EMAIL 101 by John Goodwin, this is an Alpha test version, your
suggestions will be included in the Beta test versions, and inthe final editions.
This rough version is missing 8 out of 28 chapters and 1 out of 5appendices.
Copyright (c) 1993 by John E. Goodwin. All Rights Reserved.
You may make and distribute verbatim copies of these course notes fornon-commercial purposes using any means, provided this copyright noticeis preserved on all copies.
For information on taking the internetworking course, contact
John Goodwin (jgoodwin@adcalc.fnal.gov)
P.O. Box 6022
St. Charles, IL 60174, U.S.A.
1
<title> E-MAIL 101
If you like those little machines that give you 24 hour access to yourbank account, you'll love the Internet. I suppose there are stillpeople who, given a choice, will go to a drive-through teller just sothey can deal with a "live person" instead of a machine. But even thosepeople will admit that it is nice to have the option of doing things foryourself, on your own schedule, anywhere. Do you remember what it waslike before automatic tellers? Banks closed at 3 p.m. on weekdays.Each Saturday you had to guess how much money you would need for thefollowing week. If you were wrong you had to cash a check at a foodstore (and maybe buy something you didn't want). And if you were out oftown? Well, there were always credit cards.
We don't do that anymore. I think many people go to the automaticteller because they like the privacy of handling their own businesswithout having to explain it all to someone else. And we like theillusion of having access to our "own" account anytime we want.There are disadvantages to using an automatic teller card too—you mayhave to pay a fee each month or even for each transaction—and you haveto remember to deduct those fees from your account balance or you willbounce checks. But I'll bet you feel pretty competent using anautomatic teller and don't lose much sleep worrying over the fees.
This course is designed to give you that same sense of freedom andcompetence with the Internet that you have with an automatic tellermachine or the telephone. With a home computer, a modem, andcommunications software, you can connect to other computers over thephone line to exchange electronic mail (E-mail), trade files, or searchfor information. Many of those computers are connected to the worldwidenetwork called the Internet. Some few of them will—for a fee—let*you* connect to the Internet. From there you can dial any of 900,000or more computers, send E-mail to any of 25 million people, and accesshundreds of free, informative services.
In short, you are on the verge of a new method of communicating withpeople and machines called "internetworking." Internetworking lets you:
o Avoid playing phone tag;
o Sign up to receive special interest electronic newsletters andjournals;
o Access hundreds of information services and document collections inexactly the same way—no need to have hundreds of sets of differentinstructions or hundreds of (expensive) special purpose softwarepackages;
o Find and communicate with other people who share your interests.
Internetworking is an essential skill for the '90s. Your children willfind it as common as viewing television or using the telephone. Itstill has a few rough edges—but we'll explain those.
There is actually no single network owned by one com