Introduction:  E-Mail is...

E-Mail is... the use of the Internet to send and receive messages and attachments.  While the messages are typically text, newer e-mail systems are allowing messages to include picture and sound files.  Attachments sent with an e-mail message certainly could be a variety of kinds of documents.  The Internet provides various "protocols", or sets of rules, for the computer to allow it to understand messages received.  E-mail uses one of these protocols (mailto:), as does the World Wide Web (http://), and sending or receiving files using "gopher" (gopher://). 

E-Mail addresses consist of three parts.  The first part is a "username".  An example is this author's address - that username is "bulwnkl".  Separating the first and second part of the address is the @ symbol (pronounced "at").  The second part of the address is the name of the e-mail server which is providing the storage for e-mail messages sent and received   This page's author uses "aol" as its server.  A period or "dot" separates parts two and three in the e-mail address.  Following the dot, a "domain name" of two or three letters describes the type of service provider.  As for AOL, it is a commercial provider so their address is "aol.com".  The author's complete e-mail address is "bulwnkl@aol.com".  Other common domain names include edu = education, gov = government, and either state or national abbreviations such as ks.us = Kansas, United States of America.

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Contents of this site are copyrighted (1999) by Dr. Blake West, Blue Valley Schools