Creating an e-mail account

Creating an e-mail account is fairly simple. Let us create a free e-mail ID on Yahoo.com. To go to the Yahoo home page, type “www.yahoo.com” in the address bar and press “Enter”. Now, click “Free Mail: Sign Up”. You see a form displayed on your screen.

The first step is to fill out your personal information. Next, enter an ID which will act as both your login name and your email address. If the ID you select has already been taken by someone else, try a variation of the name. After you have chosen a name, you have to create a password.

Then you may enter an alternate e-mail address if you have one. Select a security question and enter a suitable answer. You will be asked to answer this question in case you forget your password.

You may check the “Marketing Preferences” box if you wish to receive promotional offers from Yahoo by e-mail. To verify your registration, type the code shown in the box exactly as you see it

Read the "Terms of Service" agreement and “Privacy Policy” by clicking on the related links and check the box after “Do you agree?” to confirm that you agree to them. Now click the “Create My Account” button. Your e-mail account is then created and you may use it to send and receive messages.

The different websites have different features for the e-mail facility they provide. Some of the common features are a Login Page, Inbox, Address Book, Auto Reply and Customized Signature. Besides these, many more personalization features are also provided.

Login Page: To access your mail account, you must first login. For this, you have to enter the user name you selected during the registration process and also your password. The website authenticates your user login information and then provides access to your mailbox.

A typical e-mail message has three basic elements: header, message and signature.

Addresses: Addresses of the person sending, receiving and optionally persons receiving copies are generally included in an e-mail message. You know that an e-mail address has two parts. The first part is the user’s name and the second part is the domain name which includes the top-level domain.

Subject: This is a one-line description used to present the topic of the message.

Attachments: You can attach files such as documents and pictures to a mail message. If a message has an attachment, the file name is displayed in the header area on the attachment line.

After the header area, comes the actual message text. Finally, the signature line provides additional information about the sender. Typically, in case of official mails, this information includes the sender’s name, address and telephone number.

E-mail, like many other valuable technologies does have some drawbacks. We often receive many unwanted e-mails. These are mostly related to commercial advertising, often for products of questionable quality, get-rich-quick schemes, or something similar. This unwelcome junk mail is called “spam”.

In an attempt to control spam, some countries have anti-spam laws as part of their legal system. This has limited impact because a lot of spam originates from other countries as well. A more effective approach has been the development and use of “Spam Blockers”. These programs use a variety of approaches to identify and eliminate spam. The Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail program which is available for free download at “www.mozilla.com” comes with built-in spam blocking software.

In the United States of America, the CAN-SPAM Act has been enacted which requires that every marketing-related e-mail provides an opt-out option. When the option is selected, the recipient’s address is to be removed from future mailing lists.

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