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Beginners
How To Guide
The Basics of Information Technology
Email
Email stands for electronic mail. Email is the most
commonly used application on the Internet . Email allows
you to send text messages across a network, either an
internal network or an external one like the Internet
. To send an email you must know the email address of
the person you want to send the mail to e.g. john@somewhere.com.
An email address is comprised of a user name, in this
case john, and the name of the server that the mail
has been sent to, in this case somewhere.com.. The power
of email can be seen from the fact that traditional
paper-based mailing list procedures are now being superseded
by mail-shots at targeted audiences, which can be transmitted
instantly at little cost via electronic mail.
Emailing [external] people requires a computer with
Internet access. Specialist software packages facilitate
the delivery and receipt of email. There are two ways
to receive email; one is via specialist programmes and
the other is via a web service e.g. Eircom or yahoo!
Web-based email is typically free. However if you use
a software package such as Outlook Express or Eudora,
they are far richer in features than web service email
facilities. This software will be configured (set up)
to use your chosen Internet Service Provider's (ISP)
service and will dial to in to this service to receive
and send your emails. One of the advantages of using
an email package on your PC is that you can control
various limits, for example with free email you typically
do not get a very large mailbox and your mailbox can
fill up - if you do not routinely check your mail subsequent
emails and attachments will be turned away. With your
own email software, you will typically have much higher
size limits and more control over managing the process.
Most business people use computer-based software such
as Microsoft Outlook, or Lotus Notes.
Email has many benefits including speed, the fact that
you can send "attachments" (e.g. documents)
with your email and the fact that the physical location
of the sender or recipient is immaterial to the activity.
Websites
A website is a location on the Web owned and controlled
by a single person or organisation. It is a set of HTML
pages linked to each other. Initially company websites
simply reflected their corporate brochures and although
this is still the case for some business sites, others
are using websites to transact business, allow customers
access to their account information, allow suppliers
access to company systems, allow purchasers to check
quotes across a variety of suppliers and many more applications.
To have a website available to the Internet 24 hours
a day 365 days a year your web server needs to be connected
to the Internet permanently. This permanent connection
used to be costly however costs have reduced significantly
in recent years. However this does raise other issues
such as security and reliability. Typically an Irish
company will use an Internet service provider (ISP)
or hosting company who will store the company website
on hi-spec web servers (machines) and make the website
available twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
Hosting costs start at around €300 per annum and
increase with the size and complexity of your website
A typical basic brochure website could have 6 pages
where the home page links to 5 other pages containing
information on the company, key personnel, products/services
as well as a feedback form. In order to make sales on
the site, the products page could lead to a shopping
cart system where visitors can purchase products online
in a secure environment with their credit card. The
transaction may then be verified by one of the banks
verification systems.
Examples of web sites include
www.kennys.ie and www.tesco.ie
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