Advanced Email Workshop Home Page

Many computer applications can be used to send & receive email including Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, AOL's browser, Netscape, Pegasus, and many others. The concepts explained below should apply to your preferred email program although some of the commands and menu options may be worded differently. You can configure any of these programs (which are usually free) to read your email.

To send email you simply need to be using a computer that is logged onto the Internet. You do not really need to have your own email address in order to send an email message. You would need to have an email address to receive email though.
To send an email message, you do need to know the recipient's email address. It will most likely be a string of letters and/or digits which includes the at symbol (@) somewhere in the middle. As soon as you click a button that probably says "Send", the email message will be delivered and cannot be cancelled.
Your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) mail server actually sends the message to the recipient's ISP's mail server. The mail server is simply a designated computer that acts as a postman. The next time the recipient checks his/her email, he/she will be able to read it. You will not necessarily know when exactly that person reads his/her email.
Email often only takes minutes to be routed to the recipient however there is no guarantee and it could take over a day in rare instances.
If an email message is undeliverable (most likely because of a misspelled address), it often will "bounce" back to the sender with a message indicating why it was undeliverable. There is no guarantee though that this will happen.
Valid email addresses consist of a person's username, the at symbol (@), and the person's domain name (which usually stands for their ISP.) For example, in the address, johndoe@bellatlantic.net, the username is "johndoe" and the domain is "bellatlantic.net". At the Wyomissing Area School District, teachers are assigned usernames that consist of a first initial and last name. For example, Mr. Curt Minich's username is cminich. The domain name at the school district is wyoarea.k12.pa.us so Mr. Minich's full email address is cminich@wyoarea.k12.pa.us.

	To write an email message, click on a menu option or button that says something like, "New Message." On the resulting window, you must type the recipient's email address into the To: area. Most email addresses should be typed in lowercase letters although if you are not sure, you should check with the recipient. Never add any spaces to the middle of an email address. You can then click in the body area of the blank message in order to type the actual message. Some people send HTML email which allows them to add color, bold, and other interesting features to the body of their message. Not everyone however can receive this type of email and unless you know that your recipient prefers HTML email as opposed to generic text, do not send such email. You may, but are not required to, type a short, attention-grabbing description of your email in the Subject (or SU:) area of your email. Some people receive dozens of emails daily that include junk mail. You need to use the Subject line to give the recipient a reason to read YOUR piece of email.

	You can usually click a menu option or button that says something like "Get Mail" in order to download new mail from your ISP's mail server. Some email programs though allow you to set the options/preferences to have new email downloaded every 10 minutes or every hour. Sometimes, the email program will even cause your modem to be dialed to establish an Internet connection. You must set your email program's options/preferences in order to be able to receive email. Usually this is automatically done when you install the software given to you by your ISP. It is possible though to read your email on a computer at your workplace or friend's home by changing the options/preferences settings for username & incoming (POP) mail server.

	TO: This is the recipient's email address. SU: This is the subject line. It is optional but recommended that you fill it in. Body You type the bulk of the message here. FROM: This is your email address. Usually it is optional. CC: This stands for courtesy copy or carbon copy. By filling in an email address in this area, a copy of the message goes to that person as well as the recipient. BCC: This stands for blind carbon copy. By filling in an email address in this area, a copy of the message goes to that person as well as the recipient however the recipient cannot tell that the message went to anyone else. signature This is a short description of yourself that is automatically attached to the bottom of every email message that you send. Some people include their mailing address, phone number, company information here. It is not an actual handwritten signature. attachment This is a file that is attached to an email message. For example, you could attach a picture (a graphics file) or a spreadsheet to an email message. The recipient however may not be able to open the attachment unless he/she has the same program that created the attachment on his/her computer. You may have difficulty finding where your email program stores attachments on your hard drive. Chances are if you do find the attachment, you can double-click on its name to open it in a compatible application.

	Usually your email program will be set to download your email from your ISP's mail server. However, you can set your email program's options/preferences to "leave the messages on the server" so that you could still download the same emails on another computer. For example, if you set this option on your computer at work, you could still download the messages at home in the evening since they were left on the mail server. Usually email programs store new mail in a folder called your Inbox. You may delete messages individually by pressing the Delete key when they are highlighted. However, chances are a deleted message is still stored in your email program's Trash or Deleted folder. Look for a menu option that says something like "Empty Trash" in order to really delete all traces to those emails. You can create new folders in your email program to organize your email rather than leaving all of them pile up in your Inbox. Look for a menu option that says something like "Create New Folder" to do so.

Including attachments
- To include a file to an email message without actually having to type those words into the body of the message, you need to click on a menu option that says "Attach" or that looks like a paperclip (the typical symbol for attachment). Do this after you have created the message to which you want to attach the file.
- Sometimes people will compress (zip or uuencode) an attachment before they send it to you in order to save space and time. You can use a program like WinZip (see www.download.com) to uncompress such files.
It is convenient to forward and reply to email by using similarly named menu options or buttons in your email program. You simply highlight the message that you wish to forward to another person and then click the Forward option. The message will automatically go to the person whose address you type.
You can set up your own signature that you wish to appear on the bottom of all of your emails by going to your email program's options/preferences.
You can read (that is, download) your email on another person's computer by changing the incoming (POP) mail server in the options/preferences. To find out your incoming mail server, call your ISP. You will then need to type your username (the part of your email address that is before the @ symbol) in the options/preferences as well. Of course, you will be prompted for your password eventually. When you are finished, be sure to set everything back to the way it was on the computer that you were "borrowing." At the Wyomissing Area School District, the incoming mail server is "wyoarea.k12.pa.us" which happens to also be the part of a teacher's email address that follows the @ symbol.
It is convenient to set up mail filters in order to block out junk mail and to separate certain kinds of email from other kinds. This will not always block every piece of email but it can help. Look in your email program's options/preferences for "filter", "rules", or "agents" and follow the instructions.
Use the address book that is built into your email program to keep track of friends' email addresses. You can set up an address book to recognize nicknames so that you do not even need to type out whole addresses. You can also send group email messages by setting up a group in your address book. When you send one message to that group, duplicate copies actually go to each person in the group. You can even printout your address book on paper with some email programs. Look for an export option. If you can export in the comma-delimited format (.csv) for example, you can import the saved .csv file into a spreadsheet or word processor application.
Read an email's header or properties window in order to learn who really sent an email. To do so, look in your menu for the words "header" or "properties". This provides information such as when the email was sent and even from what computer the person sent the email.
If you wish to include a hyperlink within the body of an email that you are sending, you should type it like this: <a href= "http://www.minich.com" > Click me!</a> This will ensure that people using various email programs will be able to click an active hyperlink that takes them to the Web page. Make sure that you type a space before the first quotation mark and after the second one.

Using Outlook Express...
Your mail is in the directory "c:\windows\profiles\yourname\Application Data\Outlook Express\Mail". Back up all of the .mbx files. Your address book is stored in a file called yourname.wab in the folder "c:\windows\profiles\yourname\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book"
Using Netscape...
Your mail is in the directory "c:\program files\netscape\users\yourname\mail" and your address book is stored in a file called abook.nab in "c:\programfiles\netscape\users\yourname" . Back up everything in the yourname folder.
Eudora Light...
Your Mailbox files are in c:\eudora in files with .tox and .mbx extensions. Folders are stored in subdirectories with .fol extensions and attachments are in the Attach subdirectory. Back up the entire contents of Eudora's directory.