Some concepts of email and internets

What is email? What are the main features of Email?

Email is basically for electronic mail transmission among people. There are also mailboxes, mail servers and other features like those in traditional post office systems. Only the difference is the simplicity and speed in the information transmission via computer and the Internet (It is also discussed later on).

Email is a great achievement

E-mail is a great achievement in the world of communication. It is a great achievement because it allows messages to reach their recipients within a very short time. If anybody asks how much time it would take for a letter to reach Bangladesh from the EU or the USA, even the top officials of the Post Department would not be able to answer. The fastest mail delivery system in the world, DHL, takes a minimum of three days to deliver mail to a client. There are, of course, other communication devices like phone, fax, telex, but often those are too costly. Among all the media of information transmission, email is the best as it is the cheapest and also the fastest. Also, it ensures privacy or confidentiality, as the message is stored in the mailbox of the recipient directly. The sender can be sure that the recipient will obtain the message, which is sometimes impossible to assume in the case of Fax. Another great benefit of email is that a user can access his/her messages from any computer in the world that has Internet access, whenever he/she want to check for email.

Email address

Every email recipient must have an email address to be identified and to temporarily store the message in the mail server. If there is no address, how will you be able to locate any person among millions of people? You must have an address, and so emails are sent to addresses. Example: alam@bangla.net is an email address. Every address must be specified according to the mail server. The unique name before the @ sign would give the identification of the recipient. Here, alam is the user or recipient, and bangla.net is the mail server.

Using Email

Email works like a postal system. When someone mails a message (letter), it is first stored in a mail server. This is just like posting the letters in the local post office or letterbox.

Usage of the Internet

There is versatile usage of the Internet. It is not only the source of huge information, but also a very powerful medium to establish direct and easy communication among people and societies. There are the following special features:

·        The Information Superhighway

·        The World Wide Web

·        Bulletin Boards

·        Chat forums

·        E-mail

·        Information Retrieval, etc.

What is the Information Superhighway

The Internet is the super corridor or super highway where any sort of information can be published, retrieved or exchanged. Every Internet Server stores a large amount of information on different topics. And there are millions of such servers, which are active all day long, even days or months together. There is no break, no pause. So information is available at any time, any moment. You may just hook up with the Internet and get piles of information!

           What is the World Wide Web (WWW)

The WWW is a very famous term, used to define the information population by any Internet server. It is a global publication of web pages showcasing people, societies, and organisations. Every web page is technically a page of information, where different connecting heads/subheads are available to navigate to related pages of information, which are bundled together.

What is a Bulletin Board?

Bulletin Boards are actually simple forums where news, software, games, and articles are bundled together with access to every member, where they can directly contribute to or collect from the system, according to everybody’s requirements.

In a bulletin board, you may have the opportunity to confer with others, sending items without worrying about who you want to communicate with. Every member may have the same freedom to collect anything at any time, according to his/her own convenience.