Email Tasks

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?

A basic email message will contain the senders and receivers email address, a subject heading, date and time and message.
Email address will have username@domainaddress. Eg: puvanarajah@yahoo.com.au. In this case Username is puvanarajah and the domain address is yahoo.com.au. This should be written correctly for the message to reach its destination. So anyone looking at the email address will know that the above stated email address uses yahoo.com.au as the domain.
The date field shows the sender the time it sent the message and the receiver the time their mailbox received the message.
The subject heading is very important especially at work places. Some times in busy working environments people look at the subject and decide whether to read or not straight away. So it is important to have a proper subject heading in the subject field.

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

These functions are very helpful at work place. I use the ‘cc’ function when I want my manager to know what I am doing or when sending some important reports I cc her to receive the copy of my correspondence. I also use this function to make my colleagues act more efficiently. That is when I ask for some information some times they are too busy or reluctant to provide, as soon as they see that I have ‘cc’ my manager in it the relevant information is provided quickly without a reminding email. This ‘cc’ helps me to work efficiently at work place.

‘Bcc’ is a function where a blind copy is sent to a third party without the knowledge of the receiver. I personally use this function mostly when I am sending forwarded messages to others or sending a common message to a group of people. My logic behind using the ‘bcc’ function is – I do not want others to know who and who I have sent the message and some may not like their email address to be known by others. It leaves the recipient wonder as to who else have received this email. And on the other hand the same message may be sent to the recipient many times from different people.

Reply all function is good when you receive a group message and you want your response to be known by every one in the group. This is kind of communication where every body in a group will know what other person is deciding to do on a subject matter. This is helpful when organising a meeting or day out etc…

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

There are some commonly used programs which we could use to avoid complications of attachments. At work places we use Microsoft word, excel and Adobe Acrobat very commonly to attach files. But sometimes we receive the very latest versions or non compatible versions of those programmes which we can’t open. So the best way may be to confirm before sending what program other party is using. Otherwise sending it as a plain text document or rich text file will guarantee of recipient reading the documents correctly, but this also can cause formatting problems such as bold, italics etc.
For my personal use of sending photos to my family and friends I used http://www.flickr.com/ to upload the photos and then sent this link to everyone. In my personal opinion this is a very effective and easy way of sending photos. There is no need for the recipient to have any special programme to view the photos.

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

I have set up a filter to put all unknown email addressed into a mailbox called ‘Unknown’ and then organised the rest with relevancy to and type. That is all emails received from Open Uni to go into Studies email folder. That is I setup the filters to find emails with words such as open uni or Curtin or students to go to “Studies”. I have set up several rules to separate emails from family members to friends and work related separately. I also have a special interest in cake making so I receive all cake decorating emails into my “Cake” folder.

I setup mail alerts when I want to read some specific emails as soon as they arrive and to make decisions or reply to them back ASAP.
These setups help me organise my time to read what is important first and then at my leisure I read the other less important ones. I am much organised person at work and home so these filters help me organise my work related and personal emails for me to function more effectively at work and home.

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

I have organised my personal use email into folders of family, friends, studies and hobby. At work I have organised in the names of individuals. This is very important for me to keep track of when some one sent and what actions I have taken. If an email needs action then what I do is I act upon it and then reply to the original email and save that as the Completed tasks email. I have a separate folder for those emails. These folders are easy to use and they are good filing methods.