Electronic Mail
E-Mail
E-mail is almost certainly the most widely used interface on the Internet. Rather than sending your letters by traditional means (in other words, via 'snail mail'), you send them via computer. The advantages are numerous, the most obvious being speed. E-mail letters can arrive at its destination on the other side of the planet within seconds.

Additional Information
Reading E-mail Adresses

E-mail addresses can seem complex at first glance, but they really are quite straightforward and logical once you look at them more carefully. You'll hear the term `host' mentioned a lot, for starters. This is basically a machine - a single computer or a whole network - that's connected to the Internet. Hosts are also referred to as 'sites', and form part of a domain.

Let's dissect an e-mail addresses and see how it works. An e-mail address serves a similar purpose to an address on an envelope - the electronic postman needs to know where to send the letter and to whom it's intended. Just as I might get a letter addressed to Cy Borg, Humanoid Incorporated, Internet City, Cyberspace 90210 (well, I might if such a place existed), so e-mailed information also needs to be carried by your e-mail address. I would send an e-mail message to him probably at: cyborg@www.internetcity.com

In cyborg@www.humanoid.com, for example, everything to the right of the @ symbol relates to the domain, or the actual computer where my account is held (if you prefer), while anything to the left of the @ symbol relates to the user at that address. Reading the domain from right to left, then, you get www.humanoid.com which indicates that my domain is is a commercial concern, and is actually mediated by the Humaniod Incorporated Company. You often see other codes in an address, which relate to either the country of origin (easy to spot) or type of organization (not so easy, unless you know what to look for). Here's a quick guide to some of them:

Have Your Org. Call My Com. About That Gov.
Com Business and Commercial Organizations
Edu Educational Institutions
Gov Government institutions
Mil Military Organization
Net Network resources
Org Other (usually nonprofit) organizations

Quick Guide
Something that newcomers to the Net (and a few old-timers as well, for that matter) tend to find confusing are e-mail headers. A header contains lots of information about the e-mail message, including the route it's taken to reach you. While most e-mail packages let you hide these headers (in fact, most default to this setting), it can be useful to see them - especially if something's gone wrong with delivery of the mail.

Applications

Conclusion
In the "real world", if a letter fails to get delivered it usually appears back through your letterbox with some writing on it from the post office telling you why it didn't make it (address unknown or whatever). Well, the same thing happens with e-mail. If your message `bounces,' as it's known, it gets returned to your mailbox. The header then contains useful information as to where it went and how far it got. This can be vital if you want to track down where and why things have gone wrong. Locate the fault and you can easily rectify matters.
      

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