Email Jargon
From MDSupportWiki
Before you get down and dirty configuring your email accounts, you may want to learn a bit of the email lingo. I've compiled a list of the most common terms you might encounter.
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POP
Short for Post Office Protocol, POP3 is a protocol for retrieving emails from the server. Use a POP3 setup if you want to download all the emails onto your local computer without leaving a copy on the server.
IMAP
Short for Internet Message Access Protocol, IMAP is another method of retrieving emails from the server. Unlike POP3, a copy of the email is left on the server. Whenever you access your email account, you are actually accessing the copy left on the server. If you wish to delete messages stored with IMAP, you have to first create a local folder in your email program and copy the files across to that folder.
SMTP
SMTP is the protocol that packages your email and sends it across the net. You can think of SMTP as the 'envelope' you put your email letter in. The letter is sent to the SMTP server, a computer somewhere that receives your outgoing email address and routes it to its intended destination (just like the postal sorting office!).
To stop spam, a lot of ISPs (your internet provider, for example, Bigpond, Optus or iiNet) block users from using any other SMTP server except for their own. That might stop you from sending out emails if you used our outgoing server. You can find out your specific SMTP settings by going to our ISP SMTP configuration page.
Spam
Just like junk mail in your letterbox, spam is an unsolicited email you did not request, often advertising goods or services. Some spam can be dangerous, containing phishing scams (for example, a link that directs you to a perfect duplicate of your bank website and entices you to enter in your financial details) or even viruses. All our email accounts come with spam filtering, but no filter is perfect!
Outlook
Outlook (and Outlook Express) are email programs made by Microsoft that let you send and receive emails. Outlook Express is free and comes preinstalled on the majority of Windows systems, whereas Outlook must be paid for, and is usually included in certain versions of MS Office. If you do not have an email program, we would definitely recommend Mozilla Thunderbird as an alternative.
CC
Anyone listed in the 'Carbon Copy' field will receive a copy of the email sent.
BCC
Anyone listed in the 'Blind Carbon Copy' field will receive a copy of the email sent. But, unlike a standard CC, no-one else will know that you sent that email to recipients listed in the BCC field. For example, you send an email to Jane, and list Bob in the BCC field. Jane won't know that Bob got the email.
Plain text e-mail
Some email clients have the option of sending an email in plain text, without any special formatting, fonts, colours or layouts. Plain text emails load more quickly and are a bit safer to open, but may look a little bland compared to the alternative (a HTML email).
