Email Course at Foothill Adult Center: E-mail Class at Foothill Adult Center

DEFINITION OF EMAIL
•E-mail is an acronym for Electronic mail. It is a digital mail or correspondence.
•Email allows you to send and receive text messages to and from anyone with an e-mail address. You can attach pictures, files and other programs to your e-mail messaged
•E-mail is a quick and inexpensive way of getting a message to someone
•It should be concise, straight forward and well written
Remember to check your punctuation, spelling and grammar

HOW THE E-MAIL WORK
•When someone send you an e-mail message, the message is sent and store with your Internet Service Provider,
When you log on and check your e-mail message, the message is sent from the server to your computer

THE BASIC ELEMENT OF EMAIL
•Your computer should be connected to the internet or go online by connecting your modem to a telephone line, DSL line, cable TV or Satellite dish
•You must have a current account with an Internet Service Provider
•You will need an e-mail software program usually been provided by your ISP or included in the Web browser.
•Finally, you must have an e-mail address.
•You can get a FREE e-mail address when you sign up with an ISP or online service, such as MSN, Yahoo…The steps involve in sending and receiving mail will vary from program to program. But, the e-mail options are basically similar and are displayed on the menu screen

THE EMAIL ADDRESSES
•The E-mail address setup by you may be classified as follows:
•The first part of the address, that is before the @ sign, is a user name. The second part, or the domain name, defines the Internet provider where the mail is sent. The two parts are separated by an @ sign (Viz. “at)
•For Example, Mypctrainer2008@Yahoo.com
•The domain name is followed by an extension that indicates the type of organization to which the network belongs
•For Example, Mypctrainer2008@Yahoo.com

SETTING UP YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS
•The YAHOO Browser will be use to set up e-mail address:
•Bring up the YAHOO Browser and click on SIGN UP at the top right
•Fill out the e-mail address questions:
1. Tell us about yourself...
2. Select an ID and password
3. In case you forget your ID or password...
Type in the verification letters and check the "Do you agree? square box
4. Click Create My Account

SENDING AN E-MAIL
•The Following should be considered when sending an e-mail:
•Start your e-mail program with any ISP browser
•Click the Compose New Message button. The name of this button my differ depending on your email program
•In the To box, type the address of the recipient or click on a name in the address book
•Type a short description of your e-mail on the subject
•Click the message area and type your messages
•Click the Send button to send the e-mail message

CHECKING YOUR SENT MESSAGES
If you're not sure of the message sent; there is a Sent message file in your file cabinet that you can check. YAHOO takes messages from the Out Box, sends them and file a copy in the Sent message file

RECEIVING AND READING E-MAIL
To read your mail, you have to do the following:
i/ Have an internet connection
ii/ Start your e-mail program
iii/ Check your in-box for new messages
iv/ Click on the email message to read it
After reading your email messages, you can save the messages, or print the massages or reply to the sender or completely delete the messages

USING THE ADDRESS BOOK
Yahoo mail program allow you to store frequently used addresses in you address book. So, their is no need to memorize each address every time you needs it.
For example to use the Address book for sending email;
i/ Click the Contacts tab
ii/ Check all the email addresses needed on the contact information
iii/ Click Send Mail, then Click Compose to start preparing the email
You can enter each name and e-mail address manually by opening the address book and enter the information or when received an e-mail, click on the sender's name and choose to add information to the Address book

REPLYING TO E-MAIL MESSAGES
i/ Choose the mail you which to reply to from your in-box
ii/ Click on the Reply button. This opens a composition window with the e-mail address of the recipient
iii/Fill in the subject and type your message
iv/Click the Send button

E-MAIL FORWARING/CARBON COPIES
Forwarding e-mail includes:
i/ Clicking the Forward button
ii/Enter the e-mail address of the recipient in the box
iii/ Click the Send button to forward the message to the recipient
To send two or more people the same message, and you do not mind if they know whom else received a copy;
i/ Type an e-mail address to the To: Box
ii/ Type another in the CC (Carbon copy) box
To send a mail without disclosing the list of the list of recipients, put yourself in the BCC (Blind carbon copy)

E-MAIL ATTACHMENTS
Word processing documents, spreadsheet, pictures, videos, music clips can be attach to an e-mail
i/ Click the e-mail to which attachment is to be sent
ii/ Check for Attach File, or Send Attachment or a "paper clip" on the mail menu
iii/ You will be prompted for the file name and its location on your flash or hard drive
iv/ Browse or navigate to the file, double-click on it. A copy of it will be attached to your e-mail. The attached fill will be sent together with your e-mail

EMAIL ETIQUETTE
"Netiquette" is another name for "Etiquette". When you are online, practice all the social rules of good behavior. For you will be communicating with people whom you have never met. So, the following rules should be observe:
i/ NO SPAMMING: Do not post messages to hundreds of recipients. Most people do not appreciate this sort of advertising. You humor may be misinterpreted.
ii/NO SHOUTING: Shouting is typing in all Upper case letters. Try to avoid this practice
iii/ NO FLAMING: Keep your temper and language in control. Do not reply an outrageous email with a ridiculous email.

EMAIL TERMINOLOGY
TTYL: Talk to you later / IDK: I don't know / ROTFL: Rolling on the floor laughing
GMTA:Great minds think alike / LOL: Laughing out loud /TIA: Thanks in advance
EOL: End of Lecture / BTW: By the way... / WYSIWYG: What you see is what you get

EMAIL HOT TIPS
i/Consider getting an additional telephone line if you are on the Internet a lot. Also consider moving up to DSL, Cable or satellite
ii/ A good way to practice using the mouse is playing the Solitaire. You will get the feel of the mouse by clicking and dragging
iii/Press Ctrl, Alt + Del simultaneously to send windows a signal to shut down. You can use this combination to quit a program that is freezed up.

VIRUS PROTECTION PROGRAMS
The virus programs protect your computer against viruses, spyware, exploits hacked sites, phishing, fraud scams and other threats. Examples are: Norton Anti Virus, McAfee, Sophos, and others protection programs for the Internet Service Provider (ISP).
These programs can scans and cleans email and instant messaging attachments before they can plant malicious software on your system and before you can spread viruses and worms to others.
Virus scanners work two ways. The more common method scans the file against all known viruses each time the file is opened. The second method, such as used by the Sophos antivirus program, takes a blueprint of every file ahead of time. It computes a checksum of each file's contents and stores it in a database. The next time a file is opened, the software re computes the checksum and compares it to the one in the database to see if the file has changed. If it has, the program scans the file for viruses. If not, the file is considered virus free. Since most files are virus free, this method is faster because re computing a checksum is considerably faster than comparing the file with all the binary signatures.
EXPLOITS:
A piece of malware that takes advantage of vulnerability in a software application, to infect a PC. Exploits usually target a PC by means of a drive–by download – where the user has no idea that a download has even taken place. The Virus programs can alert you to these types of threats BEFORE you go to the actual site!
PHISHING:
Phishing pages falsely represent themselves as coming from a bank or other trusted institution to fool unsuspecting visitors into providing personally unique information. This information is used by cybercriminals to steal identity, finances or for other malicious reasons. Protecting you from phishing scams is part of the Virus program duties!
SOCIAL ENGINEERING PAGES:
These pages attempt to trick you into doing something you would not otherwise do. You might, for example, be asked to install a plug–in in order to watch a video, when in reality you are installing spyware. The Virus programs will alert you when you come across one of these pages, so you can avoid them.

FIGHTHING E-MAIL SPAM:
The majority of emails being sent over the Internet these days is spam, i.e. unsolicited bulk email. Generally, the longer an email address has been in use, the more spam it will receive. Also, any email address listed on a website or mentioned in New groups (use net) postings will be spammed disproportionally. Spam costs billions of dollars in lost productivity. Hours spent deleting unwanted
email or reporting spam senders or researching companies that send spam are lost from our work time and enjoyable lifetime.

CLEANING SPYWARE FROM YOUR COMPUTER:
How to get rid of this will depend on the browser and type of system one is using. The most effective way to get rid of the threats will be to use an anti-virus and anti-spyware program. Some programs will only find the malicious files after a scan has been perform. This means that every time one surfs the net will want to run a scan to make sure one is parasite free. Most large companies like Norton and McAfee add this into their protection policy.

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