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Need an E-mail package? check here.
Have a UNIX shell account at work and want
to get mail? Here's a program that will enable you to read
your shentel mail: http://sagan.earthspace.net/~esr/fetchmail/
Electronic mail gives you the ability to exchange messages
with anyone on the Internet. Your unique Internet mail address is
your PID followed by @shentel.net.
For example, if your PID is jsmith, your email address would
be: jsmith@shentel.net
You may send and receive individual messages or participate in
mailing lists of interest to you. You may also exchange text and
binary files with other e-mail users.
| Sending mail | | Receiving mail | | Header fields | | Nicknames and
groups | | Mail enclosures | | Using a signature | | Email to other online services |
Your email program
Eudora (Mac, Windows) and NuPOP (DOS) are types of
client/server mail. The "server" computer acts as an
e-mail post office, collecting letters addressed to people in the
local domain, and forwarding letters from local users to other
mail domains. The "client" program runs on your
personal computer, providing an interface for composing messages,
looking up e-mail addresses, acquiring and sending your mail.
Since the client only connects to the post office server long
enough to acquire new messages and send outgoing mail, the post
office computer can support many e-mail users.
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To send electronic mail, you only need
an Internet mailing address and a message. You'll compose it
using your mail client, and the software will take care of
delivering it when you are ready. See your Installation Guide for
more detail.
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When you retrieve mail it is moved
from the mail server to your computer's hard drive. Once it is
stored on your hard disk, you can read messages, discard them,
forward them, or reply to the sender.
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The header is the top portion of the
message that includes the address and subject fields. Below are
descriptions of some of the fields.
To: the recipient's e-mail address, multiple addresses
separated by commas.
Cc: (carbon copy) sends a copy of the message to this address
Bcc: (blind carbon copy) addresses listed here receive copies but
they aren't listed in the message header of the recipients. This
is useful when you want to send a copy of a message to someone
without everyone else knowing you did so.
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Email addresses can be long, complicated,
and cumbersome to type. A nickname can be assigned to act as an
easily remembered, shorter substitute. You can also assign a
nickname to a group of recipients. These nicknames can be used in
the To:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields. Each email program has a way of
creating, storing, and changing nicknames and groups.
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Very often you will want to send files
along with mail messages. If the file is simple text, you may
want to copy and paste it into the body of your message. If the
files are more complex such as word processing documents or
binary (e.g., software, .sea) files, you'll want to include them
as enclosures.
Make sure an outgoing message window is the current window.
Choose "Attach Document..." from the Message menu in
Eudora and "Append" from the File menu in NuPOP. Locate
the file you want to enclose and click on Open. The file will act
as a rider to the email message; it will not be seen within the
message text but the name of the file will appear in the header.
Plain ASCII text files will be added to the body of the message.
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A signature is a short file that you can
have appended automatically to every mail message that you send.
A signature is usually no more than three or four lines of
information about yourself. Items that often appear in a
signature are:
- Your full name
- Your email address, since it sometimes difficult to read
addresses from mail headers.
- Your phone number (some also include a fax number).
- Your title and company, if you wish.
Some also include a short quote from a famous (or not so
famous author) that they like or find particularly meaningful.
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All the major online computer
services allow their subscribers to send and receive email from
Internet users. Use the list below to make sure you address the
mail correctly.
- America OnLine (AOL)
- userid@aol.com
- Compuserve
- xxxx.yyyyy@compuserve.com
Note: Compuserve users often list their userids with a comma
separating the first four digits from the second five digits. Be
sure to use a period in place of the comma when addressing the
mail. Also, some Compuserve addresses vary in the number of
digits in the userid; use whatever is listed (that is, don't try
to change the number of digits to conform to the example above).
- Applelink
- userid@applelink.apple.com
- Delphi
- userid@delphi.com
- Fidonet
- To send mail to somebody who uses a Fidonet BBS, you need
the name they use to log onto that system and its
"node number". Fidonet node numbers or
addresses consist of three numbers, in this form:
1:322/190. The first number tells which of three broad
geographic zones the BBS is in (1 represents the U.S. and
Canada, 2 Europe and Israel, 3 Pacific Asia, 4 South
America).
- The second number represents the BBS's network, while the
final number is the BBS's "FidoNode" number in
that network. If your correspondent only gives you two
numbers (for example, 322/190), it means the system is in
zone 1. Now comes the tricky part. You have to reverse
the numbers and add to them the letters f, n and z (which
stand for "FidoNode," "network," and
"zone"). For example, the address above would
become
- f190.n322.z1.
- Now add "fidonet.org" at the end, to get
f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org.
Then add "FirstName.LastName@", to get
- FirstName.LastName@f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org.
- GEnie
- To send mail to a GEnie user, add @genie.geis.com to the
end of their GEnie user name, for example:
walt@genie.geis.com. Unlike users of other networks,
however, GEnie users can receive mail from Internet only
if they pay an extra monthly charge.
- MCIMail
- To send mail to somebody with an MCIMail account, add
@mcimail.com to the end of their name or numerical
address. For example:
- 555-1212@mcimail.com
or
- jsmith@mcimail.com
- Prodigy
- UserID@prodigy.com. Note that Prodigy users must pay
extra for Internet email.
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