Module 2 / Email Tasks

 

1. What information about a user’s email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message?

username @ domain name

The username is quite self explanatory; the username can sometimes be accompanied by a display name which can give a fuller description in regards to the sender of the email.

The domain name can give more clues as to the identity of the sender.

• The domain name could show: A company name from a corporate email system / A Webmail Service (gmail / yahoo etc) / An Educational facility (Curtin / Latrobe etc).
• It is possible to look up the name on whois and find the details of the company / individual / institution who owns that domain name. http://whois.ausregistry.net/whois/whois_local.jsp
• The root zone can hint at the country of origin of the email ~ Example: .au = Australia / .nz = New Zealand
• or, type of organisation .edu = registered post secondary institutes. http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/

Path of the email

• It is also possible to trace the path of the email by looking at the internet headers in detail. This can be obtained in most email programs ~ Within Outlook it is shown as the ‘Return Path’.
• There are also tools which attempt to locate the source IP address of an email, and the one below even comes with a google map to plot the physical address. http://whatismyipaddress.com/staticpages/index.php/trace-email-source-IP-address

 

2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the ‘cc’, ‘bcc’ and ‘reply all’ functions of email?

‘cc’ ~ carbon copy ~

• I use this to keep work colleagues ‘in the loop’ in regards to correspondence going on between myself and another party. Usually my colleagues need to know what is going on, but do not need to be directly involved in the correspondence.

‘bcc’ ~ blind carbon copy ~

• I use this at work when sending important documents / info to others, which I will need at a later date. It allows me to file this email in a sensible place, where I can access it quickly later on.
• I also use this on occasion to secretly let work colleagues ’see’ what is going on in regards to deals between myself and another person, without letting that person know that negotiations aren’t quite ‘one on one’.
• It is also very handy when sending group emails and I do not wish people in the group to see each others email addresses.

~ ‘reply all’ ~

• This is good for replying to all of the original people in the email, to allow them to see my reaction to the email.
• I always begin my reply with ‘Hello all’ if it is a reply directed at the whole group, or I will use an individuals name e.g. ‘Hello Bob’ if I need to target my response. This eliminates confusion, as group emails can go horribly wrong if directions are vague and people are confused as to who is supposed to be doing what !

 

3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will easily be opened by the receiver?

• Use the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) standard where possible. Because there are so many different email and computer systems, MIME was introduced in 1992 to standardise the way these multi-object emails are decoded.
• Ensure the person you are sending the attachment to has the correct program to open the attachment with.
• Use common attachment types – e.g PDF for documents.
• The net is a rich source of information when an attachment cannot be opened so search for solutions. For example I just found the convertor to open Office 2007 documents with Office 2003 applications. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en

 

4. What sort of filters do you have set up, and for what purpose?

• Filters could help in a situation when an address receives hundreds of emails a day (eg. sales email address). It would be great to automatically sort emails by topic / department / urgency etc.
• Auto replies on queries could give a company a sense of urgency and give back important contact information to consumers.
• I can see many uses but personally I do not use filters (apart from sending certain people straight to the deleted bin !). I receive a lot of emails, but prefer to deal with them individually as they arrive.

 

5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?

• Currenlty I organise my work email folders by department and then each person’s name in that department. I have sub folders underneath each persons name which will relate to specific jobs, tasks or documents.



• If there is a special project or job on that doesn’t pertain to just one person, I will create a folder just for that, with sub folders of the people involved in the project underneath.

• I organise the folders in this way to keep related emails together, and hopefully spend less time looking for that missing email I know I have somewhere !