ELECTRONIC MAIL (EMAIL): THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT

Electronic Mail (Email):

What is an electronic mail? An electronic mail (popularly known as e-mail for short) is a means or method of sending messages through electronic means from one computer user to one or more recipients through a network.

An email according to Wikipedia,  is a method of exchanging digital messages between people using digital devices such as computers, tablets and mobile phones.

Brief History:
Electronic mail (email) was invented by an Indian-born American Scientist called V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai in the late 1970's.

Email Service Providers: (Who are they)?
Before you can be able to use an email address, you will need to open an email account from any Email Service Providers rendering email services. There are Email Service Providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, Gmx, etc.

Though there are free and paid Email Service Providers and the above mentioned Email Service Providers are all rendering free email services while some of them as well renders paid email services popular called business or professional emails.

Example of free email addresses:

• yourname@gmail.com
• yourname@yahoo.com
• yourname@outlook.com

Example of Professional email addresses:

• info@yourbusinessname.com
• support@yoursitename.com
• contact@yourname.com

Types of Email:

According to Mailjet there are three (3) types of emails, namely:

• Marketing Emails
• Notification Emails
• Transaction Emails

Accessing your email account:

Accessing your email accounts or addresses can be easily done either POP3 method or IMAP method.

1. POP3 Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3):

According to SearchExchange: POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3) is the most recent version of a standard protocol for receiving e-mail. POP3 is a client/server protocol in which e-mail is received and held for you by your Internet server. Periodically, you (or your client e-mail receiver) check your mail-box on the server and download any mail, probably using POP3. 

This standard protocol is built into most popular e-mail products, such as Eudora and Outlook Express. It's also built into the Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers. This method can be regarded to as Store-and-Forward Service.

Though I personally, won't advise you use this (POP3) method as it only downloads email from a server to a single computer, then deletes it from the server. It can appear that mail is missing or disappearing from your Inbox if you try to check your mail from a different computer.

2. Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP):

This is the best means or method as it allows you to access your emails on multiples devices and still retains your emails on the server, alongside your email folders. This method can be regarded to as Remote File Server.

Note: The two above mentioned methods of accessing your email accounts shouldn't be a thing to worry about but when it comes to accessing your mails on third party applications, then it becomes necessary that you know or get familiar with them. 

We can regard Gmail application as a third-party application when we use it to access our yahoo mails.

Email Synchronization:

In situations when you are expecting a mail from someone who claims to have already sent it but you still haven't received it (mostly on mobile phones), there are there possible causes which are listed below.

• POP3 Errors - I've seen situations where people can't synchronize their emails easily as a result of POP3 not functioning properly or having errors with the servers. That is one of the reasons I recommended IMAP method.
• Spam Folders - This is very common, most mails sent to you are being forwarded to the spam folders if the contents can't be properly verified by your Email Service Providers  or if the email contents fraudulent materials. So therefore, you're to check your Spam Folders as well.
• Low Memory - In most cases, you won't be able to synchronise your emails if you are having low memory on your mobile devices. Most times you might be having space on your memory card but no space on your phone, kindly free up some space either on your memory (SD) card or phone memory.

Question: Who can own an email address?

In the generation we are now, email address is very important and very necessary for anyone to own. Mostly required by schools, banks, for your Curriculum Vitae (CV or Resume), etc.

I hope this little pieces of information is useful to you, please kindly share to help someone else, thanks.

Author Mattjoe — 2017/03/15 — Add Comment — Android, Computer