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E-mail

History of e-mail
In October of 1971 a computer engineer, named Roy Tomlinson, sent the first e-mail message. Ever since that day, our lives have never been the same. Prior to his discovery, messages could only be sent to users on a single machine. Tomlinson's finding enables us to send messages to other machines on the Internet.

In the beginning the program called "Eudora" was a commonly used form of e-mail, since it was usually included in the software package provided by the ISPs (Internet Service Providers). As the popular ISPs, such as Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer, began to improve they usually included stronger e-mail programs and Eudora was eventually pushed to the side, although it is still used by some today.

How does e-mail work??
In order to send an e-mail one must first have an e-mail client. This client can be a free e-mail service such as Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, the ever-popular AOL, or other clients like Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. An e-mail server is necessary for the client to connect to. The Internet has millions of FTP servers, telnet servers and e-mail servers running on it all the time. These servers listen to different ports while they wait for people to attach to these ports. The e-mail system operates on the basis of two different servers-the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) Server and the POP3 (Post Office Protocol) Server. The SMTP server handles outgoing mail and listens on port number 25. The POP3 server handles incoming mail and listens on port number 110. A typical server looks something like this:

borrowed from: http://www.howstuffworks.com

Whenever an e-mail is sent the SMTP server interacts with the e-mail client. The POP3 server maintains a collection of text files for each e-mail account. Once an account has been logged into, the POP3 server opens the text file and allows access to it. Most e-mail clients also allow attachments to be added to e-mail messages and to be saved from received messages.

Advantages and disadvantages of e-mail
A recent study done by the Stanford Institute of Quantitative Study of Society found that 84% of Internet users said they used e-mail. There are an estimated 300 million e-mails being sent per day in the United States. It has become an all encompassing part of many people's daily lives. E-mail has become a way for people to obtain jobs, for doctors to communicate more effectively with patients, for professors to maintain better contact with their students, and for long-distance friends and family members to stay in touch.

With all the advancements that e-mail has made in the past three decades, there are some disadvantages. The growing speed and accessibility of this technological device has resulted in a loss of personal human interaction. There are many who fear that with the spread of e-mail comes the further isolation of humanity. Professor Norman Nie, of Stanford University, said in a recent article that "E-mail is a way to stay in touch, but you can't share a coffee or a beer with somebody on e-mail or give them a hug. The Internet could be the ultimate isolating technology that further reduces our participation in communities even more than television did before it." (courtesy of www.aboutemail.com)

	Comments, suggestions, or requests to scen103Xdogs@hotmail.com attention Cami Tarasewich "email.html" Last updated May 12, 2000. Copyright Group XDOGS, Student Project of the University of Delaware, 2000.