E-MAIL
A Presentation
by Derek Southern
May 20, 2010
To SIR Area 2 CAT group
What is E-mail?
• E-mail is mail that's electronically transmitted by
your computer.
• It is the killer app of the Internet because of its
capability to send messages at any time, to
anyone, for less money than mailing a letter or
calling someone on the telephone.
• There are now more e-mail addresses than
telephone numbers in the world, and more people
have multiple e-mail addresses than multiple
telephone numbers.
Forget the jargon!
• You thought email was a simple concept, but you
can be confronted with acronyms and jargon like
POP, IMAP, WebMail, Aliases, Forwards, SMTP,
Quota, SPAM, TLS, SSL, and more!
• I will describe the ins and outs of email, explain the
most important terms, and help you figure out
which services and features you need from your
email service provider.
3 Fundamental Services
• Every email provider supplies you with three fundamental
services:
• A way to send email
• A way to receive email
• A way to store received email, at least temporarily
How to get started?
All you need to get started
• an e-mail account,
• an online connection,
• an e-mail program.
• for web-based e-mail a browser such as Firefox, Internet
Explorer, Chrome, Safari, or Opera (latest version!)
• and (of course) a computer (does not need to be high
powered!)
Types of E-mail Accounts
• From your Internet service provider (ISP)
e.g. sirjohn@comcast.net
• Stand-alone program – you run an e-mail program
on your computer. This is called an “e-mail client”-
messages can be downloaded to your own
computer
e.g. Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Windows Live Mail
• Web-based e-mail – you need a browser to read
your mail. Messages (usually) stay on provider‟s
server.
e.g. sirbill@yahoo.com or -@Gmail.com or -@msn.com
ISP Accounts
• Everyone who signs up for Internet access from
their local ISP (Internet Service Provider) can
choose an e-mail address like “you@earthlink.net".
Some ISPs allow multiple e-mail addresses linked
to your main account. Comcast allows six plus your
main account.
• If you change ISP providers because you decide to
move or find one with a lower price, you can't take
your old address with you
The Comcast E-mail center
An E-mail message on Comcast
The ZIMBRA e-mail client
Windows Live mail
Add E-mail account to Win Live Mail
MS Office Outlook
CAPTCHA
A CAPTCHA is a program that can generate and grade tests
that humans can pass but current computer programs
cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text as the
one shown below, but current computer programs can't:
Web-based E-mail - 1
• Normally FREE! Unless you need to buy a
LOT of storage space. Popular versions from
Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL
• Read your mail anywhere – from any
computer with internet access and a modern
browser
Web-based E-mail - 2
• No Special Software - Beyond a modern web
browser, which comes with most computers, no
special software is required to use WebMail, and
no time needs to be spent configuring software.
• Can Be Secure - Some WebMail applications run
over a secure connection between your browser
and the email provider's servers
Disadvantages of Web-based E-mail
• Internet Required - You cannot view any of your
email unless you are connected to the Internet --- it
can be slow or fast!
• Disk Space - Since your email messages are
stored on your email provider's servers, they take
up his disk space. Your email provider may limit the
amount of disk space you can use, or charge you a
premium for additional disk space
• Features - Your WebMail program may not provide
you with as many features as you would have if you
used an Email Client for reading your email.
Does your Web-based E-mail offer:
• sending attachments
• viewing attachments online
• viewing messages written in particular languages
• address books
• personalities
• spell checking
• read receipts
• SPAM filtering
• auto responders
• email aliases
• etc.
Web-mail provider information
Rackspace
AOL Gmail Email Windows Live Mail Yahoo Mail
$1/m
Cost Free Free 10 user min Free basics Free basics
>7 GB and
Storage Unlimited counting 10 GB 5 GB and growing Unlimited
Attachment
limit 25 MB 25 MB 50 MB 10 MB 25 MB
Browsers All, but some issues IE, Firefox,
supported All All All with safari Chrome
Automatic Plus members
forwarding No Yes Yes Partial only
Client Email
for other
server Yes POP3 only POP3 only POP3 only *
The AOL web page
Sign-up for a Yahoo account
Gmail message page
Gmail „labels‟
Gmail message area
Gmail Actions
Gmail message with attachment
Gmail with attached picture (640x479)
Google offers other goodies
Branch 8 Activity Calendar on website (956x670)
Compose a message in Gmail (429x366)
Creating an email (687x417)
Adding an image using the icon (479x656)
Email as received (631x573)
Some Google apps…
How large an image?
Image size = 200 pixels
Image size = 500 pixels
Image size = 800 pixels
Gmail settings – Forwarding and POP/IMAP
Reference for jargon definitions
• http://www.netlingo.com/word/e-mail-or-email.php
POP3
• POP3: The POP method is the traditional way of
accessing email, where messages are downloaded
directly to your computer. This is where you or your
computer assistant sets up an account within an email
client such as Outlook, and from that point on every time
you push the SEND/RECEIVE button, email messages
are downloaded into the inbox on your local computer
while simultaneously removing the messages from the
mail server.
IMAP
• The IMAP connection is somewhat of a cross between POP
and the web mail interface where the local email client
synchronizes with the different storage folders that can be seen
from the web interface (located on the email server). For
example, if you create a folder in the web mail interface and
call it FUNNIES and then use the synchronize feature in your
Outlook client using an IMAP connection method to the email
account, you can see messages in the FUNNIES folder. It
works the same in reverse. If you add a folder named EVENTS
to an account in Outlook using an IMAP connection, then the
next time you log into the corresponding web interface, you will
automatically see the same folder listed just underneath the
Inbox!
Web-mail + IMAP
• By utilizing both the mail interface and an IMAP connection, a
user can continue to use the resource intensive operations of
an client side email program (such as junk mail scrubbing,
content filtering, contact management, and events), as well as
sustaining the convenience of sharing email messages online.
Accessing messages online through the mail interface is like
peering into a window of messages that are still located on the
email server. This way, messages can continue to be shared
between computers having IMAP and the web interface
connections. However, it is not logically compatible with a POP
connection. Beware, once a POP connection is made, all of the
messages that were in the Inbox to be viewed by an IMAP
connection or the webmail interface will be removed. From that
point, it can only be seen on the computer that has the POP
account setup.
Web-mail, POP3, or IMAP?
• There are three available methods for accessing email:
the web mail interface, a POP connection, or an IMAP
connection. Each method offers a different way for you to
connect to your email that is hosted on our mail servers.
We strongly recommend that you only choose one
method of access, and not vary between them when
connecting to the same email account, which could result
in moderate awkwardness during account interaction.
Retrieving messages from a mailbox
using a client program
• Like most client programs, a Mail User Agent (MUA) is only active when a user
runs it. Messages arrive on the Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) server. Unless the MUA
has access to the server's disk, messages are stored on a remote server and the
MUA has to request them on behalf of the user.
• For personal computing, and whenever messages are stored on a remote system,
a mail user agent connects to a remote mailbox to retrieve messages. Access to
remote mailboxes comes in two flavors. On the one hand, the Post Office
Protocol (POP) allows the client to download messages one at a time and only
delete them from the server after they have been successfully saved on local
storage. It is possible to leave messages on the server in order to let another
client download them. However, there is no provision for flagging a specific
message as seen, answered, or forwarded, thus POP is not convenient for users
who access the same mail from different machines or clients. On the other hand,
the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) allows users to keep messages on
the server, flagging them as appropriate. IMAP provides sub-folders. Typically,
the Sent, Drafts, and Trash folders are created by default.
• Both POP and IMAP clients can be configured to access more mailboxes at the
same time, as well as to check each mailbox every given number of minutes.
IMAP features an idle extension for real time updates, providing faster notification
than polling where long lasting connections are feasible.