E-mail is one of the fastest mediums of communication. One can send messages to any one in the world from anywhere. The message can be simple text message, music clip from your favorite song, video clip of your son, data collected by you in spreadsheet format or a presentation done by you. Any file which can be stored on computer, can also be send to any one via e-mail without any printout or floppy disk. The delivery is also done from your computer, so no going to post office or purchasing envelops. And most important of all is cost. It is almost free. You only pay for your local telephone bill and a small amount (very small) for connects charges to your ISP (Internet Service Provider - VSNL in India, private ISP like Satyam is also available). So, it is obvious that every one want to use e-mail as a primary communication tool.
Now, lets look at the different types of e-mail services
available to us. It is confusing, like some one says he is using
Global Mail, others using Hotmail, other using Internet e-mail.
These are just the names of e-mail service providers. Broadly, we
can divide e-mail services into these parts:
These services are very popular because most of the free
e-mail services on the Internet use this format. In the service,
all the users information as well as mails are stored on a Server
on the Internet. User need not setup any software on his/her
machine. They just open their browser and type the address of
e-mail server (like www.hotmail.com)
and the server returns login page. They log on using their user
name and password. They will see their mailbox with
all the mails stored into them. They can view/delete/forward/reply/transfer the mails or compose a new mail and send
it to someone. It is very convenient and easy to use. That is why
it is so popular. And most of them are free also. If you want an
e-mail account, just go to their home page, click on [sign up] and you will be presented with a
form. Fill that form with required information like your user
name, address etc., click on [send],
and if the user name given by you is free, your account is
created, otherwise you need to select any other user name. All
this in your browser only without paying any money. Yes, you need
to pay for your local telephone bills as well as Internet account
you are using. If you are interested in registering for one of
these services, follow these links:
http://bkp.zzn.com [Most
recommended for its simplicity, it's new and you will get your
name]
http://www.hotmail.com
[Already registered by millions of users, you will not get your
name]
http://www.usa.net [Very
popular, support POP3 (POP access is not free), you may not find you name free]
http://www.yahoo.com [Getting
popularity, offer web search also]
http://www.excite.com [Least
popular, you will get you name as no one is using it]
http://www.indiasite.com/mail.html
[Our Indian Site from Ahmedabad, also a free URL]
http://www.rediff.com [One
more Indian Site, Free 10 MB Web Pages are also on offer]
www.mailcity.com [Very easy user interface, Gives 4 MB mail storage space]
This service is just the basic e-mail service of Internet. It is the e-mail account most people of the world use. We get this mail service with our Internet account. Our Internet Service Provider (ISP) provides us with the mail account and mailbox at his Web Server. All our mails are stored there. We need to connect through any e-mail client program (like Eudora, Outlook, Netscape Composer etc.) to download our mails. Our ISP also sends our mails. In this, we need to compose our mail offline in our e-mail client and send it after connecting to Internet. This saves our Internet online time as in Web based mails, we need to compose our mails online in the browser. There are several private services available that offer this service, but the best is to get in touch with your ISP for your mail account. One mails account comes free with any Internet connection.
Apart from ISP, there are servers on the Net which gives free POP mail account. I know two such place, go get it :This service is very costly and available to large corporate only. In this service, corporate setup there own e-mail server using proprietary e-mail packages like CC-Mail Server/MS Exchange etc. This server serves its employees only. It provides good security of mails. The cost of the software and hardware is very high at this moment. May be it will come down in future.
It is no longer popular in the market as it can not compete
with Internet mail in cost. It is just like Proprietary mail
service. But in this, an organisation setup mail server and sell
mail account to other organisations for a small fee per mail (as
per size). Before Internet's arrival to India, these services are
very popular.
Some of these services are offer by
So, I think you now have a good idea about e-mails. If you have any query about this article, or you have poinited any mistake in it, please let me know. If you can provide more information, please also send me so that I can put it here.
Enjoy!
Binay Kumar Pandey,
bkpandey@geocities.com
