What is Email?
Email is the short version of electronic mail and required for many things you can do online. If you sign up for an email account you get a virtual mailbox. A place where email other people of companies send you is stored. An email does not have to be just written text. Like on the internet, an email can consist of text, images or even music or videos.
How do I receive email?
You go to the website of your email provider and enter your login name and password. Then you can see in your "Inbox" if you have received any new email and read it. When you are logged in you can also write email and send it to friends or family members.
How do I reply to an email?
This is one of the easiest things to do, and the most satisfying
for the recipient who is looking forward to hearing from you.
After reading the originator's message, simply click on "Reply".
(This produces a pre-addressed reply form). Then type your
reply, click on "Send".
How do I compose a new email?
In the upper left corner of your screen, click on the words "Compose Mail",
"Write Message", or depending on your email program you may
see just the symbol of an envelope. When a message form apears,
type the email address of your intended recipient (if more than
one recipient, separate each address by a comma plus a space).
Now use your TAB key to get to the "Subject" line, and TAB again
to the text box. Type your text and click on "Send".
Create your Email Account
You do not have to pay to create an email account. You can select the best email provider for you from a variety of email providers that offer you free email accounts. In our example we register a free email account with Yahoo. Your Yahoo ID will be the name followed by @yahoo.com that will be your email. If you use as your Yahoo ID "JackMiller" for example your email address will be "JackMiller@yahoo.com". You can sign up
here.
Individual Email Addresses
If you want to have a more individual email address you can buy a domain name and create your own email addresses. If you buy the domain "miller.com" for example, you could create an email like "jack@miller.com". Domains are really affordable today and cost as low as $2.95 a year at
iPower Hosting
. Another good address for domains is
GoDaddy.com 
one of the worlds biggest domain registrar.
Email Spam
The expression "Spam" describes unwanted email which is most of the time advertising that fills up your mailbox. After some time using email you will get used to get email with subjects like "unpaid bills" or "i love you" and many more more or less creative ideas to catch your attention. Even though spam can be really annoying, one has to live with it or install one of the spam filters that are available for a small fee. You can avoid most of the spam if you:
- do not post your email address on public websites
- are selective about the additional information services some companies offer you when you register an account with them
- do not reply to any spam email you have received
Email Security Programs with Spam Filters
If spam starts to annoy you, you have either the option to change your email address or get an email security program with spam filter. These programs sort your email and filter it according to criterias you have defined and keep emails that they identified as spam in a seperate folder hidden from you. You will not loose any email because you can still access the spam folder in case you want to read some of the filtered emails. A popular and established email security porgram that does exactly this is
Mailboxfilter.
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