Click OK. Sharing Your Files and Printers
Sending and receiving e-mail
Sending an e-mail message to another network user means doing several electronic chores. These used to be simple, but they’re a bit more complex
nowadays:
⻬ Activate the e-mail program. Normally, this entails double-clicking the
program’s icon. If the program asks you for a password, you’ll have to type one in before the program can do its thing. If you have no pass-
word, check with your network administrator to get one.
⻬ Compose the message. You can, of course, work it up beforehand in a
text editor such as Notepad, but today’s typical e-mail program pro- vides you with a nice blank New Message screen for the purpose.
⻬ Type an address for the message to go to. This is usually the network
user ID of the user to whom you want the message sent. Most e-mail pro- grams also require that you create a short comment subject line that
identifies what the message is about.
⻬ Send the message when it’s ready to go. Normally, there’s a handy,
obvious Send button just waiting for you to click it. When you receive a message from another user, the e-mail program copies
the message to your computer and then displays it on-screen so you can read it. You can then delete the message, print it, save it to a disk file, or forward it
to another user. You can also reply to the message by composing a new mes- sage to be sent back to the user who sent the original message.
Here are some additional thoughts about sending and receiving e-mail: ⻬ When someone sends a message to you, most e-mail programs immedi-
ately display a message on your computer screen or make a sound to tell you to check your e-mail. If your computer isn’t on the network or
your e-mail program isn’t running when the message is sent, then you’re notified the next time that you log on to the network or start your e-mail
program.
⻬ E-mail programs can be set up to check for new e-mail automatically — when you log on to the network, and periodically throughout the day
say, every 10 or 15 minutes. ⻬ You can easily attach files to your messages. You can use this feature to
send a word-processing document, a spreadsheet, or a program file to another network user. For details, see “Dealing with attachments,” later
in this chapter. Be careful about attachments other people send to you. E-mail attach-
ments are how computer viruses are spread. So don’t open an attach- ment you weren’t expecting or from someone you don’t know.
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Part I: Getting Started with Networking
Also, realize that it’s easy to fake the From address in an e-mail message. As a result, not all e-mails you receive are really from whom they claim
to be from. So again, don’t open attachments you weren’t expecting. ⻬ Most e-mail programs have a feature called an address book that lets you
store the e-mail addresses you frequently use. That way you don’t have to retype the user ID every time.
⻬ You can address a message to more than one user — the electronic equivalent of a carbon copy. Some programs also enable you to create
a list of users and assign a name to this list. Then you can send a mes- sage to each user in the list by addressing the message to the list name.
For example, June may create a list including Ward, Wally, and Beaver, and call the list Boys. To send e-mail to all the boys on her family net-
work, she simply addresses the message to Boys.
⻬ Some e-mail programs can handle your Internet e-mail as well as your LAN e-mail. There are subtle differences between Internet and LAN e-mail,
however. LAN e-mail is exchanged with other users on your local network. To send a message to another user on your network, you just specify that
person’s user name. In contrast, you can exchange Internet e-mail with anyone in the world who has an Internet connection and an Internet
e-mail account. To send Internet e-mail, however, you must address the message to the recipient’s Internet e-mail address. Of course, you can
store Internet e-mail addresses in your e-mail program’s address book.
Understanding the mail server
E-mail programs rely on a network server computer that is set up as a mail server, which works kind of like an electronic post office where messages
are stored until they can be delivered to the recipient. A network server that functions as a mail server doesn’t have to be dedicated to this purpose,
although this is sometimes true for larger networks. In smaller networks, a network file and print server can also act as the mail server.
Here are some details that you should know about mail servers: ⻬ The server versions of Windows and NetWare come with basic mail-
server programs that let you set up an e-mail system for your network. For more advanced e-mail functions, you can purchase and install a sep-
arate mail-server program such as Microsoft Exchange Server. ⻬ Disk space on a mail server is often at a premium. Be sure to delete
unneeded messages after you read them. ⻬ Managing the mail server can become one of the most time-consuming
tasks of managing a network. Be prepared to spend time managing user accounts, fixing broken message folders, and tinkering with various set-
tings and options.
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