What is E-mail?
By Matt Western.

In this article I will quickly introduce you to e-mail, what it is and why you may use it.

What is E-Mail?

E-mail may possibly be the most useful tool or service on the Internet.

The term E-mail is a shortening of its real name, Electronic Mail.

E-mail is really a service or function that you can take advantage of when you are on the Internet. There are e-mail programs such as Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express as well as programs from other Vendors such as Eudora and Pegasus, but the term e-mail really just describes the service.

E-mail and e-mailing is simply the act of sending and receiving message to and from someone or a group of people.

It can be thought of as the electronic equivalent of posting a normal letter in an envelope via the mail service.

Just like you have to address an ordinary letter to the person you are sending the letter to, likewise, you have to address an e-mail message you wish to send to someone.

Just as you would type or write what you want to tell the recipient of your letter, likewise you type what you want to say in your email.

Just as you would pop your letter into a letterbox for the postman to pick up and deliver, likewise your email message is delivered and arrives at an electronic post office and is sorted.

And just like your normal letter is delivered to your mailbox, your email message is delivered to your email mailbox.

What can I do with E-mail?

Email is fairly versatile, there are many things you can do with it and many things you can include and send with your message.

An email message can contain a message of just one or two lines or may contain the contents of an essay.

You can include pictures (electronic pictures, not physical pictures) in your email, you can include sound, you can colour your email and have it appear bright and sparkly or dark and gloomy.

It is possible to send an email message to one person or a group of people. One neat thing you can do with email that you can't do with normal mail is that you can type up one letter and as I just mentioned send it to many people without having to send or type the same message over and over to each person you wish to send the message to.

Unlike normal postal mail, you don't have send each recipient their own personal letter, you just send one message out and it is distributed to all recipients for you.

Email is Quick.

Email allows you send messages around the world very quickly.

An email message sent from Australia can arrive in England in 90 seconds. That same email could contain a picture of your holiday or a new born baby or an important business message.

Email allows you to Stay in Touch.

You can access your email from anywhere in the world that has Internet access. You can be sitting at home or in the office or on holiday on the other side of the globe, but as long as you can get onto the Internet you will most likely be able to access your email.

Email is an extremely useful service. I'm sure that once you start using it and get to understand how to take advantage of it you'll wonder how you ever lasted so long without it.

Article © Matt Western - deTechnify.com

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Matt Western has been working in the electronics and IT areas since 1983. These days he heads up deTechnify.com a web site aimed at clearing away the technical haze surrounding computers computing and the internet.
You can contact Matt via http://www.detechnify.com