Bits'n'Bytes

Tip 13

Email is probably one of the most confusing things for most users. Unfortunately, it's the major companies, like Microsoft and Apple that we have to blame.

We have lots of companies out there saying “Use our email!”, but few who can explain how email works.

Here's a way of looking at email...

You have three different cars. A red, a blue, and a black. Each of these cars can represent a program that will get email for you. Let's say the red car is Outlook. The blue can be Windows Live Mail. Maybe the black is Apple mail.

You want to check your mail. Which car do you pick? Well, it doesn't really matter. Each of these choices is just a way to go get your mail. When you get to the post office, they don't really care how you got there. They just give you your mail, and you leave. If you got there in a blue car or a brown one, makes no difference to the people who hand you the mail.

The difference is when you use webmail. If you “take your mail home”, using an email program, then that's where it stays. But, if you use webmail, your mail stays “at the post office”. You can sort through the junk, then what you want to keep, you put back in the box, so it's there when you come back to look at it.

Thanks for reading!

Until next week, I'm Computer Dave