Mary's NET11 Blog

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?

Most email programs only display basic information, so to find out more about my email message in Outlook Express I did the following:

• File > Properties (ALT+Enter)
• Click on the 'Details' tab then click 'Message Source'
• You can see all the extra information regarding the email.

As Levine Young (2002) describes in the chapter about email concepts, there are about 11 standard headers in most email messages, as well as a number of optional headers, which are distinguished by an X- at the start of the description.

Return-Path: <mary335@gmail.com>

Received: from murder ([unix socket]) by spool-host7.tpgi.com.au (Cyrus v2.2.12) with LMTPA; Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:40:35 +1100

X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2

X-TPG-Antivirus: Passed

Received: from hu-out-0506.google.com (hu-out-0506.google.com [72.14.214.224])
by mail7.tpgi.com.au (envelope-from mary335@gmail.com) (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l2C3eQ4K032618 for <lildaisy@tpg.com.au>; Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:40:34 +1100

Received: by hu-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id 20so5126504huc for <lildaisy@tpg.com.au>; Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:40:26 -0700 (PDT)

DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type; b=r/ATy+WKzHYtA/ZiSqOLWgOGQ9EX7du0dI7OnAlDwLRwC9WuBCLwlMgFcyydy
lywvR4TTjgjnN0G6WLQxy9NR9fRaXxn6qTPI2OHMbf1ulYCRJuxhSFDZhzj
rw5gp2Er/8otXUptLZpfDN6kBkW2Xh3BISiKLC2MQaKSFSfUJI4=

DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type; b=Q37gToUWZKZS374K1JO1Z9fGTizPK0TagAdxGXT+dRESvozSh
5jD2IJme8m2WmjVG/Vwc4PV905VQ9vn+Ttze2aROP2CIxDC469c
VJsDO8gsB9OiLekOiWoi9iMDMSRfLHjRbRiAlwriBAbdJcd6DfKJrZM3+7yRRihiUIzwEFQ=

Received: by 10.115.93.16 with SMTP id v16mr1092737wal.1173670825210; Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:40:25 -0700 (PDT)

Received: by 10.115.90.3 with HTTP; Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:40:25 -0700 (PDT)

Message-ID: <2f30228b0703112040meef429au12c8a49943fcbf4f@mail.gmail.com>

Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 11:40:25 +0800

From: "Mary Castieau" <mary335@gmail.com>

To: lildaisy@tpg.com.au

Subject: Hi

X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.5.446 [268.18.8/718]

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=======AVGMAIL-45F4CBB54CEE======="

So just by looking at the extra information sent with an email I can tell:

• Return-Path: What email address sent the message
• Received: What hosts it passed through
• Message-ID: A unique number given to this email.
• Date: The date and time when then mail was sent, according to the sender's PC.
• From: The email address of the sender
• To: The email address of the receiver
• Subject: What this email is about
• Mime-Version: what version of MIME was used.
• What data format was used.
• Extra information added by IP and Personal virus checks, after checking this email.

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

I would find it useful to use the 'cc' function if I am mailing an invitation to a party to all my relatives. I think it is important to only use the 'cc' function if you are sure that everyone you are emailing doesn't mind their address being made public to all the other recipients.

I would use the 'bcc' function to email a copy of an important email from my Outlook Express account to my Gmail account, so I could check that email whenever I had Internet access. Another use for 'bcc' is when I am mailing something to several people, and don't want to disclose their addresses to everyone receiving the mail (I feel this is a form of netiquette).

The 'reply all' function is useful for replying to a large group mail. If I had family members all around the world and we were communicating to organize a reunion, this would be an easy way to make sure everyone knew how the plans were going.

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

When sending attachments it is important to communicate with the receiver, establish what operating system they are running and if the programs they have installed are compatible with the attachment. You should check if a large file size is a problem (not everyone has fast Internet connection) and if necessary compress the file for a quicker download time.

I feel sending attachments is all about being considerate to the receiver. My own personal rules for sending attachments are :

- Don't send anything without prior consent
- If there is a way the content can be viewed online, do it that way. (e.g. uploading photos to a photo hosting website)

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

I don't use any filters or rules for my email at present - Gmail has such a great search capacity I've become lazy and just search for whatever I want to find, instead of making rules to separate my emails into different folders.
So far I've found this to be a good way of looking for information I want, but that is only because I can easily remember certain phrases that could be in the email I am looking for.
Filtering my emails offers a much more 'personalised' search. I should overcome my laziness and filter my emails.

I used to use filters quite often in Outlook Express before I changed over to Gmail - They were especially useful to 'ban' certain words for spam filtering.

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

In Gmail you can 'label' messages, which is basically the same concept as organising them into folders. I've created some filters and through the filters will organise my emails into sections:

Personal
sub section - Friends
sub section - Family
sub section - Important emails (such as password reminders, bank statements etc)

Study
sub section - Internet Studies
sub section - Studies (2006)

Reading
sub section - Online catalogues (that I've signed up for)
sub section - Newsletters

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References:

Levine Young, M. (2002). The Complete Reference: Internet 2nd Edition. (pp 126-127) California: McGraw-Hill/Osborne.

Labels: Module 2