Mouseclix

By: Hobie Lunin

E-mail Basics

When I ask new students what they would like to learn first on the computer, the most frequent answer is E-mail. It is no wonder, as e-mail is an easy and inexpensive way to communicate with friends and family sending notes (letters) of any length, attaching pictures and even short videos with sound.

That being the case, this article is about some e-mail/Internet basics. E-mail is similar to using the web in that you must be on-line to send and receive. You can be off-line to read and write your e-mail, but sometimes that depends upon your e-mail provider. E.g., Juno is set up for you to read and write off-line and then go on-line only to send and receive. AOL is web-based, so that you normally write your mail while you are on-line. This is not necessary as you can write a letter off-line and then copy and paste to your e-mail after you are on-line. What is different about e-mail is that it travels from your server to the server of the recipient directly.

As most of you know, a web address finds a web page and usually starts http://www… An e-mail address directs your letter to the server of the recipient. These address are usually a username, followed by the @ symbol and then followed by the name of the server: aol.com, msn.com, juno.com or att.net, etc. Neither www addresses nor e-mail addresses will have spaces in them. It does not matter whether you type it in upper or lower case either, something I am frequently asked. The only place where upper or lower case is critical is in a password. Remember that an e-mail address must be typed exactly, as the servers cannot determine whether you have made a slight error. The letter may be returned to you if the server cannot find the exact user address that you have typed.

You can send copies of your e-mail to other people at the same time, putting their e-mail addresses in the cc field separated by commas.

Abbreviations and emoticons are permissible in e-mail but typing an entire letter in caps is considered bad manners and is interpreted as shouting.

Be sure to enter something in the Subject field. This makes it easier to find a letter that you want to look at again. Remember to sign your letter (type your name) at the end. Often the senders e-mail address will appear on a received letter but may not be easily recognized by the receiver. It is good form to use a spell checker before you send your message. You can add a standardized signature at the end of your letter; check your e-mail options.

You can also attach text or photos to your e-mail. This procedure is pretty much the same in all e-mail programs although some use a paper clip symbol and others use the word “attachments.” Most questions about attachments have to do with receiving them and opening them. This varies some with the e-mail program but normally it is a case of clicking on the paper clip or the word “attachment” in order to see it. In some e-mails, if the letter you are receiving is a Forward of a Forward (like jokes) you may have to keep clicking on the forward until the letter actually shows up.

If someone has sent you a letter and you see many e-mail addresses on it, and you forward it, your address will be added to the list. If you do not want your e-mail address floating around in cyberspace like that, do not forward the joke. Just send the sender a thank you note. The same is true of chain letters.

If someone has sent you an e-mail attachment that you are unable to open, i.e., nothing shows up when you click on it, it probably means that you do not have a similar program in your computer to the one that generated to message. This is not unusual. The format is indicated by the three-letter file extension after the period at the end of the filename. For example, a .doc file extension means that the text was generated in Microsoft Word. If you do not have Word in your computer or a way to convert it, then you cannot open it.

One way to handle this is to ask the sender to change the format to .rtf or Rich Text Format. This can be opened by many different applications and is much more universal. Remember that Microsoft applications cannot always read other Microsoft applications as e.g., a text file in Publisher cannot be read in Word.

Before you send any e-mail letter, check to see that you have the correct e-mal address with no spaces and that you have done a spell check. It is not good form to send letters with misspelled words. It is too easy to have your letter spellchecked.

Some other e-mail tips: If you put the exact address (URL) of a web page in your e-mail letter, the recipient should be able to click on it and be taken directly to that web page. Conversely, if you see a “link” in an e-mail letter (blue wording underlined), you should be able to click on it and be taken directly to the web site. To return to where you were, click on the Back button in your browser.

Remember it is OK to send abbreviations in any e-mail as long as they are standard and you know that your recipient will know what it is.

Lastly, it really is not good manners to continually send forwarded jokes to everyone on your mailing list. They probably have already seen the page and don’t like getting inundated with repetitious stuff especially chain letters that claim you will have bad luck forever if you don’t forward the letter to everyone on your mailing list.

Hobie Lunin can be reached at mouseclix2@yahoo.com. Previous articles can be seen at http://mouseclix.tripod.com