"Sirs, I have tested your machine. It adds a new terror to life and makes death a long-felt want." (Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree describing the gramophone, 1956)
What Is Email?
Everyone is familiar with sending and receiving paper mail. In many ways, e-mail is exactly the same. You compose and send messages. You receive and read messages. The only real differences are that, instead of using pen and paper, you use a computer; you don't need stamps and messages are transmitted anywhere in the world in seconds.
Receiving Mail
There are two essentials that you need in order to receive e-mail. The first is an email address. You can get such an address either from your Internet Service Provider (the company who provides your connection to the Internet) or from one of the many, free email providers on the World Wide Web. Along with your email address, you will also be assigned a mail box on an email server. That mail box is available 24 hours a day for others to send you messages. When you wish to check your mail, you connect to the mailbox to download and read any messages that have come in for you using your e-mail program. You can always think of this mailbox as an electronic PO box number at a post office. You have to go into the Post Office to get your mail.
Sending Mail
When you wish to send a message, you compose it in your email program, address it (either by typing in an address or choosing from a list of your regular correspondents) and the e-mail program uploads the message to another email server, which immediately routes it to the addressee. This time, you're using something like the normal post box found in any street. When you want to send a letter, you go out and post it into the post box and let the postal service take care of the rest.
Important Note:
If you are charged by the minute for your Internet connection, you should try to compose email messages before you go online so that you are not charged for the time spent writing the message.