G-Mail Basics

E-Mail 

E-mail – it’s convenient, cheap and easy. Today, it is the most rapidly growing means of communication. All e-mail programs are slightly different. Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! are some popular e-mail programs. Almost all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer an e-mail address with every account. This is a basic introduction to e-mail. We will be using Gmail e-mail for this class. Gmail e-mail works similarly to other e-mail programs and most of the information should be transferable to other programs. Advertisements are used by Gmail to support its free e-mail service.

What is E-Mail?

E-mail is an electronic way to send or retrieve personal and/or business-related messages, including text and pictures.

How Does It Work?

Think of e-mail like the postal service. To receive e-mail, you must have an account on a mail server. This is similar to your mailing address where you receive letters.

Your message is sent from your computer to a server (like the post office) where the computer looks at the address (like the address on a letter) and then directs the message on to the server associated with the recipient’s e-mail account. Once it arrives at its destination mail server, the message is stored in an electronic mailbox (like your regular mail box) until the recipient retrieves it.

You can still receive e-mail while your computer is turned off. The mail server collects and stores your incoming e-mail until the next time you access your e-mail by opening your mailbox to retrieve your messages..

Understanding E-Mail Addresses

You can send e-mail to anyone in the world, as long as you have his or her e-mail address.

Example of an e-mail address: JSmith@gmail.com

An e-mail address has three main parts:

1.    The user name comes before the “@” sign.(To type the “@” sign (also known as the “at-sign”), hold down the shift key, and press the “2” key at the top of the keyboard. Notice how there is the “@” sign above the Two…) When you sign up for an e-mail account, you’re usually asked to supply a user name (first initial and last name often used).

2.    The domain name comes after the “@” sign. This refers to the mail server, the computer that stores your electronic mailbox. It’s usually the name of a company or organization.

3.    Finally, there’s a dot (.) followed by three letters that indicate the type of domain. (.com, .edu, .net, .lib.in.us, etc.)

NOTE: When you are sending an e-mail, you must type the entire e-mail address including the user name, the @ sign, and the domain name. E-mail addresses are not case specific meaning that it does not matter if you capitalize a letter, or leave it in lower case. I.E. JDoe@Hotmail.com is the same as jdoe@hotmail.com.  It is, however better to use lower case.

Further Information about E-mail

On the Internet, everything moves at light-speed. This includes E-mail. Thus, because E-mail can be sent and received so quickly, sometimes it is more useful to write in a conversational manner than in a formal letter style. However, E-mail can be a reflection of yourself, thus, one should not become “sloppy” at grammar, because it shows that you “don’t care.” So, always spell check your E-mail and use proper grammar and capitalize your I’s. Sometimes, one might forget to capitalize one, or you might make a typo. This is okay. Just don’t write the entire E-mail sloppily.

Getting a Gmail Account

We choose to teach you how to use Gmail because it is free, rich in features, and has a clean, easy to use interface. Gmail is a free email service provided by Google. It is free primarily because of advertisements, although these advertisements are small and non-intrusive.

How to sign up for Gmail E-mail

1.      Begin at the Gmail home page: www.gmail.com

2.      Where it says “New to Gmail? It’s free and easy.” Click on “Create an account.”

3.      Begin typing in your personal Information, however be careful not to use a password others can guess and make certain that you can remember it. If you choose to write down your email password, make certain that you safe guard the paper with your password so that others are not able to find it.

4.      Type in First Name and Last Name in their respective boxes.

5.      Type in your desired user name. This will be your unique E-mail address. Some addresses might already be taken. Click on the Check Availability button to see if you can use the E-mail address you typed in. If you get an error, try changing your E-mail address. Continue to change the E-mail address until you see it is available after clicking on the “Check Availability” button.

6.      Type in a password and write it down. This password must have at least 8 letters or numbers in it.

7.      Retype your password for accuracy in the next box.

8.      Next, if you are at your home computer, your computer can recognize that you are the sole user, and automatically log you into your E-mail (more on this later). If you are at a public computer, deselect the first checkbox under the second password button.

9.      The next checkbox allows you to have a more “personalized” experience with the Google search engine by having it remember your search history and displaying websites that reflect your prior searching habits when a Google serach is performed in the future. Check this if you wish.

10.  Select a secret question for which you will provide the answer. This is for if you forget your password, but know the answer to your secret question, you may enter the answer to the secret question and gain access to your account. If this ever happens, ask a friend or family member to help if you cannot resolve the problem.

11.  If you have another E-mail address, feel free to enter it in. If not, enter bwsc.computer.group@gmail.com. If you forget your password, an email will be sent to this address confirming that you really want to change your gmail password.

12.  Select your country.

13.  Type in the Letters/Numbers that you see in the picture. This is for additional security for your account. You do not need to write the numbers/letters down. This may be hard to do, so be careful.

14.  Click the “I accept, create my account” button.

15.  And now you’re set up! Click on the “I’m ready – show me my account” hyperlink.

16.  You’ll be directed to your inbox – and you’re done! Congratulations!

Tip: You will want to write down your password and E-mail address. Keep it in a safe place and memorize it as soon as possible.

Using the Actual E-mail Account

Every time you want to check your E-mail, you must enter your password and E-mail address. This is because your E-mail account can be accessed at any computer via the Internet (at gmail.com). Other people may use the same computer to check their E-mail as well. They would have to enter their password and E-mail address too, but it would be different than from your E-mail address and your password. Thus, each time you check your E-mail via the Internet, you must enter your own personal information and when you are finished, always Sign Out.

Logging on to Gmail

1.      Type: www.gmail.com into the address box of the browser.

2.      Press Enter.

3.      Type your Gmail Username, if it is not already in the box.

4.      Type your password.

5.      Click Sign In.

Checking your mail

As soon as you log in, you will be directed to you inbox, where new mail will arrive!

Composing and Sending an E-Mail Message

1.      To create a new E-mail click “Compose Mail.” (At the upper left-hand side of the screen)

2.      Type the recipient’s E-mail address in the “To:” box.

2.1.   To send a message to more than one person, you may enter multiple addresses by placing a comma and space between each address. (E.g.: To: jdoe@aol.com, LTorwalds@hotmail.com, DKent@Company.com)

2.2.   Make sure you enter the address correctly, or the message will be sent either to a different person or back to you. – just like the postal service!

3.      Type the subject of the message in the “Subject:” box. Keep the subject to a word or phrase summarizing the content of your message. (E.g.: Subject: Today’s Work Progress)

4.      Click with the mouse in the message box to move the cursor to that space.

5.      Type the body of your message.

6.      When you are finished typing your message and wish to send it, click “Send.”

How long does it take for a message to be delivered?

It may only take a few seconds for a message to be delivered. The computer sends a message through the Internet → then the E-mail message is sent to your mail server which sends it to the recipient’s mail server → then to the recipient’s computer when s/he opens her or his mailbox. However, it may take longer if you are sending an email message with an attachment or Gmail’s servers are overloaded.

Reading an E-Mail Message

To read a particular message, click near the subject of the E-mail.

Note: Unread messages in your Inbox will have an unopened envelope in front of it and will be tinted or highlighted.

Replying to a Message

1.      Open the message you wish to reply to.

2.      Click the “Reply” button. The program will present you with a message already addressed to the sender. The subject line will state “Re:” and then the old message’s subject. You will most likely leave the subject line as it is.

3.      Place your cursor in the box above the text to which you are replying.

4.      Begin typing your reply.

5.      Click “Send” when you are finished typing your message and wish to send it.

*Note the difference between “Reply” and “Reply All.” Clicking the “Reply” button will send your reply only to the original sender of the message. Clicking the “Reply All” button will send your reply to everyone who received the original message.

Forwarding a Message

1.      Open the message you wish to forward to another person.

2.      Click the down arrow next to the word Reply.

3.      Click on “Forward”

4.      Type the recipient’s address(es) in the “To:” box.

5.      Type a note above the forwarded message (optional).

6.      Click “Send”

Deleting a Message

In earlier E-mail programs, space that E-mails could take up was limited. Nowadays, because of cheaper storage, space is not really a problem. Gmail allows you to save every single E-mail you receive (and make it searchable). When you want to clean up your inbox, select old E-mails in the select-box and then click archive. They will no longer show up in your inbox, but will be available when you do a search.

Searching for Old Mail

One of the most popular features with Gmail is the ability to search for specific E-mails among all the E-mails that you have received. (assuming that it is either in your inbox or you archived it) To search for an E-mail, go to the top search bar and type in your search terms – this might include the subject of the E-mail, words in the E-mail, or possibly the sender of the E-mail. (This is very similar to searching the Internet with the Google Search engine!) Click Search E-mail and the results will be displayed.

Note: When you have finished your E-mail session, be sure to click Sign Out. This will close your E-mail account. This is especially important when you are using a public computer.

E-Mail Privacy

E-Mail is not completely private. You might consider E-mail much as a postcard. Don’t send something you wouldn’t want everyone to see. For example, it’s probably not a good idea to put your credit card number, checking account number, or your social security number in an E-mail message. It is possible for messages to be intercepted by those who shouldn’t be reading them, especially in a work environment. The chances of someone reading your messages are slim, but just be aware of the possibilities. And remember, once you’ve sent a message, there’s no getting it back. It’s on its way for good!

How to Find Someone’s E-Mail Address

Again, you must have someone’s E-mail address to send them an E-mail letter. If you do not have their E-mail, you cannot send anything to them, just like if you do not have someone’s mailing address, you cannot mail anything to them via the post office. The best way to find someone’s E-mail address is to ask them directly.

SPAM!

Spam is the Internet equivalent to “junk mail.” Advertisers send very descriptive and sometimes fake advertisements that try to get your credit card number or your bank pin number. They send it out to millions of E-mail addresses. This is a very important thing to pay attention to. Spam is usually bad, and malicious, so never reply to spam, even if it has an unsubscribe link. One might suppose that this gets you off their advertising list, but in reality, it only confirms the accuracy of your E-mail address and even more spam will come your way.

Tips for Avoiding SPAM

1. Gmail already has SPAM protection, and all suspected SPAM goes to the “Spam Folder.”
2. If there is mail from someone you don’t know, and the subject line is questionable, don’t open those E-mails. They may be SPAM or contain Viruses.
3. Never give out your E-mail address to a website or someone you do not know.
4. Never open SPAM.
5. Never buy anything offered by SPAM

E-Mail Definitions

Attachment – a text file or image, such as a photograph, sent as part of an E-mail message.

Bcc – a “blind” carbon copy, a feature where if you “bcc” someone, the original receiver of the message will not know that a copy of the message will be received by the individual who is “bcc”-ed.

Bouncing – when a message is not delivered because of incorrect address, misspelling, etc. and is sent back to you by the E-mail system. Sometimes there will be a delay in receiving notification of bounced mail. The system usually tries for several hours before giving up.

Cc - a carbon copy, a feature which will send an copy of your E-mail to the “cc”-ed person.

E-Mail – electronic mail – the transmission of messages over a network.

E-mail Acronyms - Some acronyms you may see:

BTW – By the way.

LOL – Laughing out loud.

ROFL – Rolling on the floor laughing.

TTYL -Talk to you later.

Emoticons - Also referred to as smileys:

(These symbols help convey the tone, or emotion of an online message).

Examples: Click the Smiley on the tool bar and select:

 Happy

 Sad

 Wink

 Shocked, surprised

$-) Just won the lottery

Folders – (Inbox, Draft, Sent, Trash, etc.) can be used to organize your messages.

“Forwarding” a Message – Sending a message on to another person.

Header – the section of an E-mail message that includes To, From, Subject, Cc, and attached fields.

Inbox – where incoming mail is stored in your E-mail account.

Internet – A network of computers that carries data and makes the exchange of information possible. Allows access to the World Wide Web and E-mail functions.

ISP (Internet Service Provider) – The company that provides access to the Internet (like a gateway between you and the Internet.) E.g., American Online (AOL). Almost all ISPs offer an E-mail address with every account.

Mail server – a computer in a network that acts as a post office, sorting incoming mail and forwarding outgoing mail.

Netiquette (Network Etiquette) – Acceptable practices of using various Internet resources. Example: DON’T USE ALL CAPS. IT APPEARS AS IF THE WRITER IS SHOUTING.

Online service – a company that maintains an exclusive network and provides subscribers with services like E-mail and chat rooms.

Web-Based email – When email is not downloaded to an application on a user’s computer but rather viewed online through a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer. Examples of web-based email are Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail (also known as Windows Live Mail).

Signature Line - A set of 4 – 8 lines of text placed at the end of a mail message to provide the reader with the author’s contact information, favorite quote, special of the month, autoresponder/web site address, etc. The signature line is composed and placed into the E-mail software’s signature file for automatic appending.

SPAM - To send unsolicited commercial E-mail, usually in large amounts and indiscriminately, to discussion groups or subscriber bases.

Trash – Where your deleted messages are stored for a short time before they are periodically deleted for good. You may choose to delete messages permanently yourself by clicking “empty trash now.”

WWW – World Wide Web – a subset of the Internet. A collection of inter-linked documents. Remember, the Internet can exist without the web.

The Internet

The Internet might seem intimidating at first. – A vast communications network spanning the globe with billions of web-pages that are made to satisfy and inform their constituents. Indeed the Internet is quite large with many “pages.” However, in this lesson we will simplify the Internet to allow you to become masters of it.

The Internet, the web, cyberspace, and the ‘net are all terms that generally mean the same thing, in this case, we will call it the Internet. The Internet is a NETwork of computers, all over the world, INTERconnected to each other and available to any individual. The Internet is used for many different activities including shopping, communicating, learning, and distributing information.

Unfortunately, you cannot open a door to a house, and expect to “go into the Internet.” Computers are primarily the tool you utilize to use the Internet. The Internet is somewhat difficult to describe because you cannot touch it. Sometimes it is best described in comparison to a library. The Internet is made up of many individual components, just like a library is made up of many books. The Internet’s components have even more individual parts, just like a book has pages.

Changing Constantly

Because information, such as news, sports, and money, changes so quickly in this day and age, the Internet must change along with it. This might seem confusing. However, it is not necessarily so. The Internet can be thought of as a dynamic living organism that changes and adapts to its environment. Thus, one web “page” that you saw yesterday, might be gone the day after tomorrow.

Purpose/Content of Websites

Our cursor turns into a hand when you mouse over a link

On the Internet, there are many web sites. These are usually made for one specific purpose; it might be telling you the news, or it might be informing you on the benefits of stamp collecting. The best analogy for a web site is probably a comparison to an entire book, or an entire newspaper. Web Sites are made up of “pages,” just like a newspaper or book. Web sites are usually independent, however sometimes linked together by hyperlinks (also called links) that allow you to jump from one web site, to another website. These links allow you to “turn the page,” and move around on the Internet. They are usually underlined and blue, however they can be any color and sometimes even can be a picture. How to identify a hyperlink – when your mouse hovers over a hyperlink, the arrow changes into a pointing hand.

These pages are what you see and read on the Internet. They are primarily made up of text (words), digital media, (pictures, movies, music) and hyperlinks. The Internet, unlike a book or newspaper, is in no order, and thus, at times, can seem slightly confusing. However, there are tools on the Internet that fortunately organizes it and allows you to use it comfortably and easily.

Applications to Access the Internet

On the computer, you use an application, or program, to see the Internet. This is called a web browser – you “browse” the web with it. Some common web browsers include Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, and Mozzila. There is no major difference between these, however, they look a little different, and appeal to different Internet users. They share a common purpose, to navigate the Internet, and have basically the same buttons. (Collectively, buttons make a toolbar) 

Back Button – This button allows you to go back to the previous page that you were at. It is the most used and if you accidentally click a link, this is the button you would use to get back to where you were.

Forward Button – If you accidentally clicked back, you don’t have to hunt for the hyperlink on the webpage to go back to the previous page.

Stop Button – If the webpage you are loading takes a long time to load, and you are in a rush, you can click this button to make it stop loading. This is very useful if you are looking at many pictures. Pictures take up a lot of space on the Internet, and it takes a long time for them to be transported from the Internet onto your computer. Thus, you can conveniently use the stop button.

Refresh Button – This button is especially useful if you are looking up the news, sports scores, or the weather. By pressing the refresh button, the web page is loaded again, and also updated. (Very useful for websites that change a lot i.e. news, sports, weather, etc.)

Home Button - When you open your Web Browser, the first website that is displayed is your home page. This web page is called your home page. It is essentially the first page you come to when you open your web browser. You can change your homepage to your preferences. When you press the home button, it takes you to your home page.

Search Button - the search button is another way of looking up something on the Internet.

Favorites Button - This loads a panel that lists all of your pre-programmed favorite websites.

Address Box - This displays the URL of a webpage. URL stands for Universal Resource Locator. It is essentially an address for the webpage. Each URL is unique for the webpage. You can type a specific URL into the address box by left clicking in it once and then typing. Although URLs are all different, they share common characteristics. The basic diagram of a URL is shown below:

The parts of a website address (URL)

This is different than an E-mail (Electronic Mail) Address:

The parts of an email address

Scrolling – Again!

One thing to keep in mind when viewing the Internet is that a bunch of information might be displayed on a webpage, however, only a small portion can be seen immediately when you load the webpage. Thus, it is important to look at your scroll bars to the right and bottom to see if there is more information you are missing. If you are tired of using the mouse to scroll up and down, try using the arrow keys. These are easier to manipulate.

An example webpage

Aggravations!

On the Internet, there are things that help you, and things that can make you aggravated. One aggravation is the Pop Up Ad. These irritating advertisements are caused by aggressive marketers who want you to see their “amazing” product and buy it. Pop ups create their own window and usually appear on top of the information that you are interested in. How irritating! If you click on these, they will take you away from the information you are looking at, and direct you to a another website that may try to steal some of your information or hurt your computer. The simple solution to these menacing advertisements is not falling for the deals they are advertising by clicking the X at the top right of the window immediately. Another type of advertisement is the Banner. Unfortunately, banners cannot go away. They are on web pages and are there to stay. Just like Pop ups, they are used by marketers to sell. Be careful not to click on them and the only solution to them is to ignore them.

Another unfortunate webpage that you might come across on the Internet, is that sometimes, when you try go to a webpage, you might come up with a screen that looks like this:

Site or Page Not Found

This essentially means that a website has either disappeared, been deleted, or is unavailable. Sometimes try clicking on the refresh button in the toolbar, and the web page may load. Other times it may not. This error may also be caused by an incorrect typing of a URL. If you manually entered the URL, try double-checking to make sure you spelled it correctly, or if you accidentally used a comma instead of a period. Unfortunately, if these solutions don’t work, you might be out of luck!

Web traffic is a common thing on the Internet. Sometimes, a website can become very sluggish or inaccessible because too many people are trying to visit the website. This is just like too many people crowding the highway at rush hour when they all are trying to get home! Heavy web traffic usually occurs during the early evening hours, when many people get home from school or work. It is a good idea to not surf during these hours, or you might wait quite some time to visit a web page. If traffic is too severe, web pages might not and a notice that encourages you to try again later. Unfortunately, there is nothing that you can do to stop this.

Congratulations! You have now passed the basic principles of the Internet. Now it is time to find out more about what you can do on the Internet.

Internet Searching

On the Internet, there are websites specifically designed to help you find websites and organize them. These are called Search Engines and Subject Directories. We shall explore two of these.

Google

www.google.com

Google is a search engine, a Web site used to search for information on the World Wide Web. Google collects Web sites using a computer program (called a wanderer, crawler, robot, worm, or spider). Google then creates an index of these sites that you can search.

Use a search engine when

·         you have a narrow topic or idea to research

·         you want to retrieve a large number of Web pages on a topic

·         you want to search for information from a particular type of site or domain (.org, .gov, .edu)

·         you want to retrieve certain file types (e.g., images, audio, video)

·         you want to retrieve pages in other languages

Performing a search in Google

1.      Think of keywords to use in your search.

2.      Click inside the search box with the mouse, then type in your keywords.

3.      Click the “Google Search” button or press the Enter key on your keyboard to start the search.

4.      To view a site in the list of results, click on the blue underlined title of the site.

Google searching tips

·         Google will return pages that include all of your search terms. There is no need to include the word “and” between terms. For example, to look for information about parks in Cincinnati, simply type Cincinnati parks.

·         Google is not case sensitive. Typing reggie miller is the same as typing REGGIE MILLER or Reggie Miller.

·         The “I’m Feeling Lucky” button will take you directly into the first Web site on the list of results.

·         The more words you include in your search, the more specific your search will be.

·         If you don’t find what you need in the first 20-30 sites, try another search engine.

Use Google’s Advanced Search when you want to

·         search for a phrase

·         exclude words from your search

·         find pages in a specific language

·         find pages from a particular type of site or domain (.com, .org, .gov, .edu)

·         search for images

Yahoo!

www.yahoo.com

Yahoo! is a subject directory, a Web site that offers a collection of links to Internet resources submitted by site creators or evaluators and organized into subject categories. Most subject directories are searchable.

Use a subject directory when

·         you have a broad subject, or just want to browse.

·         you want to see a list of sites on your topic often recommended and annotated by experts.

Two ways of searching Yahoo!

·         Using the categories, you can find information by browsing through each subject.

1.      Click on the category you wish to search.

2.      Follow the categories by clicking on the links until you find the information you want.

·         By entering keywords into the search box, you can make your way quickly to any of Yahoo’s categories.

1.      Think of keywords to use in your search.

2.      Click inside the search box with the mouse, then type in your keywords.

3.      Click the “Search” button or press the Enter key on your keyboard to start the search.

4.      To view a category or Web site in the list of results, click on the blue, underlined title.

Yahoo! searching tips

·         Results from your search are presented on the “search results” page with links to Yahoo! categories first and then to individual Web site matches.

·         Links to Yahoo! categories are in bold faced type. Links to Web sites outside Yahoo! are not in bold.

________________________________________

Try these questions to test your searching skills using Google or Yahoo!

·         Look for recipes that use eggplant.

·         Browse for Web sites about container gardening.

·         Find the lyrics of the official state song of Indiana.

·         Browse for Web sites about harps.

·         What is the phone number of the Office of Admission at Otterbein College?

·         The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has useful information on travelers’ health issues. Can you find this information without knowing the Web address for the agency?

Hint: To find specific information, a search engine works best. Browsing is easiest in a subject directory.

Helpful Internet Links

Popular Search Engines and Subject Directories

Google - www.google.com

Dogpile – www.dogpile.com

Bing – www.bing.com

Yahoo – www.yahoo.com

Vivisimo – www.vivisimo.com

Glossary of Internet Terms

Browser – A software program that allows Internet documents to be viewed, also called a Web Browser.

Cyberspace – The world of computer networks.

Domain Name – A unique name that identifies a specific computer on the Internet.

Download – A term for transferring software or other files from one computer to another.

E-mail – Electronic Mail – Messages sent from one specific user to another using a network

E-mail address – The way a specific user is identified so that they may receive E-mail. An e-mail address can be identified by the “@” sign. E.g., Support@seniorconnects.org

Hits – The number of files downloaded from a computer on the Internet, or the results of a query performed with a Search Engine.

Home Page – The first page of a Web Site, similar to a table of contents.

HTML – HyperText Markup Language- A computer language used to make hypertext documents that are sent via the World Wide Web and viewed using a Browser.

HTTP – HyperText Transfer Protocol – The way that hypertext documents are transferred over the Internet.

Hypertext – A way of presenting information that allows words, pictures, sounds, and actions to be inter-linked so that you may jump between them however you choose.

Link – A highlighted word, phrase, or image that allows you to jump to another document on the World Wide Web.

Search Engine – a web site that indexes and allows searching of information gathered from the Internet.

URL – Uniform Resource Locator – The entire address for a piece of information of the Internet. E.g., www.yahoo.com

Web Page – a hypertext document available on the World Wide Web.

Web Site – A collection of Web Pages.

World Wide Web – A collection of resources available on the Internet using a Web Browser.