E-MAIL
Electronic
mail, or e-mail, allows
computer users locally
and worldwide to exchange
messages. Each user
of e-mail has a mailbox
address to which messages
are sent. Messages sent
through e-mail can arrive
within a matter of seconds.
A
powerful aspect of e-mail
is the option to send
electronic files to
a person's e-mail address.
Non-ASCII files, known
as binary files, may
be attached to e-mail
messages. These files
are referred to as MIME
attachments.MIME stands
for Multimedia Internet
Mail
Extension, and was developed
to help e-mail software
handle a variety of
file types. For example,
a document created in
Microsoft Word can be
attached to an e-mail
message and retrieved
by the recipient with
the appropriate e-mail
program. Many e-mail
programs, including
Eudora, Netscape Messenger,
and Microsoft Outlook,
offer the ability to
read files written in
HTML, which is itself
a MIME type.
