Question: What is a email?

Answer: Electronic mail (e-mail) is a message sent electronically over the internet.

E-mail usually arrives at its destination in a matter of seconds.

 Everybody that uses the internet has a unique e-mail address. E-mail addresses always have an ampersand (@) in them. This seperates the username from the location that their mail is stored. E-mail addresses are CaSe SeNsItIvE - so if someone reads you an e-mail address - ask about the capitals.

 Just like the postman must be able to read the address to hand deliver your regular mail, (snail mail - it's referred to on the internet, because it take so long to get there) the e-mail address must be exact in order for the computers to deliver it to your electronic mailbox.
 

username @ mailserver
bwjames @ usd.edu

Here are a few e-mail terms that you should be familiar with.
 
 

address book list of personal contact with their e-mail addresses
forward  sends the origional message on to someone else 
reply sends a e-mail to the sender of the message you are currently reading (sort of like someone sending you a self addressed stamped envelope) - this copies the senders e-mail address as well as the text from the message, you type your additional comments if necessary and send the message.
attachments sends actual documents created with other programs along with (or attached to) your e-mail
CC
carbon copy		 sends the same message to several people (seperate their addresses with commas)
BC
blind carbon copy		 send message to several addresses without showing everyone all of the addresses (this is a good way to avoid those annoying messages that are 2 lines but 4 pages of addresses you really could care less about)
bounced if a message has a invalid e-mail address it will be marked undeliverable and will bounce back to your e-mail address (the sender)
Question: I've got a million e-mail messages on my hard drive. What should I do to avoid this?
    Answer: Too often people keep everything they get. If it's garbage - DELETE IT! If it's important - make a directory and organize the important stuff so that you will be able to find it and retrieve it.
Question: What is a good e-mail program to use?
 
 
    Answer: Eudora by Quailcom comes in both a freeware version and a more robust commercial version. Both are excellent. Microsoft also offers a free e-mail program Microsoft Outlook Express which is very good. These require a SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) server so they will not work with hotmail or many other free web based mail services.
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