Internet Communication – Part I, E-mail
by James Moore, Ph.D.
Copyright © 1996, James Moore
Our earlier columns have focused on that part of the Internet called the World Wide Web.
Although this is surely the most exciting and fastest growing part of the net, it is
important to note that the Internet is much more than just the web. Another use/view of
the Internet, e-mail, is also the oldest. Three decades ago, when the Information
Superhighway was still a dirt road, I was lucky enough to be a student in one of the
hotbeds of computer science where the Internet (then called the Arpanet) was being born.
We were thrilled to be able to “teletype” instantly (and free) to our colleagues anywhere
in the world.

Once restricted to a private club of researchers, military and government bureaucrats,
e-mail is now open to anyone, anywhere – provided only that they have a computer,
modem and an Internet account.

Should you care? Probably. Internet E-mail has several desirable features:

Instantaneous, your message is delivered immediately, anywhere in the world.
Convenient, no paper (white-out?), envelopes, stamps or mail pick-up.
Like fax or an answering machine, the recipient needn’t be home or awake – the message waits until he/she looks in their mailbox.
Informal, the culture encourages abbreviated, chain-of-consciousness messages.
You can design your web page to easily facilitate a surfer’s e-mail response to your message.
Your incoming e-mail is easily filed (in subject-related folders), edited, forwarded or replied to (without ever printing it!).
Of course, if you feel withdrawal pains, you can print it.
Easy bulk-mail, sending the same e-mail to an entire mailing list (but don’t send unsolicited promotional messages – a violation of net etiquette).
Free! Internet-access services charge nothing for e-mail, sending or receiving. (On- line services such as America On Line, Compuserve or Prodigy, do charge by the piece for e-mail).
Integrates easily with your existing word-processing procedures.

Although e-mail is traditionally limited to typed-only messages (like teletype), most e-
mail systems permit you to send and receive any sort computer file. This means that you
can e-mail drawings, photos, spreadsheets, formatted word-processing documents, sound
bytes, music, video clips – anything that can be stored as a file. So medical personnel can
exchange x-rays or EKGs, contractors can send blueprints, singers can send audition
recordings, etc.

How does it work? When you sign up with an Internet access service, you are assigned
an e-mail address of the form:
jimmoore@haven.ios.com

The first part (jimmoore) is your account name with this service; the last part (com) is a
general characterization of this service (com = commercial, net = internet service, edu =
educational organization, mil = military, gov = government – all US sites. Two-letter
suffixes indicate a foreign site – uk = Britain, au = Australia, ca = Canada, hk = Hong
Kong, it = Italy, fr = France, etc.) The middle parts (haven.ios) are dictated by the
service itself (in this case, the “haven” computer operated by Internet Online Services).
This naming structure guarantees that, like web page addresses, no two e-mail addresses
are alike.

The actual composition, sending, receiving, filing, printing, deleting, forwarding, replying
to, etc., requires an e-mail program running on your computer, but these are easily found
(cheap or free), installed and used.

As soon as you have established an Internet account, you should start publicizing your e-
mail address (business cards, advertising (see the ads on this page!), letterhead, …) and
watching for incoming e-mail. Collect e-mail addresses belonging to your customers,
employees, vendors, friends, or others you would like to include in one of these
categories. When you start sending, receiving and responding to e-mail, you will soon
appreciate the advantages and convenience of this old/new communication medium

(photo credit: Greg Wenger)
Information (310) 821-1519, fax: (310) 821-9079.
E-mail: jim@the-calculating-lady.com
Résumé: http://haven.ios.com/~jimmoore
Sample: http://itlnet.com/marina

Coming:
Internet Communication, Part II,
Long-distance (free!) voice