Basic E-mail

E-mail is one of the Internet’s earliest tools.You can send documents, files, photos, music and other information in electronic form. It is much quicker than using a postal service.

What do you need?

1. A broadband provider (account) sometimes known as an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Typically (in the UK) this might be BT or Sky but there are lots of others.
2. An email address
   Your Internet Service Provider might give you an email address to use. For various reasons I would NOT use the email address given to you by your service provider. It’s best to use a “portable” e-mail address like one provided by Google , Microsoft or Yahoo. There are many others to choose from. You could even pay for your own unique e-mail domain name such as john@smith.meE-mail addresses can be of the form

   someone@somewhere.co.uk

   the @ symbol and the dots are very important, if you don’t get them right the email will be returned as “address unknown”

3. A password
   This is something that you make up and it must be secure and only known by you. The important thing is to remember your password (write it down and put it somewhere safe). You will not be able to use email without it. If you lose it your provider may or may not be able to help you
4. A computer or tablet or smart phone connected to broadband.
   Your computer can be configured to collect and send email messages. If you don’t know how then Contact Me

You can learn more about how e-mail works look here