You@electronicmail.com
By Roopinder
Singh
l Bony Sodhi keeps in touch with
her children living in the USA on a regular basis, and
doesnt have to spend a fortune doing so; they all
use e-mail and exchange news, even jokes for that matter.
l Karan keeps in touch with the
latest in his business through e-mail contacts with
friends who are now working abroad.
l Satnam Gunsis husband is
a computer professional in Canada. She keeps in touch
with him through e-mail.
l Rajeev uses e-mail to send his
resumes to various foreign universities where he is
seeking admission.
DO you also want to hitch yourself
to the e-mail bandwagon? No one would blame you if you do
for the urge to communicate is the strongest among
humans. Actually, e-mail has revolutionised the world,
sharpened the divide between the haves and the have-nots,
changed the perspective of millions of people and about
how they look at the world. E-mail, short for electronic
mail, is where the action is these days.
What exactly is e-mail? E-mail is
the passing of messages from one computer to another, and
is to be contrasted with snail mail, which is best
defined as "bits of dead tree sent via the postal
service." Ones postal address is,
correspondingly, a snail (mail)
address."
(Though e-mail is a
relatively new concept, oddly enough, the word
"emailed" is actually listed in the Oxford
English Dictionary. It means "embossed (with a
raised pattern) or arranged in a network". A usage
from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French
"emmailleure," which means network. Also
"email" is German for enamel.
E-mail is cheaper and
faster than a letter sent through ordinary mail. It is
less intrusive than a phone call, which could come at an
inconvenient time, and in using e-mail differences in
location and time zone are less of an obstacle to
communication. This convenience of e-mail is providing an
impetus to many people to even learn how to use
computers. "I always had a mental barrier about
computers, even though I had access to them. Once my
husband went abroad, I wanted to stay in touch with him.
Phone calls were not only expensive, at times we would
get cut in mid-sentence. And I felt so bad whenever I
missed his call. With e-mail, I write at my leisure, all
I want to, and he does the same," says Geeta.
Another major benefit of
e-mail is that it is more or less instantaneously
delivered to the recipients e-mail "box,"
where it waits till the time it is convenient for him to
access it. It is night time in the USA when it is day in
India. So, if you want to send an e-mail to someone in
the USA, you would send it to him during the day, while
he is sleeping and he may reply to it during the night,
while you are asleep.
You can access your
e-mail account from virtually any computer with Internet
access, situated anywhere. If you could not access it at
home, you can do it in office, or maybe at an Internet
café!
Geeta often goes to a
small shop near her house in Panchkula for sending e-mail
messages, and it costs only Rs 20 per message!
Now that you know what
e-mail is, how do you go about it? Well, a prerequisite
of e-mail is that your computer should be networked, i.e.
it should be connected with other computers. This can be
done in various waysthrough local area network, as
well as by using a modem.
One of the most popular
ways of getting an e-mail connection these days is to get
it through the Internet.
You access the Internet
(either through your own account or someone elses)
through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and log on to
someone who provides e-mail service. Samir
Bhatia-originated Hotmail.com is one of the most famous
free e-mail providers, though nowadays almost every
company gives you the facility of a free e-mail account.
Once you open an
account, which often entails filling in a detailed form,
you are assigned an e-mail address, and that is it. You
are then free to zap your friends with your messages.
Now that you have access
to the new medium, please remember that electronic
communication, because of its speed and broadcasting
ability, is fundamentally different from paper-based
communication. Because the turnaround time can be so
fast, e-mail is more conversational than the traditional
paper-based method. This, however, is not a licence to go
totally bindas, there is a thing called netiquette
(see box).
No matter which
programme or service provider you use, there are certain
things that are common to the medium and must be kept in
mind. E-mail might be conversational, but often the
recipient may not have the context to your message. You
have to provide him with it.
One of the most
important ways of doing it is using the subject line that
you are asked to fill out when you put in your message.
The subject should be given in such a way that it sets
the message apart from others and gets the
recipients attention. It should be brief, only a
few words, but should state the essence of your message.
You have to assume that the recipient gets a lot of
e-mail messages, and sees them in order of importance,
often determined by the subject line and the identity of
the sender.
If you are replying to a
message, you can quote the previous message, this gives
the context, and makes it easier to place your reply.
While it is ever so
tempting to get on to the conversational mode, and one
can quite fruitfully do so with ones friends, in
general, please remember to use proper English. The aim
of using e-mail is to communicatewrong spellings
and bad grammar do not help in making a good impression.
If you agree with this,
it would be a good idea to continue the practice of using
short sentences and short paragraphs while composing your
e-mail messages too. Simple rules of good communication
transcend the media they may be employed in, all to
gainful use.
People often form
impressions of others based on their communication
skills, and in e-mail messages, the impact will be sans
your voice, looks, etc. This could be both, a negative as
well as a positive factor! All depends on you.
Once you have mastered
the basics, you can go on to the next rung, of using
fancy electronic stationery and sending attachments.
Earlier, e-mail messages
were "plain vanilla" messages that consisted of
text alone, while these days you have stationery to make
an impact through your e-mail. Most of the e-mail
providers allow you to use various kinds of stationery,
which makes your message look quite like the ones sent
out on paper.
If you have access to a
scanner (a gadget that "sees" pictures for
computers), you can also send in your photographs as
attachments to the mail. Photos must be scanned and saved
in a proper format, and for this you might need the help
of your friendly computer nerd (they have their uses, you
know). Music and voice files can also be sent as
attachments.
Since most of the use of
e-mail now takes place on the Internet, you will soon
find use for electronic greeting cards. These are quite
cute and are often animated, with sound.
One thing you must keep
in mind about attachments is that they tend to be rather
bulky and you need a good connection, established at an
adequate speed in order to enjoy them.
Once a friend sent me
some of his photographs. It took me almost half an hour
to download it, after which I had to send him a message
that while I appreciated his gesture, could he, in
future, not send me such bulky attachments? He
didnt mind it at all and, in fact, apologised for
his bad netiquette.
E-mail is a wonderful
tool, it is here and its cheap. Go forth, and
e-mail.
Netiquette
"Netiquette"
is network etiquette, the dos and donts of
online communication.
Netiquette
covers both common courtesy online and the
informal "rules of the road" of
cyberspace. The core rules of netiquette are
excerpted from the book Netiquette by
"Miss Manners" of the Internet,
Virginia Shea, published in 1994. For further
information, go to
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/index.html
1: Remember the
human
2: Adhere to the
same standards of behaviour online that you
follow in real life
3: Know where
you are in cyberspace
4: Respect other
peoples time and bandwidth
5: Make yourself
look good online
6: Share expert
knowledge
7: Help keep
flame wars under control
8: Respect other
peoples privacy
9: Dont
abuse your power
10: Be forgiving
of other peoples mistakes
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