Email: Electronic Mail

What is electronic mail?
How does email work?
Email addresses.
Email program basics.
POP Mail
Organizational Zones
Header Codes
Emoticons
Configuring Netscape
Configuring Eudora

WHAT IS ELECTRONIC MAIL?

Electronic mail is the most frequently used tool (protocol) on the Internet. Often the term is shortened to "email" or simply "mail." For many users, electronic mail is often their first encounter with the Internet and the only Internet service that they use. The importance of email cannot be overstated. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the global economy is now dependent on Internet mail. On a very human level, the desire to communicate is the very basis of all computer networking: email allows people separated by great distances to talk and work together.

On the Internet, you can send and receive mail from anyone else who is also connected to the Internet. Essentially, email is a letter or document composed, sent, received, and read by means of computers. Most often email contains simple text based messages but email can also transport anything (word processing files, images, video, sound, software programs, etc.) that can be sent as an attachment.

HOW DOES EMAIL WORK?

Email is based on the "store-and-forward" system for transporting mail (analogous to the snail-mail Postal Service). Mail is simply sent to, stored, and retrieved from computers that are set up as mail servers (like the post office in real life). When you send an email message to a person, it is sent and stored on the mail server of that person's Internet server provider. That person retrieves the message by accessing his/her account on that same mail server and downloading their messages to their personal computer.

EMAIL ADDRESSES

Email addresses usually have two parts connected by the @ sign: matrix@pilot.msu.edu, matrix@aol.com. The part to the left of the @ sign is the client's username. The part to the right side of the @ sign is the domain name (the name of the computer server at which the client has his/her account). The domain name often tells you who is running the server and the kind of organization it is. For example, pilot.msu.edu, tells you that the account is on the Michigan State University server (.msu) and it is an educational organization (.edu). Aol.com tells you that the account is on the American Online server (.aol) and is a commercial account (.com).

EMAIL PROGRAM BASICS

There are many electronic mail programs for each computer platform. Most email programs are fairly similar in their basic features: composing, sending, receiving messages. All mail programs have some sort of system based on an Inbox, Outbox, and Trash concept to organize the mail messages.

Most email programs use a program called telnet to send, view, compose, and retrieve mail by connecting to remote computer (your mail server). More advanced Email client applications have been developed that perform more like word processors than the simple text editor of telnet and allow users to perform more

Beyond the basic ability to send and receive mail, almost any email program will have the following universally supported features (standard features common to most other mail systems): aliasing, folders, forwarding, reply, carbon copies (and blind carbon copies), signature files. The following are some of the basic email programs:


Pilot

The email program used here at MSU.

• Tutorials and Information on Using Pilot - http://www.msu.edu/user/cic/pilot/index.html

ELM

ELM is much easier to use than Berkely mail but does not have all the features (including extensive on-line help) that pine does.

• Getting Started--http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/elm/elm.getting.started.html
• Detailed Tutorial and Help--http://www.eng.hawaii.edu/Tutorials/elm.html
• The Elm Pages--http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/elm/

Pine

Pine is the one of the easiest to use and most feature laden email programs available. It incorporates menus, on-line help, an easy to use editor (PICO), and support for multimedia (MIME).

• Brief Tutorial--http://www.math.utah.edu/~calfeld/creations/guides/PineTutorial

POP (Post Office Protocol)

The popularity of POP mail has grown dramatically in the past year. POP, which stands for Post Office Protocol, runs on a PC or Macintosh as a client application. It communicates with a POP server, which typically runs on a UNIX system. This means that the mail you get is initially received and stored on the UNIX system. However, you read the mail using software that is installed on your PC or Macintosh. There are several reasons why you may want to use a POP mail system:

• POP clients are usually native applications to your desktop environment. In other words, the Windows and Macintosh POP clients look and feel just like any other Windows or Macintosh application.

• Since mail is delivered and stored on a UNIX system, your local computer doesn't need to worry about how to send and receive mail and how to communicate with other computers. In fact, your computer doesn't even need to be turned on or connected to the network for your mailbox to receive new mail. That's all done on the remote system. When you are ready to send or read new mail, your POP client makes a connection to the remote server and transfers any new mail.

• Since the email is downloaded onto your computer and stored on your hard drive or disk, POP clients make it easier manipulate and organize email and folders as well as send and receive email attachments.

• POP clients allow you to use MIME (Multimedia Internet Mail Extension) for more control over formatting your email (fonts, colors, and so on).

• Many of the POP clients are free and often come bundled with your Internet browser.

POP clients work by downloading and then deleting messages from the POP server, which can make it difficult to use two computers (one at home and one at the office); however, POP clients include an option to "Leave Mail on Server." If this option is turned on, the messages are downloaded, but not deleted, from the server. This allows you to view a message from one POP client, but leave it on the server for another client to view. For example, you could set your office computer to download messages and delete from server so that you have a complete log of your email at work. But you can set your home computer to leave messages on server, allowing you to check for new messages without deleting them from the server.

Email standards such as X.400 and SMTP on the Internet provide the ability to send text messages in the ASCII. However, under these systems messages could not use non-English symbols such as accents and other diacritics, as well as non-Roman alphabets. In addition, the transmission of images, sounds, and other members of the stock and trade of the multimedia industry, as well as multiple fonts and text styles, was out of the question.

Some standards existed, such as UUENCODE/UUDECODE, which could be used to send non-ASCII files such as executables and pictures across conventional email systems; however, these methods are not very general, and require some expertise on the part of the users.

To solve these and other problems, the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) standard was proposed. The MIME standard allows multiple character sets, embedded pictures and binary documents, even sound and video, using the existing mail systems.

After you install a POP client on your computer, it must be configured. You need to tell the POP client who you are, how to retrieve new messages, and how to deliver outgoing messages. The following configuration items are present in most POP mail clients:

• POP Account: This is the account and POP server to check for new mail. On the ITS cluster, you would specify username@mail.h-net.msu.edu
• Real Name: Your full name as you want it to appear in the From: field of your outgoing messages.
• Return Address: This is your actual email address. On the ITS cluster, you would specify username@mail.h-net.msu.edu
• SMTP: The name of a computer to handle outgoing mail. On the ITS cluster, you would specify smtp-mail.h-net.msu.edu.
• Ph: The name of a pH server. Not required.
• Finger: The name of a Finger server. Not required.

More Help on Configuring Eudora

More Help on Configuring Netscape Mail



POP mail clients

The following is a list of popular POP mail clients for the Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. Detailed information on how to configure the software is available for some of these products.

• Eudora -- http://www.eudora.com/products
• Pegasus Mail -- http://www.pmail.com/
• Netscape Navigator -- http://www.netscape.com
• Internet Explorer -- http://www.microsoft.com

Many people use Netscape Navigator as a web browser without realizing that it also has a very powerful and easy to use email client built-in.  These clients share the same easy to use interfaces that many are already accustomed to with Eudora or Outlook Express.

There are a couple of  advantages of using Netscape Navigator for these functions versus using other stand-alone clients.

1. Saving precious memory by not having to run multiple applications.
2. Saving precious money by not having to purchase separate applications.
3. Common interfaces/menus across the three programs.
4. Better text editor and more sophisticated features than a straight telnet feature.

 Netscape Navigator also handles attachments very well including automatic coding and decoding for most common formats.

Configuring Netscape for Email

The instructions will be applicable for both Macintosh and Windows versions of Netscape 2 and up.

• Go to Options -> Mail and News Preferences.
• Click on the Servers tab.

Configuring Mail:

• Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server: mail.h-net.msu.edu
• Incoming Mail (POP#) Server: mail.h-net.msu.edu
• Mail Directory: Leave at default (do not change).
• Maximum Message Size: Check None
• Messages are copied from the server to local disk, then:

Check "Removed from the server"

• If you do not plan to access you email account from anywhere else.

Or check "Left on server"

• If you plan to check your email from other places or with other mail clients.
• Please remember that you need to periodically delete old messages from your mail box.

• Check for Mail

Check "Every"

• If you have a direct network connection, you can enter the time (in minutes) that you want Netscape to check your mail.
• Please remember not to have Netscape check your mail too often because it causes unnecessary network traffic.
• Have Netscape check mail every 60 minutes is a good default option.
• You can have Netscape check mail at anytime by clicking on "Get Mail".

Or check "Never"

• You can have Netscape check mail at anytime by clicking on "Get Mail".
• This option is good if you have a PPP connection.

• Click on the Identity tab.

Your Name: (Enter your real name)

Your Email: (Enter your full email address, i.e. jon@mail.h-net.msu.edu)

Reply-to Address: (Enter your full email address)

Your Organization: (Enter the name of your organization or department)

Signature File: (Enter the path to your signature file)

• A signature file usually consists of your name, phone number, office location, etc.. that is automatically appended to the end of every email message that you create.
• You can create a Netscape signature file by using a text editor like Notepad.
  
  

Configuring Eudora

Eudora Settings


These settings are for Eudora/Eudora Light on all platforms.

• Open Eudora.
• Select the "Special" pull-down menu.
• Select "Settings"

• Select the "Getting Started" icon on the left side of the screen and type in your popmail account on the right. This MUST be in lowercase.  Your POP account will generally be your full email address(for example: Jon Doe would be jon@mail.h-net.msu.edu)
• In the "Real Name" box, enter your name (This is not case sensitive).

• Select the "Personal Information" icon.
• In the "Return Address" box, enter your popmail account (this will be the same as the "POP account", which is the top box).  The "POP account and "Real Name" boxes should be filled automatically.

• Select the "Hosts" icon.
• In the "SMTP" box, you can enter in smtp-server - usually everything after the @ in your email address. 

• Select "Checking Mail".
• Make sure your settings have "Send on Check" selected.  Authentication style should be "Passwords."

• Select "Sending Mail"
• Your settings should like like these below:

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