[u3aavcuss] E-Mail - Who does What

From: "Mike Bean" <Mike.Bean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <u3aavcuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:45:13 +0100

Peter Gasson wrote ...  (re [U3AAVCUSS] What does a web browser do ... )

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Mike
 
Thanks for the thorough reply.  Perhaps the branding is confusing: something
called Internet Explorer sounds as if it ought to be a search engine.  I 'd
be happy to sell Bill Gates an alternative name, something like Internet
Connect.
 
If I send an email, is it the ISP which guides it to its destination, or the
web browser?  Or something else?
 
Regarding AOL, I may not be strictly correct in using the word override.  If
you are an AOL user, and you select AOL from the desktop, you open AOL's
welcome page, which gives you direct access to your email, to a space for
website addresses, and to a search facility (labelled "Powered by Google"). 
Internet Explorer may well be chugging away underneath, but you aren't aware
of it.  And I think the email service is AOL's own: I have Internet Outlook
loaded on my PC, but I can't use it while AOL is my service provider. 
 
Peter 

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Internet Explorer

What's in a name? (No, not Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1)) - Well, just to be
clear the Internet Explorer does just that - by using addresses and links
you can explore the whole world of the Internet (well, the World Wide Web
part of it). A search engine is like a modern Mercator or Speed who have
given us maps to make our exploration easier. 

E-Mail

E-Mail is one of the earlier parts of the Internet and was in place a long
time before the World Wide Web (WWW).

There are many organisations that provide e-mail services, they are often
ISPs too but it's not a requirement. For example I have e-mail provided by
Demon (my ISP), Mail.com (independent US provider), Google (THE search
service provider) and 5QZ (my own domain somewhere in Surrey) - I access
these and others through a single Inbox in Outlook.

The services vary in their capabilities, cost and access method but can all
handle simple plain text e-mail and attachments.   

There are several forms of e-mail but two distinct types - web-based and
off-line although many can be operated in both ways.

Web-Based E-Mail

Web-based e-mail is access through a web browser - like Internet Explorer or
Firefox - just like any other web site and you log in with a user-id and a
password. The site can show your incoming mail, previously read mail and
stored mail and allows you to read any of them. Mail can be deleted or
stored as required and new e-mail can be created and sent. ALL this takes
place on the web site of the mail provider, none of it is stored on your PC
so connection to the internet is required to do anything with those mail
items.

Depending on the service, which usually depends on how much you've paid for
it (from £0.00 to so-much/month), you may receive additional or more
flexible facilities and exclusion of the all-pervasive advertising.

Web-based e-mail is, however, excellent if you want to access e-mail from
more than one PC - like at the library or in an Internet cafe while on
holiday - where you can get everything you were able to access on your main
PC.

Off-line E-Mail

Off-line e-mail, as the name suggests, does not require hat you be connected
to your mail provider to read, process and create mail. Of course,       



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[u3aavcuss] E-Mail - Who does What

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