What Is E-Mail?

E-mail is simply short for electronic mail. It's called electronic because we don't write words by hand, stuff an envelope, put stamps on, and drop it in a mail box. We type on a computer and click a button to send a message to someone. But what's behind it all? I'll try to sort out some of the terms you may have heard and clear up how e-mails works. Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express (which comes free with Internet Explorer), GroupWise, Netscape's Messenger, Eudora, are all e-mail programs. One key point that you should be aware of is that all of these programs are capable of sending and receiving Internet e-mail, but e-mail can also be separate from the Internet. For example, GroupWise and Outlook can be setup to do internal or corporate e-mail. This means that the messages never use the Internet as the medium of transport.

So What's Internet E-mail?

Internet e-mail is the stuff that most people are familiar with. You might see addresses such as mom@aol.com or billgates@microsoft.com . Your e-mail finds you because there is so much information contained in that little address. Let's break down the parts so that they are understandable. There are actually three components of an Internet e-mail address: a username; the @ symbol; and the domain name.

The username is the name assigned to a user of the system and it is unique to the corporation, educational institution, or company running the e-mail system. For example, my username is arush because my first name is Andrew and my last name is Rush. This is the most common form of user name creation - first initial and last name (usually totaling eight characters or less). Now if there were an Alan Rush where I work, then they would have to slightly alter the format for his e-mail address. They might add his middle initial.

Next comes the @ symbol . This is what tells the e-mail system that it is Internet e-mail, and it also tells the system where the username ends and where the domain name begins. So what is this domain name thing? The domain name is the location of the e-mail system. This system is run on a computer known as an e-mail server. Any e-mail address with a specific domain name attached to it will be directed to the e-mail server for that company. A domain name is made up of two parts.

The first part of a domain name is usually the company name. You've probably heard of microsoft.com, amazon.com and yahoo.com. These are commercial domains because they have .com added to them (hence .com for commercial). The microsoft, amazon, and yahoo parts are known as the secondary domain. The top level domain (TLD) is the letters after the period. The TLD known as .com is by far the most common and best recognized. Other TLDs include .edu , .org , .net , .gov , .mil , and there are more being created. Now because these names need to be unique, there can't be two companies registered as microsoft.com, so it's first come (or first registered), first served. There is an organization that controls the registration process that can tell you whether the domain name has been taken or not.

"You've got mail!"

There are very few people, at least in the U.S., that haven't been touched by email. It is the simplest way to use the Internet. You simply use an email program, type in some text, address it (using the address format we mentioned above), and click the send button. The email program keeps track of it all for you. Incoming email arrives in your Inbox. Outgoing mail is either sent immediately or temporarily stored in an Outbox. Messages you have sent go in the Sent Items folder. You can store messages that have come to you in separate folders for later retrieval and better organization. You can also keep email addresses of people you correspond with in an addressbook within the email program.

Email messages are really just basic text files, and they usually travel quite quickly on the Internet. However it is also possible to include files and/or documents with an email. Known as attachments, this can be an easy way to move an electronic file from one person to another, but BE CAREFUL! Those files can actually be viruses. Know who is sending you files, and don't open files from those you don't know. Even question those you do know. There is more detailed information about How Email Works at the How Stuff Works web site .