Introduction

One of the first Internet Applications was Email. Email allowed individuals to communicate in asynchronous manner over long distances. Initially Email allowed researchers in universities and Defense Department Employees to communicate even though they were separated by time and space. Today Email is still the most heavily used application on the Internet. Email depends on the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol(SMTP) , the Post Office Protocol(POP3), and Internet Message Access Protocol(IMAP). POP3 and IMAP allow a client to access and manipulate mail messages on a server. SMTP is a mail transport and delivery protocol that also contains information that is used as a mail submission protocol for POP and IMAP. Two of the most popular Email Programs are Microsoft’s Outlook and Qualcomm’s Eudora. We will use Eudora for demonstration purposes.

Email Etiquette

• Be Polite in what say
• Do not nest forward messages
• Do not include long signature files
• Keep in narrow margins
• Consider you audience
• Spell things out
• Reread messages to make sure they make sense
• Do not write anything you want to keep private
• Do not write anything you will regret later

Eudora Example

The Eudora Inbox contains message retrieved from the mail server using the POP3 Protocol. The Inbox displays the following information about each message: Sender’s name, subject of the email, date sent, size of message in kilobytes, whether the message contains attachments, etc.

Setup Information

The Eudora setup screen requires the user to enter the following information given to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP):

• Mail Server (Incoming) – URL of POP3 or IMAP server
• Login Name- name required to login to POP3 or IMAP server, password also required (entered on another screen)
• SMTP Server (Outgoing) – URL of SMTP server which is used to send outgoing Email

Outgoing Mail

The Eudora program utilizes the New Mail Message screen to send an Email message. When sending an Email you are required to enter the receiver’s email address and some of the following fields:

• To – enter the receiver’s email address which consists of the name of the user’s email account on the POP3 or IMAP Server, the @ sign, and the URL of the POP3 or IMAP server
• From – sender’s email address, usually completed automatically by Email program
• Subject – a short description of the contents of the Email
• CC – carbon copy, any additional user’s email address that should receive the email
• BCC - Blind Carbon Copy, additional recipients not included in header
• Attached – files attached to Email, usually with MIME – Multimedia Internet Mail Extensions. MIME files are encoded before sending and then decoded on other side

Incoming Mail

Eudora displays the Header information, the body, and the signature of all incoming Email message.

• X-Sender - sender’s email address
• X-Mailer – name of sender’s email program
• Date – Date email was received in receiver’s time, adjusted for differences in GMT
• To – receiver’s name
• From – sender’s name and email address
• Subject – Subject of email, completed by sender
• Body – content of email

Signature

Short Text File Appended to mail message that contains: business name, email address, your name

More Information