E-MAILA 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• 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 computere.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" for example. 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

AOL GmailRackspace

Email Windows Live Mail Yahoo Mail

Cost Free Free$1/m

10 user min Free basics Free basics

Storage Unlimited>7 GB and counting 10 GB 5 GB and growing Unlimited

Attachment limit 25 MB 25 MB 50 MB 10 MB 25 MB

Browsers supported All All All

All, but some issues with safari

IE, Firefox, Chrome

Automatic forwarding No Yes Yes Partial

Plus members only

Client Email for other server Yes POP3 only POP3 only POP3 only *

The AOL web page

Sign-up for a Yahoo account

Some Google apps…

Gmail message page

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)

How large an image?

Image size = 200 pixels

Image size = 500 pixels

Image size = 800 pixels

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.