| To send e-mail, you need to connect to the Internet | | | | Sendmail gives up and sends you a failure notification. |
| and an e-mail application, such as Microsoft Outlook | | | | When the e-mail is received at the destination mail |
| Express or Eudora. The e-mail application connects to | | | | server, it is stored until it is retrieved by the addressee. |
| your mail server that can forward your mail. The | | | | To retrieve your e-mails, your e-mail client (such as |
| standard protocol used for sending Internet e-mail is | | | | Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express) connects to the |
| called SMTP, an acronym for Simple Mail Transfer | | | | POP3 or IMAP server and issues a series of |
| Protocol. It works in conjunction with a POP3 (Post | | | | commands to download copies of your e-mail |
| Office Protocol) server or an IMAP (Internet Mail | | | | messages to your computer. |
| Access Protocol) server, which are used to receive | | | | E-mails can be sent anywhere in the world to anyone |
| e-mails. | | | | who has an e-mail address. Almost all Internet service |
| When you send an e-mail message, your computer | | | | providers (ISPs) offer an e-mail address with every |
| transmits it to an SMTP server using the Internet. The | | | | account. |
| server looks at the e-mail address (like the address on | | | | Initially, when e-mail technology was introduced, only |
| an envelope), then forwards on it to the recipient's mail | | | | short messages could be sent. Attachments such as |
| server using an application called Sendmail. If for some | | | | formatted documents, photographs etc could not be |
| reason, the recipient?s e-mail server is inaccessible, | | | | sent. With the introduction of Multipurpose Internet Mail |
| Sendmail periodically re-tries to send the e-mail. If after | | | | Extension (MIME) and other encoding techniques, it has |
| 4 hours the e-mail has not been delivered, you receive | | | | become possible to send almost any kind of |
| a notification informing you about the problem. If the | | | | attachments. |
| e-mail cannot be delivered even after 5 days, | | | | |