Email Basics Topics
How To Set Up Your Email (PDF) ∼ Go
The Difference Between Web Mail and Regular Email ∼ Go
Email Etiquette ∼ Go
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The Difference Between Web Mail and Regular Email
Email is a message that is sent electronically and then, once you check your email, is downloaded directly to your computer via an email program such as Outlook or Eudora. POP (Post Office Protocol) is the standard protocol for receiving email and is built in to most popular email products.
Web Mail is a message that is sent electronically, but when you check your email, your message remains stored on the server. Web mail accounts are accessed through a Web page and have fewer features and less functionality than POP accounts. Hotmail and Yahoo are good examples of Web mail. Web mail accounts are very useful if you travel a lot, as they can be accessed from any computer. Some Web hosts offer both types of services, which means when you're at your home or office you can use the POP-type service, and when you're on the road, you can access your emails via the Internet.
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Email Etiquette
Subject Lines - Generally in business applications, good email etiquette starts with a subject line that addresses the actual subject. On most occasions, Rhizome has an internal standard of starting each subject line with the client's name or acronym and then a specific brief descriptor. This allows us to find emails fast when we need them. The opposite of this would be getting emails with a subject line to the effect of, "Here you go, " or "Stuff you need."
Replying to - When replying to emails, make sure to change the subject reply title if you are talking about a completely different subject. Often we have trouble finding client emails because important information can be buried in an email chain of replies.
Reply vs. Reply All - There are two ways to reply to an email. "Reply" will only send the message to the person who sent you the email. "Reply All" will send an email to everyone who received the email. Using "Replay All" is a very useful tool when many people within a company need to be kept up-to-date and informed about what is going on in a project.
BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) - Unless you intentionally want to send an email to a group that needs to communicate with each other (see Reply vs. Reply All), when sending email blasts to large groups of people, it is a good idea to protect the identity of your friends or associates by addressing your email to yourself in the "To" address area and then put all other names in the BCC portion of the address area. Doing this keeps all the email addresses of your friends and associates private and protects recipients from being picked up by unwanted spam crawlers.
Attachments - Always make sure that your recipient is able to receive the type of document format you want to send. Always make sure your documents are free of viruses before sending. Good document hygiene is top of the list in quality Web etiquette.
Large Attachments and .Zip - Generally, most email recipients can handle files up to 2-3 MBs. Some larger files may have trouble going through to people who have free accounts with groups like Hotmail or MSN.com because these sites impose limits on the size of files their customers can receive. Always ask your recipient what their bandwidth is capable of handling before sending any large documents or art files via email. If you must send multiple files through email, use a .ZIP utility to ensure your files get through without corruption. In most cases, a zipped file will compress the document(s) down to a more manageable file size. A .ZIP utility exists on both Mac and PC platforms and can be likened to an M&M candy. Coated on the outside to protect the yummy chocolate on the inside. If the files are still too large to send by email, you can "FTP" the files (see below) or burn them to a CD for the recipient.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
If you have a large number of files to send, Rhizome has an FTP site that allows you to upload files directly to the intended recipient. In most cases, you will absolutely want to .ZIP your files before uploading them.
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