Back in the day when computers were first being used to communicate, an email message was actually a file you placed on someone else’s computer. They would then open the file, read it and place there response in a text file on your computer. Today we have email programs which allow us to send very fancy or very plain emails. Email has evolved quite a bit over the decades.
My first email account was michael61@prodigy.net. I did not know anyone who had a computer so I never emailed anyone. When I got a job at Seagate, they had an internal email system. They had a Token Ring network and that allowed people to send email messages to each other. The way our department was setup, no one could send a private message, so when an email was sent, it went to 298 people. This meant that I received many hundreds of email a day. It was a very bad way to communicate, but it was 1987. One of my bosses did not understand the purpose of email, so every morning he would print out all of his emails and stack them on his desk in various stacks. From those stacks he would figure out what needed to be done.
By the time I got a job at Western Digital, distribution lists and filters existed so it was much easier to manage email. Managers still considered it very important to copy people on emails so I still would receive hundreds of emails a day, even though I had little involvement event in the project being discussed.
Today, it seems, that everyone who has a computer has an email address. If you buy a smart phone, either Android or Apple, you are automatically given an email address by the company who made the phone. Many computers are the same way. If you have cable TV, the cable company will give you an email address. It is possible for a single person to collect a dozen or more email addresses if they are not careful.
Of course with modern email, there comes spam. Billions of spam emails are sent every year. Various products like SpamSieve and SaneBox try and manage and hide the spam. Google, Yahoo, Fastmail and Apple all automatically filter for spam before the email gets to you. Brian Krebs in his book Spam Nation details the origins of spam and how the Russians are the main perpetrators of spam even today, making billions with Canadian and Chinese pharmaceuticals. For me, the most common spam emails advertise brain enhancing drugs and of course the ever present Nigerian billionaire who wants to give me all his money.
Email is an amazing way to communicate. For basically free, someone can talk to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our church receives regular email updates from our missionary in New Zealand. People can send pictures and videos and links and music and all sorts of stuff through the emails. Kids today use all sorts of messaging and social media apps to communicate, but for the vast majority of people around the world, email is still quite popular.
My first email account was michael61@prodigy.net. I did not know anyone who had a computer so I never emailed anyone. When I got a job at Seagate, they had an internal email system. They had a Token Ring network and that allowed people to send email messages to each other. The way our department was setup, no one could send a private message, so when an email was sent, it went to 298 people. This meant that I received many hundreds of email a day. It was a very bad way to communicate, but it was 1987. One of my bosses did not understand the purpose of email, so every morning he would print out all of his emails and stack them on his desk in various stacks. From those stacks he would figure out what needed to be done.
By the time I got a job at Western Digital, distribution lists and filters existed so it was much easier to manage email. Managers still considered it very important to copy people on emails so I still would receive hundreds of emails a day, even though I had little involvement event in the project being discussed.
Today, it seems, that everyone who has a computer has an email address. If you buy a smart phone, either Android or Apple, you are automatically given an email address by the company who made the phone. Many computers are the same way. If you have cable TV, the cable company will give you an email address. It is possible for a single person to collect a dozen or more email addresses if they are not careful.
Of course with modern email, there comes spam. Billions of spam emails are sent every year. Various products like SpamSieve and SaneBox try and manage and hide the spam. Google, Yahoo, Fastmail and Apple all automatically filter for spam before the email gets to you. Brian Krebs in his book Spam Nation details the origins of spam and how the Russians are the main perpetrators of spam even today, making billions with Canadian and Chinese pharmaceuticals. For me, the most common spam emails advertise brain enhancing drugs and of course the ever present Nigerian billionaire who wants to give me all his money.
Email is an amazing way to communicate. For basically free, someone can talk to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our church receives regular email updates from our missionary in New Zealand. People can send pictures and videos and links and music and all sorts of stuff through the emails. Kids today use all sorts of messaging and social media apps to communicate, but for the vast majority of people around the world, email is still quite popular.
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