Electronic Mail for the 90's

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My apologies for last month's "disappearance" from PC QUEST. I got hit by a virus (of the human kind) that kept me non-productive for quite a while.

It looks like my readers aren't going to let me keep my schedules. In June I talked about about Compuserve, and briefly touched upon Electronic Mail (as I have done in previous articles). Promptly my mailboxes are full again, this time with requests for more details on E-Mail.

OK, so let's talk about E-Mail.

Making History:

One of the most mundane and irritating duties of my secretary is taking messages for me. A call comes in, it is for me, and I am not there. So she takes a message, which asks me to call back. I get back, return the call, and find that this time THAT person isn't available. So I leave a message...

What I have just described is known in Corporatese as "Telephone Tag". In future generations, it will be clubbed in historical essays with AIDS and taxes as a factor that led to the downfall of modern civilisation.

Many times, my secretary tells the caller to "leave an E-Mail message if it is urgent", to which (at least for now), the caller more often than not replies "uuuhhh - E-Mail???"

Changing norms:

In this age of computers, the very least you'd expect is that computers are smart enough to take a message for me, keep it private, forward it to me whereever I may be in the world, and carry back a reply.

Surprisingly there is such a way of communication, and it is called Electronic Mail (or E-Mail).

It works in a ridiculously simple fashion - you use your PC and modem to connect to the E-Mail service, leave a message in my account, and quit. I will call in 3-4 times a day to check for mail from whereever I may be, find your message, read it and reply in the same fashion.

The beauty of this all is that neither party needs to know where in the world the other one is. And, because only I can read the messages sent to my account, messages remain completely private.

This definitly beats the Fax and Telex (or even telephone messages) which require you to know my exact location, and also will not keep the message private (since anyone can read an incoming Fax or Telex message).

It is hardly surprising then that American business took to E-Mail like a fish to water. And now, in a more leisurely fashion, Indian business too is getting in on the game.

The advantages of E-Mail:

As I have stated before, one of the biggest advantages of E-Mail is the fact that neither the sender nor the recepient need to know where the other is located. This completely and permanently kills the dreaded Telephone Tag Syndrome that is bogging down Indian business.

Secondly, it is much more private than a Fax message, since only the intended recepient has access to the message.

Thirdly (and probably of most importance) is the fact that E-Mail, if properly used, is likely to be much faster and convenient than postal mail or even a Fax. This is because the rerouting of a verbal, written or faxed message in itself will take time to reach the addressee, while an E-Mail message remains in a fixed place, and the recepient knows that any message meant for him will be available at this location, so there is only one place to check.

Getting into E-Mail:

There are primarily two ways by which you can get into E-Mail - subscribe to a commercial E-Mail service (such as MCI Mail, Compuserve, etc.) or set up your own.

The first option if probably the most convenient, since you are likely to achieve the widest reach. A service such as Compuserve is used by hundreds and thousands of people, so it is very likely that your intended correspondent already has an account there. Also, most commercial E-Mail services have gateways to other mail services. For example, from Compuserve, I can send mail to MCI Mail, InterNet, AT&T Mail, etc., and can also receive mail from these services.

The disadvantage is that unless you have access to a Dollar account, it is going to be difficult getting onto one of these services. Though one or two E-Mail services in India are just beginning to get active, it is going to take a long time before any of these come up to scratch. The ones that I know of here are more or less just electronic courier services, and are not very convenient to use. But I suppose things will improve. If they don't, then I guess I'll have to do something about it...

A cheaper way of getting access to e-mail services is using the InterNet - a massive, international network of computers linked to each other that are theoretically supposed to service educational institutions, but are also "mis"used by non-educational entities (like me, for example). To get access to InterNet e-mail services, you have to get an account with one of the many educational institutes that have InterNet access. Once you do, e-mailing is essentially free, but getting an account like this is extremely difficult.

Rishab Ghosh covered InterNet in an excellent article in the June issue of PCQ (CyberSpace) - check it out for more details on InterNet. You can also pick up the file INTERZEN.ZIP from my BBS - it contains the text article "Zen and the Art of InterNet".

Rolling your own:

The other option is to set up your own, private E-Mail service.

This is probably the only way to fly if you are part of a large organisation an have a lot of intra-office messaging. The advantage is that things will really remain private (i.e. it is unlikely that the Government is going to read your mail), convenient (since you can setup things to suit your company's requirements rather than having to adapt to someone else's idea of E-Mail) and cost effective.

There are a number of schemes that you can use to set up your own mail service - all of them involve modems. There are BBS-like solutions that have a central host (which have the advantage of being location and operating system independant), and there are point-to-point solutions (which DO have the disadvantage of having to know where the recepient is located).

One thing is clear, setting up your own E-Mail network is not a black art anymore - in most cases, all it involves is calling the vendor and asking him to install the thing for you. (It does involve a minor detail like paying for it, though...)

Using E-Mail:

Using E-Mail isn't any more difficult than using a WordProcessor.

If you have problems using a WordProcessor, maybe you should consider learning to use one - even if you are the boss of the company and tend to say "I have people to do this for me". Remember that the "people who do this for you" then also read your private mail, so no one will send you any.

You get online using your modem and communication package, supply your user ID and password, put in your message and the user ID of the intended recepient, and get off.

There are a few tips, though, that will make the use of E-Mail easier:

- Don't type your message online: Many people tend to do this, and it is stupid. The editing facilities available on most E-Mail services tend to be awkward - why fight them ? Use your text editor (like Teddy or Norton Editor or WordStar in non-doc mode) to prepare your message beforehand. Take your time to make the message worth reading. Then, when you are satisfied with it, save it, call the E-Mail service and, when asked to type in your message, simple use your communication software's ASCII upload feature to send the prepared message (in Procomm, press PgUp, then select ASCII). Much faster, much more convenient.

- Don't read messages online: Another weird habit - just because you are online doesn't mean that you should do everything online. Reading online wastes connect time. Instead, open a capture file before calling the service (in Procomm, press Alt-F1). Everything that appears on your screen will be saved in that file. Now ask the E-Mail service to display all messages to you non-stop. Things will flow past you faster than you can read, which is fine. After all messages have been shown, log off, then read the captured text file at leisure without having "your meter down".

- Delete messages after receiving them: People tend to be packrats - they never throw anything away. Similarly, people tend to keep all their messages in their Electronic Mailboxes because "they want to refer to them later". While the argument is fine, the method is wrong. Most E-Mail boxes have finite limits to storage capacity (for example, on Compuserve, you can have no more than a 100 messages pending). Instead of keeping all the messages online, capture them in a text file (as shown above), then delete them from the mailbox.

- Keep using it: I know of many people who have e-mail accounts, but never use them, or at least use them very rarely. This has the negative effect of discouraging your correspondants from using e-mail to contact you. Make sure you check your mail at least once a day, and to reply promptly, even if it is just to say that you will be replying in greater detail soon. If people know that you use your e-mail account regularly, they will use it to contact you, thereby giving you all the benefits that e-mail has to offer.

- KISS!: This (modified) acronymn stands for "Keep it short and simple!" and is, in effect, the guiding rule that governs effective emailing. When you send a message, be concise and to the point - don't repeat yourself over and over again and make your point in the clearest and shortest manner. If you are replying to a message, make it a point to quote from the original message (easy to do with cut'n'paste) in your message before making your reply - this way the reader will be able to keep track of the context without having to refer back to his own message, which may have been sent some time earlier. For example, supposing you are replying to a message that extolls the merits of email. Your reply would look something like this:

> I think that E-Mail is a very effective medium of > communication. What do you think ?

I agree completely. Without E-Mail, things would be very difficult...

In the above example, lines beginning with ">" are lines quoted from the original message. Lines without this sign are your comments on the quoted material. This convention is very commonly used and you too should employ it.

- Emote: It is sometimes very difficult to get across the actual meaning of a sentence using e-mail. For example, if I say "PKR is too miserly to buy a modem" it will probably cause a rift in my relationship with him, but if I say "PKR is too miserly to buy a modem :-)", he will know that I am saying this tongue-in-cheek.

In case you haven't understood this - look at the ":-)" sideways - it is a face smiling at you. This is called a "smiley" or "emoticon", and there are thousands of them available that can give your messages the right flavour. For example, here is the emoticon for a bespectacled man smoking a cigarette, whose hair stood up on seeing his latest phone bill:

=B-Q

Pick up the file EMOTICON.TXT from the PCQ forum on my BBS for more samples). Usage of emoticons will avoid unintended insults or hurt feelings.

Getting the word out:

Email is catching on all over the world and is today the preferred way of communication. But how do you let people know that you have an e-mail address ?

Actually, that is simplicity in itself. Display it prominently on your letterheads and visiting cards (and even fax messages). Most mail services can be addressed in the InterNet fashion. for example, my Compuserve ID is 70620,563. To send me mail via InterNet from any other service (such as MCI, America Online, ERNET, etc.), just send the message to achitnis@exocore.com. This address appears on my visiting cards and correspondence, and you will be amazed if you would see how many people prefer to communicate with me this way !

Logout:

OK, I am out of space again. But before I sign off...

In my June article on Compuserve I had mentioned the program OzCIS, and that it is available on my BBS. Steve Sneed (the author of OzCIS) has informed me that he is releasing a new version on or before July 15th. Because of this I have temporarily taken OzCIS off the board to prevent you from blowing major money on downloading a soon-to-be-outdated program. The new version will be available for downloading by 3rd week of July.

Also, I have been receiving TONS of mail (e-mail and snail-mail) from my readers. I try to answer ALL my e-mail, and even some snail (postal) mail, but there are limits to how much of my professional time I can spare. So please understand if I cannot answer every letter or message personally.

The "recommended" shareware of the month is FONEBOOK, a phonebook-cum-dialler written by Varun Arora of Bombay. Neat. Keeps track of names and addresses, and dials the phone number if you have a modem attached. Can be found on most BBSs around the country (including mine).

Finally - this month I will NOT tell you what I am going to write about next month ! Make sure you get your PCQ issue as it hits the stands if you want to find out ! (Take this seriously - I have had to STEAL a copy for the past few months because they are sold out within a day of appearing on the stands!)

Ciao for now !