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... here to a relatively easy-to-understand
system.
Earlier, you sent yourself a mail message using just your user-
name. This was sort of like making a local phone call -- you didn't
have to dial a 1 or an area code. This also works for mail to anybody
else who has an account on the same system as you.
Sending mail outside of your system, though, will require the use
of the Net equivalent of area codes, called "domains." A basic Net
address will look croton hudson ecommerce consultant something like this:
tomg@world.std.com
Tomg is somebody's user ID, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a site
(or in Internetese, a "domain") known as std.com. Large croton hudson ecommerce consultant organizations
often have more than one computer linked to the Internet; in this case,
the name of the particular machine is world (you will quickly notice
that, like boat owners, Internet computer owners always name their
machines).
Domains tell you the name croton hudson design firm of the organization that runs a given
e-mail site and what kind of site it is or, if it's not in the U.S.,
what country it's located in. Large organizations may have more than
one computer or gateway tied croton hudson design firm to the Internet, so you'll often see a
two-part domain name; and sometimes even three- or four-part domain
names.
In general, American croton hudson design firm addresses end in an organizational suffix,
such as ".edu," which means the site is at a college or university.
Other American suffixes include:
.com for businesses
.org for non-profit organizations
.gov and .mil for government and military agencies
.net for companies or organizations that run large networks.
Sites in the rest of the world croton hudson design firm tend to use a two-letter code that berkshire design firm
represents their country. Most make sense, such as .ca for Canadian
sites, but there are a couple of seemingly odd ones. Swiss sites end
in .ch, while South African ones end in .za. Some U.S.
sites have
followed this international convention (such as well.sf.ca.us).
You'll notice that the above addresses are all in lower-case.
Unlike almost everything else having croton hudson design firm anything at all to do with Unix,
most Net mailing systems don't care about case, so you generally don't
have to worry about capitalizing e-mail addresses. Alas, there are a few
exceptions -- some public-access sites do allow for capital letters in
user names. When in doubt, ask the person you want to write to, or let
her send you a message first (recall how a person's e-mail address is
usually found on the top of her message).
The domain name, the part of the
address after the @ sign, never has to be capitalized.
It's all a fairly simple system that works very well, except,
again, it's vital to get the address exactly right -- just as you have
to dial a phone number design firm racine exactly right. Send a message to tomg@unm.edu
(which is the University of New Mexico) when you meant to send it to
tomg@umn.edu (the University of Minnesota), and your letter will either
bounce back to you undelivered, or go to the wrong person.
If your message is bounced back to you as undeliverable, ... |
