different address. Fourth, the recipient's mail server may have been temporarily 'down'. When one of your emails bounces back, first check that you have the correct address, and then re-send it at least once. Failed emails sometimes bounce back almost immediately; others may take a week or so to bounce back. In the case of really important emails, ask the recipient to notify you, with a set time frame, that the email has been received.
BROADCASTING. This is when the user enters more than one email address into the BCC field. Sometimes, for privacy reasons you may not want all of the recipients to know the identity/addresses of the other people you are sending to.
CARBON COPY (CC). This is a way of sending a copy of an email you have sent to one person, to another person as well. Type the address of the secondary recipient's of your email into the CC section. In the case of CC, the first addressee will be able to see you have sent a copy of the email to one or more other persons.
LOG ON. Logging on is what you do to connect to other computers - whether that be a home network, a school network, or an ISP.
FLAMING. This is the act of sending someone (particularly someone you don't know personally) an outrageous and insulting message via public or private email. Flames are supposedly witty 'put downs', based on the fact that the sender has disagreed with something the recipient has said, or chastising the recipient for breaching the rules of 'netiquette'. In most cases, the sender has forgotten that the electronic identity he or she is sending to is, in fact, a real person, with human feelings. Some Internet users approve of the use of flaming by arguing that it is used sparingly to maintain good 'netiquette'. Others find watching flaming on public email sites, such as newsgroups, entertaining. Some Internet users deliberately send 'flame bait' with the deliberate intention of starting a 'flame war'.
ISDN CONNECTION. This is a very fast telephone (not cable) connection to the Internet, faster than a regular modem and phone line connection. In order to get an ISDN connection, your ISP must provide an ISDN service, and you will need to buy a special digital modem and ISDN service from your phone company.
ISP. An Internet Service Provider is a company which sells computer users access to the Internet. Prices are becoming more competitive, so shop around carefully for the best package to suit your current and projected needs. You can also get free Internet access from www.freeonline.com.au. In the USA these days, a current trend is for ISPs to provide free computers and Internet access. This is done on the basis that people use the Internet, and are exposed to selected advertising, for a given number of hours per day.
MODEM. This is a device used for connecting two computers via a telephone line. A cable modem performs the same function except that instead of using a telephone line, it uses optical cable. Cable modems provide a much faster service due to their extra bandwidth but are generally more expensive. The speed with which a modem can send/receive data is measured in 'bits per second'. Modems with higher 'bps' rates save you money in downloading costs because they can send and receive data faster (this is applicable when your ISP charges you for time online). If buying a new modem at the moment, a 56K modem is recommended. Modems can be either internal (a card inside your computer or built into the motherboard) or external (a separate piece of equipment).
NETIQUETTE. Internet etiquette.
NEWBIE. A new Internet user, however old, is known as a newbie.
SIGNATURE. This is identification material you can automatically include to the end of every email you send. Most email packages allow you to create a standard 'signature' file which will appear at the bottom of all outgoing email messages. Signatures normally contain your name, phone and fax numbers, mobile phone numbers, your email address, and your postal address. As a whimsical gesture, some people also like to add their favourite quotation. When constructing your 'signature', see what it looks like by sending an email to yourself. If your email package doesn't allow for automatic signatures, you could write a signature in an easily accessible text file and then paste it in when required.
SPAM. Spam email is uninvited, usually commercial email, sent from an unknown source and/or a fake address. It is usually trying to sell a product or to alert you to a commercial 'opportunity'.
SUBJECT. One of the most important rules of 'netiquette' relates to the wording you choose as the 'subject' of your email. Help the recipient of your email prioritise his or her tasks by giving a clear indication of what your email is about, e.g., 'Query about advertising prices'. Use the word 'urgent' only if that is really the case. Don't use 'Subject' to show email recipients how clever you are with language. Some recipients who receive a lot of email use the text in 'Subject' as the basis for deciding whether or not to read the message at all, i.e., whether they will dump the message even before it's been read (the amount of unsolicited spam email received increases with increased use of the Internet).
VIRUS. This is a piece of unsolicited software which is sent to you deliberately, or passed on inadvertently, via an email, CD, computer game, any computer disk or Internet file. Sometimes viruses are cleverly embedded in other harmless files (as the Melissa virus was) and their presence is not obvious. Once opened and executed on your computer, viruses can cause immense damage. The damage is not always implemented immediately; sometimes there is a deceptive time delay, so you're not aware anything is wrong and may even send an infected file to someone else, thus spreading the virus further. Virus damage can range from the alteration of text and numbers (a big problem for accountants!), to the deletion of some files, to the complete destruction of all files on your hard drive. In extreme cases, it can even lead to the permanent destruction of your computer's BIOS (this is a chip on the motherboard that the computer needs to start-up). NEVER USE THE INTERNET WITHOUT RECENTLY UPDATED VIRUS PROTECTION.
Further information on using email can be obtained from www.microsoft.com/insider/internet/articles/email.htm
Find the email address of five principal or assistant principal colleagues personally known to you and send them an email telling them about the APAPDC Online Conference. Make sure you include a descriptive 'Subject' in your email (e.g, Online Conference Opportunity). In the body of your message include the APAPDC information email address information@apapdc.edu.au at the APAPDC, should they wish to register for the Conference themselves. You should include the URL of this Online Conference, which is www.apapdc.edu.au/conference2000/
If you haven't already done so, configure your email signature. You may decide to add a personal mission statement.
- Visit the Hotmail web site. Look at the 'Policy and Member Conduct' link. What is Hotmail's policy on 'Spam'?
- Create a Hotmail account for yourself.
- Attach a document to an email and send it to a colleague. BCC a copy to yourself.
- Add ten new addresses to your email Address Book.
- Which countries are this (fake) emails from? A. brydon@wonder.mil.es B. brydon@wonder.int.se C. brydon@wonder.com.at D. brydon@wonder.org.jp
- What country is this email address most likely to be from? brydon@wonder.com
- Send an email to non-existent fake addresses (you create) in Sweden, Chile and Australia. Note the different times taken for a 'bounce back' to arrive.
- Send an email to five different colleagues asking for an immediate reply to a professional question. Note down the different reply times.
- Send a friend an animated electronic greeting card, which will be sent to their email address. Visit the Blue Mountains web site www.bluemountain.com and choose from a huge 'supermarket' of fun greeting cards. It's completely free. (If you like this site, 'bookmark' it in your browser.) Describe the card you chose, and sent.
- Consider adding your school email address to the school newsletter as a contact/access point for busy online parents. Queries could be handled by admin. staff or, when necessary, yourself. Research the long-term and short-term advantages of collecting the email addresses of online members of the school community. Consider adding the school's email address to all school stationery and leadership team 'business cards'. Remember that the number of people accessing this technology is growing exponentially and what may seem ineffective this year may represent a huge advantage just a little further down the track. In terms of time management, a response to an emailed query has some time flexibility, and may be 'better politics' than having to say you'll phone someone back when they phone and you're unavailable.
- Consider the advantages of having a home (family/personal) and a school (professional) email account. What would be the advantages/disadvantages of an extra account at home?
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