Module 2: Email Task

1. What information about a user's email, the origin of a message, and the path it took can you glean from an email message?

An email message contains firtsly, the email address of the recepient. Usually seen as "username@domain" Here we learn the user's name, which can be first or last name and in some cases a nickname.

And the domain name, which can be either a place of work, a university, a webmail address, or simply the home service provider (bigpond, iprimus, optusnet).

It is in the last few letters of the address we can see its origin. Commercial identities use .com, government uses .gov, education uses .edu, and so on.

Lastly, the address may or may not end with the country of origin. Iprimus addresses use the "iprimus.com.au", Bigpond however, just use "bigpond.com".

So in the address, we learn a lot about the sender. Importantly, when we recieve an email, we can usually spot bogus addresses if we apply some common sense. Spammers wouldn't be so lucky as to have us open their emails if we took a little more time decifering where they came from.


2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the "cc", "bcc", and "reply all" to all functions of email?

CC: Sends a "carbon copy" to someone. This could be useful if you are addressing a group of people on the one topic. An example is if you were organising a dinner party and sent all those invited an email of the venue, and what time to arrive.

BCC: Is known as a "blind" copy. Other recipients of the same email are unaware that this person in the "bcc" field has received the message. Maybe someone was delberately uninvited to the party, and one of the attendees sent the "blind" email to the snubbed friend. Useful if the person who you have in bcc doesn't want their email address forwarded on with all the others for view. Also handy if passing on jokes and chain emails, which end up anywhere and everywhere.

REPLY ALL: This is commonly used to reply to a message on the same thread. I recieve the dinner party invite and reply to all that "I wouldn't miss it and that I will be there". It's also useful because the recipient can refer to the previous email message, as it appears below the newest one. Its handy to refresh their memory of the details in the email.


3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment that you send will be easily opened by the receiver?

Compatible programs. It's handy to know that the recepient can open the file because they are running like programs. If you are sending a Word 2007 document, the recipient has to be running that program in oreder to open it.

Popular formats should be used to increase the chances of the recipient being able to open the file. Rich text file (RTF) is widely useable, as is JPG and PDF.

It's also useful to "name the file and program or operating system used". In addition to the attachment, a note with what is attached and how should appear in the text box so the recipient knows what they are opening, and if they can open it at all.

Compress larger files, or "zip" them into a folder.

And I guess, if all else fails, ask the recipient to reply when they have looked at the attachment or if they are having trouble with it.


4. What sort of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose?

The only filter/rule I have set up is that spam is forwarded to the "Junk Email" box. At times that means I miss certain emails that have been wrongly seen as spam by the computer, but I check it regularly now, to make sure I don't miss anything. Most of the time it's very useful.


5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?

I don't really have a huge amount of emails sent to me.. at least nothing of value that I would store for future reference as most are unimportant. But for the sake of the task, I did set up a folder for all of my sister's emails. They are usually diary-like and would be interesting to look at at a later date. I just drag and drop all of her messages in her folder now after I've read them.

I love the idea of being able to sort emails by category. If I had an immediate use for this, I could see myself spending quite some time naming folders and organising my email. Much like with a CD collection, it's nice to know where certain things are when you need them in a hurry.