Email basics
There's not much point in my writing much
about the basics of email here, because there's plenty of
good information out there on the Web already.
I've picked a few websites which looked good
to me and here are the links:
Email Basics Part 1 - Part 2 - Part3 at TNPC.
A comprehensive article about email (click the "print"
link when you get there to display the article
all on one page).
"Miss Manners" explains the cultural expectations
for interacting online, and "Netiquette" outlines common sense and courtesy
for email. One thing that they both miss
is that "best practice" is to send your email as plain text, not HTML.
If you just can't resist forwarding that
joke, a tutorial by Somewhere in Time shows how to forward it properly using "Bcc".
Microsoft has a useful article titled Compose and Send E-Mail Messages Using Outlook
Express
If you want to learn more, fire off a Google
search like one of these:
http://www.google.com/search?q=email+basics
http://www.google.com/search?q=email+for+beginners
Beyond the Basics
"Inside OE Home" is a definitive site that covers all
aspects of Outlook Express.
It's unfortunate that the default format
setting for Outlook Express is HTML, when
text is usually better. After you read 7 reasons not to send HTML email you might want to know how to change your
own default setting.
To change the default format
in Outlook Express
go to Tools (Edit or View for
older versions)
> Options > Send (tab)
> select
Plain Text for the Mail Sending
Format. You'll
be doing your friends and relatives
a favor
as well as conserving "bandwidth"
on the Internet.
You can always send HTML messages when they're
called for, for instance when you want to
insert a picture in the message. When you
compose the new message, just go to Format
> Rich Text (HTML) in the menu. That will
switch the format to HTML for just that message.
Email clients (programs)
You might want to use something instead of
Outlook Express. Many alternatives to OE offer better security than OE. And
they make it easier to back up your address
book, accounts, settings and messages.
Backing up Outlook Express
Inside OE Home covers all aspects of Outlook Express. In
particular, it tells you how to backup your
email. There's a whole lot more help with
Outlook Express there too. You might get
some ideas here for backing up and using
other email clients. Generally it's not as hard to back up other
email clients.
Email safety
Email is the primary avenue for
malicious
attack on computers. The most
important thing
you can do to protect your computer
is never, ever open an email attachment that you have any doubts about -- even if the message is addressed
directly to you and comes from someone you
know. Always check with the sender directly --
most messages with malicious attachments appear to come from someone you know these
days. (Just send them an email asking if they
intended to send an attachment.)
Go to the safe email page to learn the other things you should
know about email safety.
Spam
There are several things you can do to control
spam. For example, use a "throwaway"
address when you get a dubious request for
your email address. The Spam page tells use throwaway addesses, as well as
how to implement several other spam solutions.
Important Tip: *Never* reply
to spam in order
to be removed from mailing lists.
All this
does is let the spammer know
that your address
is real. The spammer will then
sell your
validated address to many other
spammers
and you'll be inundated by spam.
Here are some ways to keep a permanent email
address, even though you migrate with the
seasons: [tip about picking the right username/address]
- Get an email account that's specifically
designed to sidestep spam. I use Spamex. Sneakemail is free for now.
[Spamex or Sneakemail]
- Get a "professional" email account
that's independent from your ISP. Look into
FastMail. They offer a "Guest" and a "Member"
account. [free or $14.95 one-time fee respectively]
- Use a "National" ISP. It's an obvious strategy, but probably
not best one, for keeping the same address
(there's a good chance you will want to change
you ISP sometime in the future). Be sure
they have a local access number everywhere you want to use their service.
The big names are AT&T WorldNet, Earthlink, AOL and MSN. The first two are rated the highest. I
use PGHConnect.com and A1Above.net because they cost half as much as the name
brand ISPs. I haven't decided which one is
the best but I'm leaning toward A1Above.
- Get a free email account. The era of free
email accounts that are more than basic has
pretty much ended. Most of them simply went away during the
dot.com implosion. There are still af few
good ones left though. [MyRealBox]
- Get an email account from an inexpensive
forwarding service. Then just change the address that
the email is forwarded to when you move.
[Yahoo] [Hotmail] I no longer recommend Bigfoot.
You can read your mail "on the Web"
with some of these services too, which is
good while you're in transit. You can read
and send your email anywhere you can get
online -- by using a friends computer, a
borrowed phone line or a computer at a local
library.
Some of these services offer "POP3"
services too. That's just ordinary email.
You download and read with POP3 email with
any email client, like Outlook Express. You'll
need plenty of storage on their server --
say 5 MB -- if you won't be checking your
email regularly, or expect sizeable attachments.
(Hotmail offers access using Internet Explorer.
The result is much like POP3 access.) [iName] [Yahoo] [Hotmail]
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