Personal Computer Fundamentals
Using E-Mail
In this lesson, you will learn:
Email Readers are programs that read email. That means that the prerequisite for any email reader is an active internet or network connection. Email readers are generally pre-installed. These programs are usually automatically installed with the operating system. The developers of each operating system load these readers for convenience for the user, but they are also "matched" to play nicely with the operating system. In the early days this was very important, because a program developed for one type of system would not work well on the other. So several different readers were developed, each with its own set of features. So buying one type of system, like an IBM machine, meant that programs developed for the other types of systems (OS2, Mac, etc.) would not work.
Today, it is not so much of a problem. Most of the features that are most commonly used are incorporated in the program as developers have recieved feedback on what works, what is necessary and what doesn't work Some of the email readers that have survived over time are Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Mac OS X Mail, along with the Internet readers: AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Google Etc. Most of these have features that enable chat, music connections and other features. Office suites, like MS Office, have Business level Email readers, like Outlook, that process scheduling, contact distribution lists, Calendar functions etc. They are not exclusively email readers, but office business tools covered in another section.
Although each program's general look and feel are closer to being the same, with the same general navigation and features, the actual programs can behave very different from each other. If you have an email program that is the "default" for the computer, (in other words, it came on the computer and each time you click on "Email" it always opens the same program) and you want to change so another program opens, generally this has to be done in the "System" control panel, or in the properties of the email reader that you want to use. If you need to change which program responds, generally the easiest way to change it is to open the program you prefer to use, go to the "Properties" or "Settings" page and select "Use this as my default email reader".
Because each program is slightly different, the properties settings, the email set up and the look and feel will be slightly different. As a general rule, they all have to be pointed to the place that your eamil resides on a server. If you are getting email though your internet ISP, like AOL or Earthlink, for instance, the email readers have to be set up to log onto the server, pick up the email and send out email and then log back off nicely without leaving connections open. Each program will have a help file demonstrating how to set up you "account" on the reader that can go out and find the server.
At a minimum you will need the email information given to you when you set up your internet connection. It will give the name of each type of server. You must select the one you are using and enter the name exactly as it appears on your paperwork. You must enter your exact username, password and the account settings also.
Setting up email on wireless is similar, except your wireless connection must be active and functioning before any attempt at setting up email accounts.
Composing an email properly will prevent your emails from ending up in the "junk" mail or not being sent at all! Because there is so much spam and email fraud, most ISPs routinely screen "suspect" emails and either delete them or send them to a folder called "Suspect mail", "Junk Mail" or "Spam". To prevent this there are some general guidelines that will help:
For sensitive emails, like legal correspondance, sending a copy to yourself using the Bcc: area can park a copy of the mail in your inbox and give you a record of what you sent, to who and when. Bcc: means Blind Carbon Copy, which is a way of sending something to someone else without the original recipient (in the TO: box) knowing who else you sent it to. Sending to yourself gives a duplicate copy of what is in you "Sent Items" folder, but is easier to place into another folder under "Inbox". For instance, any correspondance regarding a purchase can be placed in a folder called "Purchases" under inbox and you still have the original in the "Sent Items" folder.
Each E-mail reader has it's own address book. Generally it is a button or a menu item and may be difficult to find, in some cases.
When first learning computers and programs, it is sometime easier to let the program do things automatically for you. In the case of Address book, this is a good example of how doing things "automagically" can save learning time.
When opening an E-mail there is usually an option on the top or side to "Add This Person to the Address Book" or "Guest Book" etc. Selecting "Yes" will fill in the entries for you with all of the information about that person that is contained in the email. Usually the Address book entry will have the first name, last name and email address as a minimum and you can go to the listing and edit the entry, adding information as needed.
However, remember that the Address book is for automatically filling in E-mail addresses for you. It is NOT meant to be a contacts forlder or a place to add personal information like street addresses, home phone numbers, cell phone numbers etc. Adding too much information on the contact list fills each E-mail that you send to that person with their information that is readable by all on the internet! There are programs designed to "scrub" E-mails and "Strip" the header information from the message and park that info into a database file and the listing is then SOLD to companies that market or target individuals for different purposes. You probably do not want your friend or family to be subject to the problems that this can cause.
As a rule of thumb, keep the E-mail address book listing that is located inside of any E-mail reader to a minimum. First Initial, Last Name and E-mail address. Nothing more. That way you will not become the source of spam, junk mail, identity theft, or unwanted phone calles or sudden home visits.
So if the "Address Book" isn't for placing Street Addresses and phone numbers, what is?
Here lies one of the main differences in E-Mail Readers and E-mail Office PROGRAMS. In E-mail readers, the Address book is for the public. In other words, it is just for your E-mail to help you keep track of names and E-mail addresses. That means Internet names, not necessarily legal names. E-mail readers allow groupings of different addresses under one name. By using groups, like "My Family, Her Family, Relatives, Work etc. the people in these groups will ALL recieve the same letter even though you only write one and send it one time. This is a tremendous time saver! Creating groups and placing different contacts into those groups will save a lot of time, as you only do it once and use it as many times as you need to. It is easy to use and has only a few possible features which keeps it simple.
Office Programs, like Outlook (Not Outlook Express: main purpose is a reader) are for inside, or personal or work related contacts. These programs are specifically designed for a large amount of users, larger listings, more fine detail and most of all.... SECURITY. The "Groups" are called "Distribution Lists" and have exactly the same functions. These lists can be created from the "Contact Lists", which can be generated or created on large scales. These are internal (to the company for instance) for communication inside of the corporation, and the lists include departments, contact phone numbers and schedule times. The Distribution list is not available throughout the rest of the internet and firewalls and routers are set up by professionals that deal in security. Distribution lists and Calendars, Scheduled Tasks and Specific settings for E-mail are what these programs do best. Generally they are not as user friendly as a smaller-scale "Reader".
As mentioned previously, some mail ends up in the "Junk Mail" of "Spam" category. What makes the mail go there instead of the inbox? How can I keep some mail out of the Junk or Spam box?
Each reader and program has set rules that deterimine if the message that was sent out was "friendly" or if it contains certain words, phrases or comes from a source that is known to contain advertising or solicitations or malicious code. The Junk and Spam "Filters" are your friend and help keep users from opening files or having their inbox stuffed with hundreds of emails over time, none of which you wanted or asked for.
Each reader has "Personal Preference" settings that can be changed to keep the reader "smart". If you have any messages inside of the Junk/Spam folders, simply right clicking and selecting "This is not Spam" or "Move to Inbox" will flag the program to not count the sender as part of a spam list. Selecting "Move to Inbox and Add Contact" will place the sender into your Address book for you (Not inside of one of the groups). Then when sending letters and correspondence the new "contact" will be available along with your others contacts inside the Address book.
Which brings us to E-mail size. Large files can end up inside of the Junk/Spam folder regardless of who sent it, along side of those with improper subject lines, missing subject lines, attachments that are too big (like Pictures), attached movies, attached sound, attached databases, programs or scripts etc. So it is wise to check the Junk/Spam folder often and move files back out into your inbox BECAUSE:
You cannont open E-mails from inside the Junk/Spam folders! These messages are "Quarentined" just as if they had a virus, and there is a good possibility that they do. So to open the file it has to be MOVED to the inbox, which is something only you, (as a human) can do. A machine cannot do this automatically, ensuring that it was moved OUT of the Junk/Spam folder in INTO the inbox ON PURPOSE. In other words, a human made a decision to physically move the file. That means that whoever moved the file takes responsibility for what happens when the file is opened. If you are logged in on the machine and the computer gets a virus, guess where the very first place that a technician will look for the source? YOUR E-mai! Which means YOU did it!
When the message is move into the Inbox, all of the security settings attached by the reader to that file are removed. OPEN AT YOUR OWN RISK. If you are very sure it is from a legitimate source then is is probably safe.
Usually there is a warning that the mail box is getting full, or a bar graph will show the percent of the space used.
Most internet ISPs that handle E-Mail insist on enforcing mail box size limits. You could imagine if thousands of people each have over 10 messages, that the amount of space needed by the servers grows as the message boxes fill up. In the early days, disk space was a bigger issue with ISPs because smaller disks meant that more units were needed and entire rooms and cabinets were needed to keep up. So as a general rule they allowed a maximum of 10 Mb of space for each user.
Storage technology has advanced to the point that restrictions are a thing of the past in some cases. Some ISPs set their limits to 100Mb (Thousands of messages for each person!). To fill up 100Mb of disk space is not as difficult as you might think!
The question is: what counts against the quota, and what doesn't? In some cases Sent Items and Junk/Spam counts and in some places it doesn't. But the Inbox, ALL of the folders that the user created under Inbox and the Deleted Items and "Large Messages" (if there is one), Undeliverable Messages and Some RSS feed connections DO count.
So emptying your Deleted Messages folder will help. The Sent Items may help, anything not needed in "Inbox" will count and any folders created will also count. "Address Book" entries are so small that it probably won't make much of an impact on the folder size.