These mailing lists usually let you search old messages for topics of interest. They are both living discussion forums and interesting searchable databases! Mednews is a weekly electronic newsletter. Its columns bring regular medical news summaries from USA Today, Center for Disease Control MMWR, weekly AIDS Statistics from CDC, and more. Send the following command to LISTSERV@ASUACAD.BITNET to subscribe:
SUB MEDNEWS Your-first-name Your-last-name
Chapter 7: Electronic mail, telex, and fax ==========================================
Electronic mail is one of the most popular online services. People living thousands of miles apart can exchange messages and documents very quickly. International Resource Development, Inc., an American research organization, claimed (1992) that we can send electronic mail to more than 10 million personal mailboxes. We believe the figure to be much higher. The Matrix News (Texas, U.S.A.) claims the number is over 18 million (March 1993). The Boardwatch Magazine (U.S.A.) believes that new callers are coming online for their first time at a rate of close to 10,000 per day (January 1993). Electronic Mail & Micro Systems (New Canaan, Conn., U.S.A.) estimated an average of 27.8 million messages sent per month in 1990. Mail through the Internet and grassroots services on free bulletin boards (like FidoNet) is not included in their figure. The annual rate of increase in the number of messages is over 30% and increasing. If a given email service charges you US$30 per hour, it will cost you a meager US$0.075 to send one typewritten letter (size A- 4, or around 2,200 characters). See chapter 15 for a breakdown of this cost. If you live in Norway, and send the letter by ordinary mail to a recipient in Norway, postage alone is US$0.53 (1992). The cost is seven times higher than using email. To send the same letter from Norway to the United States by ordinary mail will cost 11 times more. This letter takes several days to reach the destination, while email messages arrive almost instantly. Often, you can send email messages to several recipients in one operation - without paying extra for the pleasure. Compare this to sending to several parties by fax! You do not have to buy envelopes and stamps, fold the sheet, put it into the envelope, and bring it to a mailbox. Just let the computer call your favorite email service to send the letter. The recipient does not have to sit by the computer waiting for your mail. Upon receipt, it will be automatically stored in his mailbox. He can read it when he has time. The recipient can print it locally, and it will be a perfect document, no different to one typed in locally. He can also make corrections or comments, and email onwards to a third party. In this way several people can work jointly on a report, and no time is it re-typed from scratch. When you receive several messages in the morning, you can very quickly create replies to them one at the time at your keyboard, and then send them in one go. No need to feed five different pieces of paper into a fax machine or envelopes for five different people. Where you can find a telephone, you can also read mail. In most countries, communicating through email is easy and economical. By the way, the simple but miraculous thing about email is that you can quote easily and exactly the point to which you are replying. This is a revolution in communication, no?
How to send email? —————————- This is what it normally takes for a CompuServe user to send me a message:
Type GO MAIL to get to the "post office," and then type
COMPOSE.
"Start writing," says CompuServe. Type your message
manually, or send a file (text or binary). Type /EXIT when
done.
"To whom?" asks CompuServe. You enter: "Odd de Presno
75755,1327," or just my mailbox number (75755,1327).
CompuServe asks you to enter Subject. You type: "Hello,
my friend!" Your message has been sent.
A few seconds later, the message will arrive in my
mailbox. If I am online to CompuServe at the moment, I will
probably read it right away. If not, it will stay there until I
get around to fetch it.
Above, we used the term "normally takes to send." Please note that many users never ever TYPE these commands! They use various types of automatic software to handle the mechanics of sending and receiving mail (see Chapter 16). Other systems require different commands to send email. Ulrik at the University of Oslo (Norway) is a Unix system. So is The Well in San Francisco. On such systems, mail is normally sent using these commands:
Type "mail opresno@extern.uio.no". When the computer asks for "Subject:," enter "Hello, my friend!" Type your message or send it. When done, enter a period (.) in the beginning of a line. Ulrik will reply with "Cc:" to allow you to 'carbon copy' the message to other people. If you don't want that, press ENTER and the message is on its way. While I wrote this book, I had to go to Japan. A simple command allowed me to redirect all incoming mail to CompuServe. As a result I could read and send mail by calling a local CompuServe number in several Japanese cities.
Though the commands for sending email differ between systems, the principle is the same. All systems will ask you for an address and the text of your message. On some, the address is a code, on others a name (like ODD DE PRESNO). Most systems will ask for a Subject title. Many will allow you to send copies of the message to other recipients (Cc:). Some services allow you to send binary files as email. Binary files contain codes based on the binary numeration system. Such codes are used in computer programs, graphics pictures, compressed spreadsheets and text files, and sound files. Many online services let you send messages as fax (to over 15 million fax machines), telex (to over 1.8 million telex machines), and as ordinary paper mail. We have tested this successfully on CompuServe, MCI Mail and other services. On CompuServe, replace "Odd de Presno 75755,1327" with ">FAX: 4737027111". My fax number is +47 370 27111. On MCI Mail type "CREATE:". MCI asks for "To:," and you type "Odd de Presno (Fax)". MCI asks for "Country:". You enter "Norway". By "RECIPIENT FAX NO" enter "37027111" (the code for international calls). The country code for Norway, 01147, is added automatically. By "Options?," press ENTER. When MCI Mail asks for more recipients, press ENTER. Type your message and have it sent. To send a telex, you'll need the recipient's telex number, an answerback code, and the code of the recipient's country. If the message is meant for telex number 871161147, answerback ZETO, and country Russia (country code SU), enter ">TLX:871161147 ZETO SU" when sending from CompuServe. By entering ">POSTAL", CompuServe will send your mail to a business associate in California or Brazil as a professional laser- printed letter. It will take you through the process of filling out the various address lines. The letter may well arrive faster than through ordinary mail.
When the recipient is using another mailbox system ————————————————————————— When the recipient is using your mailbox service, writing addresses is simple. Not so when your email has to be forwarded to mailboxes on other online services. The inter-system email address consists of a user name, a mailbox system code, and sometimes also routing information. The problem is that there is no universal addressing format. Finding out how to write a given address may be surprisingly difficult. Some services are not set up for exchange of email with other services. This is the case with my bulletin board, the Saltrod Horror Show. To send mail to a user of this system, you'll have to call it directly and enter it there. This bulletin board is not connected to the outside world for exchange of mail. If your favorite system lets you send mail to other services, make a note about the following: