Chapter 6
Person-to-Person Online . . . E-mail
Join the club. Send an e-mail message to someone on the Internet. It's one of the easiest things you can do online. It's also one of the most popular.
Everyone's using it at home, at school and at work. It's used 150 percent more often than the Web is. Want to send a note to your sister? E-mail it. Want to send a copy of your daughter's report to your husband? E-mail it. Got a photo of the new baby you want to share with everyone in the family? You've got it . . . e-mail it.
And the best part is when they write back. It's instant gratification. You'll soon learn that there are few sounds sweeter than the sound of "You've got mail!" when you sign onto America Online. (My three-year-old niece chants that line whenever my sister or brother-in-law logs-on.)
You can get an e-mail-only account, although most ISP accounts and online service accounts include at least e-mail and Internet access. One company, Juno Online, offers free e-mail accounts. It sells advertising space to defray the cost of the e-mail service. If you're willing to put up with the advertisements, you can get free e-mail. You can reach Juno Online by phone at 800–654–JUNO, or reach them online at www.juno.com. They'll send you the software at no charge.
Your ISP or online service will supply you with their e-mail software. There's no additional charge for this software. Online service providers, such as America Online and CompuServe, automatically configure your e-mail, so you can send it and receive it as soon as you get online. It's a lot harder to configure your mail program when you're using an ISP, since it requires configuring your browser. This is one of the reasons I suggest getting online with America Online, CompuServe, Prodigy or MSN before you venture forth into the uncharted wilderness of ISPs and web browsers.
(Hang in there . . . I promise that this stuff will be over before you know it . . . ) There are several popular e-mail programs used with ISP accounts, including Netscape Navigator's and Microsoft's Internet Explorer's e-mail programs. These are browser mail programs. They're a pain in the neck to set up, but worth the trouble. Once they're set up, they're easy to use.
If you know someone who can configure the browser for you . . . this is a good time to call and plead . . . bribes are usually in order. (I understand that Twinkies, Yo-Hoo and Cheese Doodles are the bribes of choice among computer geeks "in the know.")
Each e-mail address has two parts, your mailbox user name and the domain name of your e-mail server, separated by an "@." But many people using online services, such as AOL and CompuServe, have gotten used to using just their screen name and those of their friends on the same service to address mail and leaving out the "@" and domain name part.
These are short form e-mail addresses that only members of the same e-mail system can use. If you're both members of AOL, you can give them your screen name, and don't need to add the "@aol.com" part. (It's assumed. ) It's like giving your address to someone you know lives in the same town. You give them your street address, but leave out the town part of your address.
It won't work, though, when you try to send an e-mail to someone who uses a different service than yours. Try sending a letter to someone using the U.S. Postal Service with just a name and street address—leaving out the town, state and zip code. What are the chances of it getting there? (Now I know it's tempting at this point to speculate about how likely it is that any letter, even those properly addressed, will get delivered by the Post Office, but since many of the postal workers are my friends . . . I have refrained from commenting here.)
E-mail is sent to your ISP's mail server. It's like having all your mail sent to a post office box at your local post office. Instead of having to retrieve your mail yourself from your mail box, though, you can send your mail program. (Now if I could only train it to pick up my snail mail too (regular old fashioned postal service mail) . . . I'd never need to leave home again.)
One of the worst things about e-mail is the ease with which people and businesses can send you junk e-mail. And lots of junk e-mail! Junk e-mail is often referred to as "spamming" to the chagrin of Hormel which feels that comparing their "well-loved luncheon meat" to junk e-mail denigrates their product. (I "won't even go there," as my kids say . . . )
Some lawmakers are considering adopting laws that will regulate unsolicited e-mail. Until then, though, you're on your own. Many ISPs and online services give you controls to help keep junk e-mail from clogging up your e-mail boxes. When choosing your service provider, ask them what they have to help you with this problem.
Be careful when allowing your children to read spammed mail, since many hardcore sexual sites are linking to their sites directly from spammed e-mail messages and including sexually explicit graphics. When you open the mail, clicking on the text will whisk your children away to the site or give them a first hand view of what you're trying to filter. (Some online services give you a parental control option that limits your children's e-mail to text only, to avoid the problem with spammed sexual images.) Let your service provider know if you receive these e-mails. Hopefully, they'll help.
I advise clients never to send anything over the Internet that they wouldn't want others to read. Think of e-mails as postcards. If you don't want your mailman to read it, send it another way. That's just plain smart computing.
You should know, though, that it's not very easy to intercept e-mail messages (employers monitoring and intercepting e-mails excluded). Remember when we talked about how messages on the Internet are broken into smaller units called "packets" that travel separately around the Internet? That makes it harder to intercept any message on the Internet unless you do it at the sending or receiving points.
But if you want to use e-mail to send your message and still want some guaranty of security, you can use an encryption program. My favorite is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). If you're ready for encryption, however, you've already outgrown this book. I suggest that you contact Phil Zimmerman at www.pgp.com. Tell him Parry sent you.
"Daemon" . . . Does that Mean My E-mail Is Possessed?
Sometimes you may receive a message from "Mail Delivery Subsystem" or "Mailer-Daemon" that says the e-mail address you were sending mail to could not be found, or that the message you sent "bounced." This means that there may be a problem with the e-mail address or the recipient's mail server. Check the address to make sure you sent the message to the right place. Sometimes, if the address is right, the recipient's e-mail server may have been down, and couldn't accept it. Try sending it again.
If none of those things work . . . call an exorcist. It can't hurt.
Hooray!! The Hard Part is Over!!!