~ BASIC E-MAIL ~ Class Objectives  Creating a Gmail E-mail account  Sending messages. Checking your mail.  Replying to messages. Using Gmail Help. Advantages of Gmail  Storage: There are more than 5 GB of storage available with Gmail.  Flexibility: You can use Gmail regardless of your Internet provider.  Labels: The labels enable users to organize their email.  Searching: With Gmail searching, you can search your email by subject or by people.  Customization Settings: Gmail offers many features to customize the design of your email page and your email signature.

What is e-mail?  It stands for electronic mail. It is a service that sends messages on computers all over the world. Several web sites offer free e-mail accounts. E-mail accounts from different companies can still talk to each other. You can

set-up as many Gmail e-mail accounts, in addition to your email account from your Internet Service Provider… e.g.: AOL, MSN, FRII, as you wish.

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Creating an E-mail Account Getting to the Gmail Web Site  Type gmail.com in the address box on top of the browser window  Click on Create an Account  Login Name: This will be the first part of your e-mail address. You can use letters, numbers, and periods. No spaces or underscores. Make it unique – you will need to use something that nobody else has used already.  Password: It may contain numbers and letters. The password must be at least 8 characters long. It is best to use all lower case letters – NO CAPITALS – because the password is case sensitive  Security Question: Choose a security question from the

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drop down menu. Provide the answer in the next field. Google uses the security question if you forget your password. Secondary Email: If you have another email account, you may enter the address in the field. Location: Enter “United States” using the drop down menu. Word Verification: Type the characters in the field. If you type in the wrong characters, Google will change the code and let you try again. Click on “I Accept. Create my Account.”

Your E-mail Account  Messages that you receive will be listed in your inbox. Right now, you have three messages from Gmail.  Notice: 1. Left Column: Lists who the e-mail is from. 2. Middle Column: Lists the subject of the message.

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3. Time or Date: Lists the time a message was received for the current day. For older messages, it shows the date it was received. Reading Your Mail  Click on the email message. You can click on the sender, subject, or date of the message to read your email. Sending a Message  Click on Compose Mail at the top left corner of the screen.  Cc and Bcc allow you to send copies of the same e-mail message to more than one person. Cc stands for carbon copy, and Bcc stands for blind carbon copy.  Type the email address in the TO: field.  Subject: Enter a keyword or two that describes what your email is about.  Click Send after typing your message. Checking Your Mail  Type: gmail.com in the location box.  Type in your Username and your Password in the boxes and click Sign In.  New messages are at the top and are in bold type. Once you have read a message, the type will no longer be bold. Replying to Messages  Click on Reply to reply only to the sender. If this message had been sent to several people including yourself, you could reply to all of them by clicking on Reply All. To forward this message to someone else so that they can read it, click on the Forward link.  Clicking on Reply inserts the e-mail address of the person who sent you the message in the To box. 3

 In the message box, you will see the original message. To type your reply, click at the top of the box and type your message.  Alternatively, at the bottom of the received email, you will see Reply, Reply to All, and Forward and an empty box. Click in the empty box and start typing. Click Send. Spell Check  Check the spelling in the messages you write by clicking on the Check Spelling button above the message box in the righthand corner.  The words that Gmail thinks are misspelled will be highlighted. Click on the highlighted words to find suggestions for the correct spelling of the words. When you are finished with spell check, click on the Done link in the upper right-hand corner. Deleting a Message  To delete a message while you are reading the message, click on the Delete button above or below the message.  To delete messages from your inbox, click in the box to the left of the message(s), and then click on the Delete button. Printing  Click on Print that is located in the drop down menu by the Reply button. To print all of the messages from a conversation click on Print All, located in the upper right-hand corner. Help  Click on Help at the top of the screen. Several topics are listed to help you use e-mail, such as: Sending Mail, Sending attachments, Replying, Searching, etc.  Remember to use Help if you forget something or if you would like to know how to do something we have not yet learned in class. 4

Sign Out Always make sure that you sign out of your e-mail account before you leave one of the library Internet computers. If you don’t, the next person to use the computer could access your account.

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Review Questions 1. What is e-mail?

2. Where can you sign up for free e-mail?

3. How do you check your mail?

4. How do you send a message?

5. How do you reply to a message?

6. How do you use Gmail Help?

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Internet Sites that Offer Free E-Mail Accounts

 Eudora Web-Mail - http://www.eudoramail.com

 HotMail - http://www.hotmail.com

 Lycos - http://comm.lycos.com

 MailExcite - http://inbox.excite.com

 Netscape - http://www.netscape.com

 Yahoo! Mail - http://mail.yahoo.com

For more information and a larger list of free e-mail services, go to www.emailaddresses.com

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BASIC E-MAIL CLASS Gmail Web Site: gmail.com

Username

Password:

E-mail Address: @gmail.com This is your username followed by @gmail.com (No spaces)

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Answers to the Review Questions 1. What is e-mail? E-mail stands for electronic mail and is a service that sends messages to computers all over the world.

2. Where can you sign up for free e-mail? Several companies are providing free e-mail accounts through the Internet. We signed up with Gmail, but check the list in your packet for other free e-mail providers.

3. How do you check your mail? Go to Gmail.com. Type in your Username and Password and click on Sign In. Click on Inbox on the left side of the screen.

4. How do you send a message? After signing in to your account, click on Compose Mail at the top of the screen. Type the e-mail address of the person you are sending the message to in the To box. Type a subject in the Subject box. Type your message and click on Send when you are done.

5. How do you reply to a message? Open the message and read it, and then click on the Reply button. It will automatically insert the e-mail address for the person you are replying to. It will also insert the subject. In the message box, you will see the original message. To type your reply, click at the top of the box and type your message. Then click on Send.

6. How do you use Gmail Help? Click on Help. Click in the search box. Type in your search and click on the topic that matches your search the best.

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