E-mail Basics
Welcome to our service, a free Web-based mailer. You don't need to have used
E-mail before to get started with our easy-to-use mailer. This page presents some basics
about E-mail and Web-based E-mail.
What is E-mail and how does it work?
Electronic mail (E-mail) may be the most popular use of the Internet today. It
allows people to send written messages, files, and pictures to other people, anywhere in
the world. All you need is an E-mail account and access to the Internet in order to
receive messages. E-mail messages are transferred over the Internet to the recipient's
E-mail address, as specified by the originator of the message.
What is Web-based E-mail?
Web-based E-mail is the technology that provides the access of an E-mail account
by a web browser. Using it is as easy as browsing to the web site, logging on and sending
or receiving E-mail messages. Using the web browser as an E-mail client makes the E-mail
account accessible from any computer connected to the Internet.
What does an E-mail address look like?
An E-mail address is a single line in the following format: user@host.domain
The part before the '@' sign is called the User Name. When you sign up, you can choose
your own user name, as long as no one else has previously chosen it. This is due to the
fact that user names are unique. After the '@' sign is the name of the system under which
the user's E-mail account resides, in this case: host.domain.
There are several types of domains. Companies or commercial organizations use
"com", while educational institutions use "edu" or "ac".
Government addresses use "gov" and military addresses use "mil".
Gateways and other administrative hosts for a network use "net", and private
organizations use "org".
Countries also have their own domains. Some examples of Country domains are:
au Australia, br Brazil, ca Canada, de Germany, uk United Kingdom.
A sub-domain is the portion directly in front of the domain name, in this case: host. For
example, "commtouch.com" has a sub-domain of "commtouch" with a
"com" domain, since CommTouch is a commercial organization. Other sub-domain
examples are: netscape.com, netcom.com, aol.com, compuserve.com, mit.edu, stanford.edu,
navy.mil, whitehouse.gov & ieee.org |