MODULE OFFICE APPLICATION SOFTWARE - SOFAPP

CHAPTER 12: Electronic Mail Features, Etiquettes and Security

Objectives:
a.) Determine effective email structures to achieve clarity and
successful communication.
b.) Develop a heightened awareness of the potential perils of
digital communication.

Lesson 1: Email Features

Now a day, the mail client comes with enhanced features such as attachment, address
book, and MIME support. Here in this chapter we will discuss all of these features which will give
you a better understanding of added feature of a mail client program.
Attachment
Ability to attach file(s) along with the message is one of the most useful features of email.
The attachment may be a word document, PowerPoint presentation, audio/video
files, or images.
• In order to attach file(s) to an email, click the attach button. As a result, a dialog box
appears asking for specifying the name and location of the file you want to attach.
• Once you have selected the appropriate file, it is attached to the mail.
• Usually a paper clip icon appears in the email which indicates that it has an attachment.
• When adding an attachment it is better to compress the attached files so as to reduce the
file size and save transmission time as sending and downloading large files consumes a
lot of space and time.
Address Book
Address book feature of a mail program allows the users to store information about the
people whom they communicate regularly by sending emails. Here are some of the key features
of an Address book:
• Address book includes the nick names, email addresses, phone number etc. of the people.
• Using address book allows us not to memorize email of address of a person, you just have
to select recipient name from the list.
• When you select a particular name from the list, the corresponding email address link
automatically get inserted in to the To: field.

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• Address book also allows creating a group so that you can send a email to very member
of the group at once instead of giving each person email address one by one.
MIME Types
MIME is acronym of Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. MIME compliant mailer
allows us to send files other than simple text i.e. It allows us to send audio, video, images,
document, and pdf files as an attachment to an email.
Suppose if you want to send a word processor document that has a group of tabular
columns with complex formatting. If we transfer the file as text, all the formatting may be lost.
MIME compliant mailer takes care of messy details and the message arrives as desired.
The following table describes commonly used MIME Types:

1. Type Subtype Description File extension(s)

2. Application postscript Printable postscript document .eps, .ps

tex TEX document .tex
troff Printable troff document .t, .tr, .roff

3. Audio aiff Apple sound .aif, .aiff,.aifc

au Sun Microsystems sound .au, .snd
midi Musical Instrument Digital Interface .midi, .mid
real audio Progressive Network sound .ra, .ram

4. image gif Graphics Interchange Format .gif

jpeg Joint Photographic Experts Group .jpeg, .jpg, .jpe
png Portable Network Graphics .png
triff Tagged Image Modeling Language .tiff, .tif

5. Model vrml Virual reality Modelling Language .wrl

6. Text html Hyper Text Markup Language .html, .htm

plain Unformatted text .txt
sgml Standard Generalized Markup language .sgml

7. Video avi Microsoft Audio Video Interleaved .avi

mpeg Moving Pictures Expert Group .mpeg, .mpg

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quicktime Apple QuickTime movie .qt, .mov

sgi-movie silicon graphic movie .movie

Lesson 2: Etiquettes
The term etiquette refers to conventional rules of personal
behavior. But while communicating via email, we cannot know about
the body language and tone of voice etc. Therefore, a set of
guidelines for acceptable behavior on email that have been evolved
is known as Email Netiquette.
Here are set of guidelines that should be followed while working
with email:
• Try to make your message as short as possible. It will make your message easy to read
and understood.
• Be careful about spelling and grammar while typing a message.
• Use emoticons, smiles when required.
• Email address entered must be correct.
• The subject heading of a message should be clear and descriptive.
• Follow the same rules as if you are writing a letter or a memo.
• Sending a message that has already been forwarded or replied many times may contain
many angled brackets. It is better to remove the angled brackets from the message.
• While sending mails to multiple persons, specify their email addresses in the BCC: field so
that the spammers cannot come to know about addresses of other recipients to whom
you have sent a copy.
• Keep size of attachment as small as possible.
• Always add your signature at the end of email.
• Before you send, make it sure everything is fine because you cannot call back a sent mail.

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Lesson 3: Email Security

E-mail Hacking
Email hacking can be done in any of the following ways:
• Spam • Virus • Phishing

Spam
E-mail spamming is an act of sending Unsolicited Bulk E-mails
(UBI) which one has not asked for. Email spams are the junk mails sent by
commercial companies as an advertisement of their products and services.
Virus
Some emails may incorporate with files containing malicious script which
when run on your computer may lead to destroy your important data.
Phishing
Email phishing is an activity of sending emails to a user claiming to be a
legitimate enterprise. Its main purpose is to steal sensitive information such as
usernames, passwords, and credit card details.
Such emails contains link to websites that are infected with malware and
direct the user to enter details at a fake website whose look and feels are same to legitimate one.
E-mail Spamming and Junk Mails
Email spamming is an act of sending Unsolicited Bulk E-mails (UBI) which one has not
asked for. Email spams are the junk mails sent by commercial companies as an advertisement of
their products and services.
Spams may cause the following problems:
• It floods your e-mail account with unwanted e-mails, which may result in loss of important
e-mails if inbox is full.
• Time and energy is wasted in reviewing and deleting junk emails or spams.
• It consumes the bandwidth that slows the speed with which mails are delivered.
• Some unsolicited email may contain virus that can cause harm to your computer.
Blocking Spams

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Following ways will help you to reduce spams:

• While posting letters to newsgroups or mailing list, use a
separate e-mail address than the one you used for your
personal e-mails.
• Don’t give your email address on the websites as it can easily
be spammed.
• Avoid replying to emails which you have received from
unknown persons.
• Never buy anything in response to a spam that advertises a product.
E-mail Cleanup and Archiving
In order to have light weighted Inbox, it’s good to archive your inbox from time to time. Here
I will discuss the steps to clean up and archive your Outlook inbox.
• Select File tab on the mail pane.
• Select Cleanup Tools button on account information
screen.
• Select Archive from cleanup tools drop down menu.
• Select Archive this folder and all subfolders option
and then click on the folder that you want to archive.
Select the date from the Archive items older
than: list. Click Browse to create new .pst file name
and location. Click OK.
Lesson 4: Email Providers
There are several email service providers available in the market with their enabled
features such as sending, receiving, drafting, storing an email and much more.
The following table shows the popular email service providers:

S.N. Service and Description

1. Gmail
Gmail is an email service that allows users to collect all the messages. It also
offers approx 7 GB of free storage.

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2. Hotmail
Hotmail offers free email and practically unlimited storage accessible on
web.

3. Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail offers unlimited storage, SMS texting, social networking and
instant messaging to boot.

4. iCloud Mail
iCloud Mail offers ample storage, IMAP access, and an elegantly
functional web application.

5. AOL Mail
AOL Mail is a free web-based email service provided by AOL, a division of
Verizon Communications.

For more knowledge about email netiquette, please check the link provided;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxAuQHMtX5c

REFERENCES

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/internet_technologies/e_mail_overview.htm

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