Lesson 7

emoticon

A combination of characters that, when read sideways, helps convey emotion in an e-mail message.

Signature field

A few lines of text that appear at the bottom of each message you send, generally consisting of the sender's contact information.

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)

A protocol that allows operating systems to exchange various types of data files over the Internet, such as audio, video, images, applications and so forth.

user name

A unique name or number that identifies you when logging on to a computer system or online service. In an e-mail address, the part before the @ symbol.

Mail Delivery Agent (MDA)

An e-mail server program that receives sent messages and delivers them to their proper destination mailbox.

Message field

Contains the body of the message. It is proper to have a Greeting, Message & closing.

browser e-mail

E-mail programs such as Outlook Express and Opera Mail that come bundled with a Web browser

Reply

response option used to respond ONLY to the original sender of an e-mail message

Reply All

response option used to respond to original sender of an e-mail message and everyone who was copied.

Forward

response option used to send an e-mail message to users who did not receive the original.

Subject field

Contains a brief description of the message content. It is proper netiquette to always have one before sending an email.

Cc (carbon copy) field

Contains the e-mail address(es) of additional recipient(s) to whom you want to send the message. The address(es) you enter here are displayed in the e-mail message header.

To (address) field

Contains the e-mail address(es) of primary recipient(s).

Web-based e-mail

Free email service in which you request a username. Allows you to access your email from any computer with an internet connection.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)

the Internet standard protocol for transferring e-mail messages from one computer to another.