Sending E-Mail is a convenient way to communicate with others without incurring large connect-time charges. For America Online subscribers, this service is not only cost-effective, but fairly easy to use. The addition of Internet access has significantly increased the the number of individuals that can be reached via E-Mail.
There are no additional charges for sending or receiving Internet mail on America Online. You can send Internet mail by selecting Compose Mail from the Mail window as you normally would.
The America Online E-Mail system also allows you to send any file on your disk to another person. There are no restrictions on length or file type when sending to another America Online user; you are, in effect, uploading a file to a very private software library. Size restrictions do apply to mail sent over the Internet. Refer to the Additional Information section at the end of the Internet Mail discussion.
Creating Mail Offline
With the Mail Utility
Version 1.3 and higher of America Online for the PC allows you to easily compose mail offline.
While offline, open a Compose Mail window by selecting Compose Mail from the mail menu, and write your letter as you normally would. You may compose as many pieces of mail as you like in this manner. You do not need to save this mail to disk.
When you're done composing mail, select Set Up & Sign On from the Go To menu to bring your Welcome window to the front, and sign on.
Once you are connected, go back to each Compose Mail window, one by one, by selecting the window from the Windows menu. Select the Send icon on each Compose Mail window in turn to send that piece of mail.
With a Text Editor
Mail can be composed offline with a word processor, and then loaded in once you've connected to America Online. However, there are several important limitations:
The mail file should be less than 8K.
There should be no control characters such as tabs or other formatting information.
The file should be straight ASCII, not in the proprietary format of your word processor.
With these limitations in mind, here's how to do it:
1. Compose the letter in your word processor, and save as ASCII or TEXT.
2. Load the America Online software and sign on.
3. Select Open from the File menu, and open the file you saved from the word processor.
4. Highlight the entire selection of text using the mouse, and select Copy from the Edit menu.
5. Select Compose Mail from your Mail menu. Click in the main body field of the mail form, and select Paste from the Edit menu.
You should now see your message onscreen. Address it as you normally would, and select the Send icon to send.
Attaching Files
To attach a file, open the Compose Mail window and write your message as you normally would. You'll probably want to explain to the addressee exactly what the file that you're sending contains.
Now, select the Attach File icon. You'll see a dialog box that allows you to select the drive, directory, and the name of the file that you wish to upload. Once you've selected the file, double click on the filename or select the Open button. Select the Send icon to send your mail. If you change your mind, and don't wish to send the file, select the Detach File button on the Compose Mail window.
If you wish to send more than one file, you'll need to either send more than one piece of mail, or compress the files into one file using a utility such as PKZIP or ARC. Go to keyword DOS for more information on compression utilities.
It is a violation of the America Online Terms of Service to send copyrighted programs and files via America Online.
Inserting Other Text
The Cut, Copy, and Paste functions on your Edit menu give you advanced editing capabilities for your messages, and allow you to copy text from anywhere on the system into your own E-Mail or message postings.
First, find the text you want to cut (remove) or copy, and highlight it by clicking the mouse at the beginning of the text, and dragging it to the end. You may also double-click to highlight a word, triple-click for a sentence, quadruple-click for a paragraph, and quintuple-click for the entire text article.
Then, select Cut from the Edit menu to erase the text, or Copy to leave it as is. The text is pasted into an invisible clipboard, from which you can later paste it. Cut and Copy have the same effect on text posted in an existing message online; you cannot accidentally erase existing text.
Once you've cut or copied the text into the clipboard, click the cursor at the point in your message where you'd like to insert the text, and then select Paste from the Edit menu. The text is now inserted.
You may use keyboard shortcuts to perform these functions. Control-Insert will copy, Shift-Delete will cut, and Shift-Insert will paste. Additionally, you can use the Shift key in conjunction with the arrow keys, Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down to highlight text you are editing without using the mouse. You cannot highlight existing online text without a mouse.
Internet Mail
Addressing Mail
America Online's address on the Internet system is "aol.com".
The Internet address consists of two parts:
1) The name the person you are sending mail uses on the other service, followed by the "@" symbol
2) The Internet name of the system your mail recipient is using. Normally, the company or system name is followed by a suffix describing what type of organization it is. For example, businesses use the suffix "com," educational institutions use "edu," military sites use "mil," and government offices use "gov." However, some addresses may vary. Be sure that you have verified the address with the recipient before sending.
After both parts are put together, the address should be in this form:
name(or id number)@company.com
You can use the following abbreviations that have been created for some of the most popular services:
AT&T EasyLink Services operate two commercial e-mail platforms: AT&T Mail and EasyLink. AT&T Mail addresses are alphabetic or alphanumeric strings of up to twelve characters. The first character is always a letter. AT&T addresses are not case-sensitive. If an AT&T Mail address has a "!" in front of it, remove it. To send mail to AT&T Mail users, use the format:
name@att or name@attmail.com.
The EasyLink service does not have its' own Internet gateway at the present time, but you can still send mail to your EasyLink friends. EasyLink mailboxes are identified by an 8-digit number beginning with '62'. To send mail to EasyLink members, use the format:
<62xxxxxx>@eln.attmail.com
BITNET
BITNET (the Because It's Time network) is a loosely knit network of academic computers. You can convert a BITNET address into an Internet address by appending ".bitnet" to the end of it. For this example, we'll assume you are sending to name@technion on BITNET. Send your message to:
name@technion.bitnet
CompuServe
CompuServe's Internet address is "compuserve.com". However, you can abbreviate this as "cis". CompuServe addresses normally consist of five numbers, followed by a comma, then another three or four numbers. However, when sending mail from America Online to Compuserve, you need to change the comma to a period. For example, to send mail to CompuServe ID 12345,678 you would address the mail to:
12345.678@cis or 12345.678@compuserve.com
CONNECT
CONNECT is a commercial online service operated by CONNECT Inc. You can send mail to users on CONNECT using a system called DASNet as an interim step. We'll assume you are sending mail to "name" on CONNECT. Send your message to:
name@dcjcon.das.net
Delphi
You can send mail to a Delphi user at:
name@delphi.com
FidoNET
To send mail to somebody on a FidoNET system, you'll need to know the address of their system, and their name on that system. They should be able to tell you this. Normal FidoNET addresses follow the format: <zone>:<network>/<node>. FidoNet addresses on the Internet follow the format: Name@p<point>.f<node>.n<network>.z<zone>.fidonet.org. Note that the name should be specified with the first letter of the first and last name capitalized and the underscore character separating the first name from the last (for example, John_Smith). The <point> is optional, and not usually used unless you are connecting to a specific subsystem. To send mail to First_Last (name) at FidoNET address 1:222/333, you would address Internet mail to:
First_Last@f333.n222.z1.fidonet.org
GEnie
GEnie is a commercial online service, similar to America Online. GEnie's Internet address is "genie.geis.com". However, you can abbreviate this on America Online as "genie". You can send mail to a GEnie user at name@genie.geis.com. For instance, to send mail to someone at GEnie, send mail to:
name@genie or name@genie.geis.com
MCI
Users on MCI Mail have a ten-digit numeric address. To send mail to MCI Mail, send it to address@mcimail.com, where address is the ten-digit number. This can be abbreviated as address@mci. Internal MCI addresses are seven digits; add three zeros on the LEFT to pad this out to ten digits. For instance, to send mail to user 1234567, address your mail to:
0001234567@mci or 0001234567@mcimail.com
Sprint
SprintMail is a commercial E-Mail service, used mainly by corporations and other large organizations. You can send mail to a SprintMail user if you know certain information about their Sprint account. Unlike most common Internet addresses, SprintMail addresses use the X.400 scheme, which requires that you provide specific parameters about the addressee of the mail. You'll need to know their:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Organization Name (this will usually be abbreviated)
- Administrative Domain (this will be Telemail)
- Country (this will usually be USA)
You should then type the following in the To: field of your Compose Mail window:
* The "Attach File" and "Forward" options do not work when sending mail to other services.
* The process that allows the Internet to send information on when your recipient reads your mail is not implemented at this time. Therefore, the "Status" option does not work when sending mail to other services.
* Outgoing mail messages cannot be longer than 32K.
* On the PC version of America Online, and Promenade, incoming mail cannot be longer than 8K. Any text beyond 8K will be truncated.
* On the Mac version of America Online, the Apple II version of America Online, and PC-Link, incoming mail cannot be longer than 27K. Any text beyond 27K will be truncated.
* America Online does not reformat incoming mail. This may cause the mail to look unusual, depending on the column width of the message.
* Your mailbox can hold no more than 75 pieces of mail at one time. Additional mail will not reach your mailbox.
* Any special characters will be translated as spaces.
* Because Prodigy is not connected to the Internet, you cannot send mail to people there.
