Internet and E-mail (English) 11

E-mail addressing

When a letter is to be posted, the address of the receiver has to be known. If the name of the receiver, Number, Road, Town and Country etc., are known a letter can be posted . Those who use E-mail in Internet are identified through specific E-mail addresses.

An E-mail address has 2 contents such as user ID and Domain name. These contents are separated by using an “@” sign. Whatever, towards the left of the @ sign is used to recognize you, through the personal identity / name contained in it. The rest towards the right of the @ sign is used to recognize the domain (Service Provider) as such,

                ID + @ + Domain = Address

Eg:- {abc@}  {isplanka.lk}

            ID              Domain

There are certain domain names established internationally.

Name                               Stands for

edu                             Educational sites

net                             Network Administration Organizations

com                           Commercial establishments

org                            Non-income generating entities

gov                           Government establishments in USA

mil                            Military establishments in USA

lk                             Sri Lanka

A idea can be obtained about the organizations by going through the domain names of E-mail addresses of such organizations.

A domain name is mentioned in a short constructive form. It serves the same purpose as that of is the address in a letter.

How should an E-mail message be?

Mainly an E-mail message can be divided to 2 parts, such as the heading and contents of the letter. The heading contains the following details.

- The sender

- The Recipients

- The date, the letter is sent and subject field

- Whether the content of the letter is text, or image type or a combination of both.

After preparing every thing as above by activating the function "send" the information can be sent to the receiver via Internet instantly. Here, if they are already connected to their computers, they will reply at the same time.

In E-mail technology, there are certain limitations in exchanging messages. Mainly E-mail was developed to send messages containing the normal alphabetical characters, also known as 'text'. As such messages containing images and other multi-source contents and other specially developed text, etc., cannot be sent through E-mail using the normal procedure. Such special messages can be linked to E-mail messages using additional computer programs. Such linking is called an E-mail attachment. To read E-mail with an attachment, special computer programs are required too. 

Many computer programs are found today, which facilitate the use of E-mail services. Here, 'EUDORA' is a special popular computer program. Since this program runs on the Windows 95 operating system, the user can send E-mails obtain E-mails, copy etc., while working in an attractive windows platform. In every E-mail program you can collect all mails received to a program called a 'Mailbox'. It is indeed a file. Unnecessary messages must be erased and the mail box must be maintained properly.

Today in place of normal letters, most government and private sector establishments use E-mail, very popularly. The main reason for this is that the E-mail system is very fast and cheaper. A normal A4 size page can be sent out of your computer within, few seconds through E-mail. The speed, which the E-mail goes, depends on factors such as the quality of the telephone lines and the speed of the modem.