Using E-mail
IntroductionE-mail is one of many forms of communication used on the Internet today, but it was around before the creation of the Internet. E-mail evolved from various techniques of communication used on computers which makes it hard to say exactly who created it and when. It can be said, however, that Ray Tomlinson played an important role. Tomlinson came up with the name@computer format which allows e-mail to be addressed to anyone on any computer. Before this people could only share messages with others connected to the same computer.[1] E-mail works using clients and servers. An e-mail client is a program that allows you to access and manage your personal e-mail as well as compose and send messages to others. E-mail servers handle the sending, receiving and storage of messages.
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...by studentsBe careful if you decide to set up your own e-mail client. If you are using POP3, many clients will delete messages from the server by default. That means the copy of the e-mail on your computer will likely be the only copy. If anything happens to the message you can't get it back and you won't be able to download it from another computer. If you want to leave a copy on the server, find out how to turn that option on in the client you are using. Make sure you turn it on before you connect for the first time. </td> </tr> </table> E-mail ClientsWhen accessing your e-mail you need to connect to an e-mail server. An e-mail client is a program that connects to your e-mail server and allows you to manage your messages. You will also use an e-mail client to compose and send messages. There a variety of e-mail clients available. Microsoft Office Outlook is an example of a commercial e-mail client. There are also many open source clients available such as Mozilla Thunderbird. WebmailWebmail allows you to access your e-mail through a web browser. With webmail you can easily manage your e-mail from any computer with an internet connection, without having to install or configure an e-mail client.[2]Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail are a few popular webmail services that are available for free. The University of Manitoba has a webmail service for its e-mail accounts at http://umanitoba.ca/webmail.  Figure 1: How Email Works The typical path a e-mail will take when Alice sends it to Bob Image courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Email.svg E-mail ServersFor most people, your e-mail system will consist of two servers. Outgoing mail will be handled by a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server. Incoming mail is often handled by a Post Office Protocol (POP3) server or an Internet Mail Address Protocol (IMAP) server. Your incoming and outgoing mail servers will often be located on the same machine.[3] SMTPWhen you send an e-mail your e-mail client will connect to your SMTP server. It will send your e-mail address, the recipients address and the message to this server. The SMTP server will split the recipients address into a user name and a domain name. The domain name will be used to find the incoming mail server that it should pass the message to. If your recipient is on the same domain as you, the server will likely not have to perform this look-up. The message is then passed along to the incoming mail server. If the SMTP is unable to send the message, it will be put in a queue. It will attempt to resend the message and will notify you if it is having difficulties.[3] POP3Post Office Protocol (POP3) is one of the common choices for incoming mail servers. POP3 was designed with temporary internet connections in mind. Rather than permanently store messages on the server, they are downloaded for local access. By default, messages are deleted from the server once they are downloaded, but you can set up your e-mail client to keep a copy on the server. The server stores all messages for a user in a text file. When a new message arrives it is simply appended to the bottom of the file.[3] IMAPThe Internet Mail Address Protocol (IMAP) allows you to store and manage all of your messages on the server. This makes it easier to access your e-mail from multiple locations. Messages are not deleted when downloaded and you can organize your messages in folders that will exist no matter where you access the server from.[3] Message FormatAn e-mail message is divided into two components; the header and the body. The header consists of a number of fields that give information about the message. The body of an e-mail is the actual content of the message. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) by itself only allows simple text in the body of an e-mail. Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) extends this to allow non-text attachments, additional languages and more. [4] Message HeaderThe header of an e-mail provides various kinds of information about the message. Some of the more common header fields include: To, From, Subject and Date. There are also a number of headers that you may not be familiar with, for example: Message-ID, Content-Type and Precedence.[5] E-mail clients will typically have an option that allows you to view all of the headers for a message. Message BodyMost e-mail clients will allow you to choose between a plain text and HTML format for your messages. HTML will allow you to include links and images just like a webpage. However, HTML messages are larger and are often used maliciously for things like phishing. Because of this some e-mail clients might show only plain text by default and ask permission to show HTML.[6] Message SignatureMost e-mail clients allow users to set up a personalized e-mail signature. That is, some information that will automatically be placed at the bottom of all written e-mails. This can be a quote, a silly image, or perhaps contact/business information. See your current e-mail client's help section to learn how you can set it up for yourself. Further Readings
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