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... e
where username is the name you gave yourself when you first logged on.
Hit enter.
The computer might respond with
subject:
Type
test
or, actually, anything at all (but you'll have to hit enter before
you get to the end of the screen). Hit enter.
The cursor will drop down a line. You can now begin writing the
actual message. Type a sentence, again, anything at all. And here's
where you hit your first Unix frustration, one that will bug you
repeatedly: you have to hit enter before you get to the very end of the
line. Just like typewriters, many Unix programs have no word-wrapping
(although there are ways to get some Unix text processors, such to create own homepage as emacs,
to word-wrap).
When done with your message, hit return.
Now hit control-D (the
control and the D keys at the same time).
This is a Unix command that
tells the computer you're done writing and that it free homepage space should close your
"envelope" and mail it off (you could also hit enter once and then, on
a blank free homepage space line, type a period at the beginning of the line and hit enter
again).
You've just sent your first e-mail message.
And to create own homepage because you're
sending mail to yourself, rather than to someone somewhere else on to create own homepage the
Net, your message has already arrived, as we'll see in a moment.
If you had wanted, you could have even written your message on
your own computer and then uploaded it into this electronic to create own homepage
"envelope." There are a couple of good reasons to do this with long
or involved messages. One is that once you hit enter at the end of a
line in "mail" you can't readily fix any mistakes on that line (unless
you use some special commands to call up a Unix text processor). Also,
if you are paying for access by the hour, uploading a prepared
message can save you money. Remember to save the document in ASCII or
text format.
Uploading a document you've created in a word processor
that uses special formatting commands (which these days means many
programs) will cause strange effects.
When you get that blank line after the subject line, upload the
message using the ASCII protocol. Or you can copy and paste the text,
if your software allows that. When done, hit control-D as above.
Now you have mail waiting for you. Normally, when you log on,
your public-access site will tell you whether you have new mail
waiting. To open your mailbox and see your waiting mail, type
mail
and hit enter.
When the host system sees "mail" without a name after it, it
knows you want to look in your mailbox rather than send a message.
Your screen, on a plain-vanilla Unix system will display:
Mail version SMI 4.0 Mon Apr 24 18:34:15 PDT 1989 Type ? for making homepage help.
"/usr/spool/mail/adamg": 1 message 1 new 1 unread
>N 1 adamg Sat Jan 15 20:04 12/290 test
Ignore the first line; it's just computerese of value only to the
people who run your system. You can type a question mark and hit
return, but unless you're familiar with Unix, most of what you'll see
won't make much sense at this point.
The second line tells you the directory on the host system where
your mail messages are put, which again, is not something you'll likely
need to know. The second line also tells you how many messages are in your
mailbox, how many have come in since the last time you looked and how
many messages you haven't read yet.
It's the third line that is of real interest -- it tells you who
the message is from, when it arrived, how many lines and characters
it takes up, and what the making homepage subject is. The "N" means it is a new to create own homepage
message -- it arrived after the last time you looked in your mailbox.
Hit enter.
And there's your message -- only now it's a lot
longer than what you wrote!
Message 1:
From adamg Jan 15 20:04:55 1994
Received: by eff.org id AA28949
(5.65c/IDA-1.4.4/pen-ident for adamg); Sat, 15 Jan 1994 20:04:55 -0400
create web page (ident-sender: adamg@eff.org)
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 21:34:55 -0400
From: Adam Gaffin
... |
