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... Gaffin
Message-Id: <199204270134.AA28949@eff.org>
To: adamg
Subject: test
Status: R
This is only a test!
Whoa! What is all that stuff? It's your message with a postmark
gone mad. Just as the postal service puts its marks on every piece of
mail it handles, so do Net postal systems. Only it's called a
"header" instead of a postmark. Each system that handles or routes
your mail puts its stamp on it. Since many messages go through a
number of systems on their way to you, you will often get messages
with headers that seem to go on forever. Among other things, a header
will tell you exactly when a message was sent and received (even the
difference between your local time and Greenwich Mean Time -- as at the end
of line 4 above).
If this had been a long message, it would just keep scrolling
across and down your screen -- unless the people who run your public-
access site have set it up to pause every 24 lines. One way to deal
with a message that doesn't stop is to use your telecommunication
software's logging or text-buffer function. Start it before you hit
the number of the message you want to see. Your computer will ask you
what you want to call the file you're about to create. After you name
the file and hit enter, type the number of the message you want to see
and hit enter. When the message finishes scrolling, turn off the
text-buffer function. The message is now saved in your computer.
This way, you can read dublin web page design the message while not connected to the Net
(which can save you money if you're paying by the hour) and write a
reply offline.
But in the meantime, now what? You can respond to the message,
delete it or save it. To respond, type a lowercase r and hit
enter. You'll get something like this:
To: adamg
Subject: Re: test
Note that this time, you don't have to enter a user name. The
computer takes it from the message you're replying to web page design termonfeckin and
automatically addresses your message to its sender. The computer also
automatically inserts a subject line, by adding "Re:" to the original
subject. From here, it's just like writing a new message. But web page design termonfeckin say you
change your mind and decide not to reply after all. How do you get out
of the message? Hit dublin web page design control-C once. You'll get this:
(Interrupt -- one more to kill letter)
If you hit control-C once more, the message will disappear and you'll
get back to your mail's command line.
Now, if you type a lowercase d and then hit web page design bridgewater enter, you'll
delete the original message. Type a lowercase q to exit your
mailbox.
If you type a q without first hitting d, your message is
transferred to a file called mbox. This file is where all read, but
un-deleted messages go.
If you want to leave it in your mailbox for
now, type a lowercase x and hit enter. This gets you out of mail
without making any changes.
The mbox file works a lot like your mailbox. To access it,
type
mail -f mbox
at your host system's command line and hit enter.
You'll get a menu identical to the one in your mailbox from which
you can read these old messages, delete them or respond to them. It's
probably a good idea to clear out your mailbox and mbox file from
time to time, if only to keep them uncluttered.
Are there any drawbacks to e-mail? There are a few. One is that
people seem more willing to fly off the handle electronically than in
person, or over the phone. Maybe it's because it's so easy to hit r
and reply to a message without pausing and reflecting a moment.
That's why we have smileys (see section 2.4)! There's no online
equivalent yet of a return receipt: chances are your message got to where
it's going, but there's no absolute way for you to know for sure unless
you get a reply from the other person.
So now you're ready to send e-mail to other people on the Net.
Of course, you need somebody's address to send them mail. How do you
get it?
Alas, the simplest answer is not what you'd call the most
elegant: you call them up on the phone or write them a letter on paper
and ask them. Residents of the electronic frontier are only beginning
to develop the equivalent of phone books, and the ones that exist
today are far from complete (still, later on, in Chapter 6, we'll show
you how to use some of these web page design termonfeckin directories).
Eventually, you'll start corresponding with people, which means
you'll want to know how to address mail to them. It's vital to know
how to do this, because the smallest mistake -- using a comma web page design company when you
should have used a period, for instance, can bounce the message back
to you, undelivered. In this sense, Net addresses are like phone
numbers: one wrong digit and you get the wrong person.
Fortunately,
most net addresses now adhere 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 something like this:
tomg@world.std.com
Tomg is somebody's user ID, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a site
(or in web page design bridgewater Internetese, a "domain") known as std.com. Large 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 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 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 addresses end in pennsylvania web page design 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 tend to use a two-letter code that
represents their country. Most make sense, such as .ca for Canadian
sites, but there are a couple of seemingly odd web page design roseburg web page design termonfeckin 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 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 w ... |
