You probably know all this stuff, but…
Email is one of the oldest uses of computer networks. In fact, email predates the World Wide Web by more than two decades. Email was one of the first applications that was used to transport information on the Internet, when the Internet was nothing more than a few interconnected computers.
Today, email is used by millions of users across the world. There are different styles of email addressing, however the most popular email address format is the domain style address (used with the Internet and other TCP/IP networks). The email address consists of a user name and domain name, separated by an @ sign. For example:
john_doe@gmail.com
In order to use email you need an email address and a client that enables you to get your email, manage your email messages and send messages. Most email providers provide a browser-based interface. Although mail messages were originally plain text, and still are in most cases today, there are some newer features that let you enable the kinds of content that you can send and receive such as:
- Attachments: You can attach to your mail messages. Attachments can contain data that you couldn’t ordinarily keep in a mail message, such as a binary program, a word processing file or an image. The recipient of the mail attachment can either save the file to a local hard disk or open it in a program designed to read the attachment.
- HTML: The same stuff used to create web pages can be included in mail messages you create with certain mail clients. This lets you change fonts and colors, add backgrounds, insert images, or add HTML features.
Depending on the email client you are using, email management features let you direct incoming email into different folders and sort messages by date, sender, or other attributes, email sending features let you reply to messages, forward messages and draw names from an address boor or directory server.
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