Introduction to Email
This section isn't going to try to explain what email is, because we assume you already know that since it's such a commonly-used term (if you really don't know, you could try reading the Wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email). Instead, we're going to explain the factors that you should consider when choosing an email provider, describe some of the most commonly-used providers, and outline some of the problems that you might run into when using email along with some tips on how to overcome these problems.
Email Addresses
An email address is in two parts, separated by the "@" sign – username@emailprovider. "Username" is the part that uniquely identifies you. It can be any string containing letters, numbers and periods ("."). A commonly used format would be firstname.lastname, with the additional of middle initials or trailing numbers if your name has already been taken.
"Emailprovider" is the part that identifies the company providing the email address. Common examples would be gmail.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, yahoo.co.uk etc. So, a complete email address might be something like joe.bloggs@gmail.com.
Strictly speaking, the "emailprovider" part of the address is not case sensitive (so HOTMAIL.COM would be treated the same as hotmail.com), but the "username" part is case sensitive (so Joe.Bloggs and joe.bloggs would be different). In practice though, to avoid confusion, most email providers treat the "username" part as if it were not case sensitive (so if someone has registered joe.bloggs, they won't allow you to register Joe.Bloggs).
Email Format
A typical email message contains the following fields:
From: This field contains the email address, and often the name, of the person who sent the message.
To: This field contains the email addresses, and often the names, of the people that the message is being sent to.
Cc: "CC" stands for Carbon Copy. This field contains the email addresses, and often the names, of people who the message is copied to – they're not the main recipients, but do receive a copy for informational purposes.
Bcc: "BCC" stands for “Blind Carbon Copy”. The people whose email addresses are listed in this field also receive a copy (just like those listed in the "Cc:" field), but their email addresses are not visible to the other recipients of the message (when you receive a message, you can see the contents of the "To:" and "Cc:" fields, but can't see the contents of the "Bcc:" field). If you're sending a message, this allows you to send copies to people without the other recipients knowing.
Date: This field shows the time and date on which the email was sent. It is automatically populated when the message is sent.
Subject: This field identifies the subject of the email. Typically, if you reply to a message, your email client will default the "Subject:" field to something like "Re: <subject of message you're replying to>". Similarly, if you forward a message (send it on to others), it will default the "Subject:" field to something like "Fwd: <subject of message you're forwarding>".
Attachments: This field identifies files which have been attached to the message, so that they can be opened by the recipients.
Body: This field contains the main part of the message, which can consist of text and pictures.
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