Fig 1.0 Two unopened e-mails, one with attachment(s) and one without attachment(s).
| OPEN AN E-MAIL |
Continuing from the previous, Receive E-Mail, section. When your e-mail has been downloaded (received) it is listed in the Viewing window pane (Fig 1.0 below). In this example there are two e-mails from my friend Capili. The first one does not have an attachment (RE: Photograph Attached) but the second one does (Two Files Attached). You know when an e-mail has an attachment because it has a Paper Clip symbol to the left of it.
Over time, when your INBOX gets fuller, you may find it hard to distinguish between new e-mail and old e-mail. So to help
out windows mail gives you a few pointers. For example. The heading of an unread e-mail will be in bold text and its
envelope icon will be of a Closed Envelope, whereas the heading of a read e-mail will be in pain (not bold) text and its
envelope icon will be of an Opened Envelope. Also. The status bar states the number of e-mails that have been read as well
as the number of e-mails that remain unread. Unfortunately there is nothing to tell you how many attached files (attachments)
an e-mail contains. You will only know this when you open the e-mail.
To open an e-mail simply double click on its envelope icon or on its name. As you do this the first click highlights the
e-mail (Fig 1.1) and the second click opens the e-mail (Fig 1.2). You probably will not notice the highlighting of the
e-mail due to the e-mail's message window appearing in front of the viewing window pane straight away.
The above e-mail consists of an Header (the FROM, DATE, TO and SUBJECT information) and a Body (the E-Mail Message itself).
The header tells you who the e-mail came FROM (who the Sender is), what DATE (and TIME) the e-mail was sent, who the e-mail
is addressed TO and what the SUBJECT is about. The body contains the sender's message and any previous messages sent between
you and the sender. Any previous messages will have a line above them and underneath that line is the header and body, as
in the above example.
FROM means who the e-mail came from. In this case, from Capili 2007.
The reason FROM shows Capili 2007 is because this is the Display Name (First and Last name) capili chose for himself when
he set up his Hotmail e-mail account. He could of put his real name but he chose a nickname instead. If you want to change
the sender's display name yourself you can do. Right click on one of their received e-mails, to bring up the Options menu,
and then select the ADD SENDER TO CONTACTS menu-item. This will bring up the Windows Contacts window which will allow you
to change their display name as well as other deetails.
DATE is the date, and time, when the e-mail was sent by the sender and not when you received it.
The RECEIVED heading in the windows mail viewing window is meant as a sorting method. For example. When you have received
many e-mails, perhaps over a 9 day period, they will at some point need sorting into order. And one way you can do this is
by the date and time an e-mail was received. See the Sorting E-Mail section
for more information.
TO is the e-mail address of the recipient, which is normally you (i.e John White <contactjohn@yoingco.com>) or one of
the other e-mail accounts set up on your windows mail.
SUBJECT is just the Title of the e-mail.
Always be warey of an e-mail's title. For example. Bad people normally use it to fool you. They might title a bad e-mail
"Hello John", hoping your name is John and hoping you will open the bad e-mail. And if your name is not John they hope you
might think "What is this? My name's not John?" and then become curious enough to open the bad e-mail.
MESSAGE contains the actual e-mail message and any previous e-mail messages.
When you open an e-mail its message is always displayed inside a read (view) only edit box, so it can be viewed but not
edited. You can edit the message when you REPLY to the e-mail. The message itself normally only contains the sender's
message. However. These days, by default, any previous e-mail messages between you and the sender are also shown. Any
previous e-mail messages are marked with a line (Fig 1.2 above). Also these days anti-virus software tends to add its own
message to the botton of an e-mail message to let you know that e-mail is free of viruses (clean) - This does not mean the
attachment, if any, is virus free though. It could have been blocked, if it was considered dangerous or virused. Another
thing you might see in an e-mail message is advertising, usually included by the sender's e-mail server (i.e Hotmail),
which is quite normal these days.
When you have finished reading an e-mail and want to close it either click on the EXIT (Red X) button in the top-right corner
of the message window or use the File menu, CLOSE menu-item. Both methods will take you back to the windows mail (INBOX) window.
When you arrive back at the windows mail window look at the INBOX and status bar. You will notice that these have changed.
The INBOX has decreased by one, to let you know you have now read (opened) one of the two e-mails. And the status bar
(bottom-left corner) reflects this by stating: 2 message(s), 1 unread. The bottom-right corner of the status bar will
remain as: 2 new message(s) for a short time only but then states Working Online only. Another thing to take note of is the
Envelope Icon next to each e-mail. When you open an e-mail for the first time its envelope icon will change, from a Closed
Envelope, to an Opened Envelope (Fig 1.5 above).
I will now open the second e-mail.
The only difference between the above two e-mails are that the above e-mail has attachments, one of which is displayed under
the message. Attachments are explained in more detail below (The Attach Box).
Again. When you have finished reading an e-mail and want to close it either click on the EXIT (Red X) button in the top-right
corner of the message window or use the File menu, CLOSE menu-item. Both methods will take you back to the windows mail
(INBOX) window.
Again. When you arrive back at the windows mail window look at the INBOX and status bar. You will notice that these have again changed. The INBOX now has no number next to it. This is because it decreased by one and reached zero, but instead of stating INBOX (0) it just states INBOX to let you know you have now read (opened) every e-mail. The status bar (bottom-left corner) reflects this by stating: 2 message(s), 0 unread. Another thing to take note of is the Envelope Icon next to both e-mails. They both have Opened Envelopes now.
| THE ATTACH BOX |
The attach box, which was explained in the Attach A File section, lists all the (safe/clean) files that are attached to an
e-mail by their file name, file size and associated program icon if they have one. With the above example the attached file
Website_Links.xlsx is a Microsoft Excel 2007 file, therefore it is associated with the program Microsoft Excel 2007 and has
a Microsoft Excel 2007 icon. The attached file john.jpg on the other hand is a photograph file with a default (standard)
picture icon because it is associated to the default picture viewer (proram) called Windows Photo Gallery.
With regards to file size it is a good idea to ask your friends, and so on, not to send you large photograph files for
example. Many people just attach a file, unaware of file size and your e-mail account's INBOX storage capacity. This can
lead to them getting errors: "Could not send e-mail", "Recipient's account is too small or full" or words to that effect.
This is especially true when people forward you an e-mail whereby they want you to see the e-mail message but forget the
e-mail has a large file attached to it. Or they know but do not consider your e-mail account's storage capacity.
To open an attached file you simply double on it.
After double clicking on the attached file Windows Vista then examines the file's extension to determine which program to open the file with, which is normally the program that made it. So if you have a file with the extension .xlsx Windows Vista will normally open that file with Microsoft Excel 2007. However. If you do not have Microsoft Excel 2007 installed on your computer Windows Vista will try and use another program to open the file. This is known as file association. What this means is a Microsoft Excel 2007 (.xlsx) file will be associated with and opened with an alternative program, if that alternative program is installed and set up to read Microsoft Excel 2007 files. If you do not have Microsoft Excel 2007 installed and no alternative program installed either you will get the following scenario.
Fig 2.1 above shows that Windows Vista has determined that there is no program installed that associates itself directly
with a Microsoft Excel 2007 (.xlsx) file. Even though I have a compatible program installed which can open the
Website_Links.xlsx file. This is not a mistake by Windows Vista. It just means my compatible program has not been associated
(set up) to open Microsoft Excel 2007 files. For example. Indrectly my compatible program can open a Microsoft Excel 2007
(.xlsx) file, if you launch it and then open a Microsoft Excel 2007 file with it, but not directly.
Fig 2.2 confirms what I have just said - that there is no program associated with the file extension .xlsx simply because
the file extension has not been set up. Hence why the requester is suggesting I set it up. This involves using the Default
Programs (Set Associations) Control Panel, which is not meant for the beginner. Therefore I suggest that if you come across
the above scenario, for any unknown file type (extension), you do one of the following. Either save your attached file into
the Documents folder for example and then open it indirectly with an appropriate program. Or ask the sender what software
they used to make the file, so you then know which software to buy or download.
As long as your computer is up-to-date with the latest, common, software you should find that most people will send you
attachments whereby you already have the common software installed to open most, if not all, of the attached files. Figure
1.7 above shows how windows mail automatically displays an attached photograph file in the e-mail message itself. This is
because the necessary software is installed which can associate itself with displaying a .jpg file. If the .jpg file
extension had no program associated with it the photograph would not of been displayed. You can tell if a file extension
as an associated program by looking at the file's icon. Figure 1.7 shows Website_Links.xlsx with a Microsoft Excel 2007 icon
because it is associated with Microsoft Excel 2007 whereas Figure 2.0 shows Website_Links.xlsx with a blank (psuedo) icon
because it has no program associated with it.
To save an attached file simply right click on it, to bring up its Options menu, and then left click on the SAVE AS...
menu-item. The SAVE ATTACHMENT AS file requester will then appear (Fig 2.4).
Despite its name the SAVE ATTACHMENT AS file requester is a normal file requester that saves an attached file as a normal
file. For example. Website_Links.xlsx will save as an Microsoft Excel 2007 file, even though Microsoft Excel 2007 is not
installed on my computer. Why? Because Windows Vista knows I might want to send the file later as an attachment to someone
who does have Microsoft Excel 2007 installed on their computer. Or that I might install Microsoft Excel 2007 at a later
time on my computer.
I would ignore the PRINT menu-item if I were you. It is supposed to print an attached file, with the file's associated
program. For example. If the attached file was CV.docx Microsoft Word 2007, or whatever program is associated with the
.docx file extension, should either open the file and then print it or just print it without opening its program window.
Unfortunately. Due to windows mail and/or Windows Vista security/normal settings sometimes an attached file cannot be
printed. This could be because windows mail and/or Windows Vista is blocking an attached file it thinks could be harmful
or because no direct-printing program is associated with the file's extension. And even if an attached file has a program
associated with it, so it can be viewed, that program might not be able to directly print the file. For example. A
photograph file normally gets passed onto the Windows Photo Gallery program which displays the photograph only - you then
have to print the photograph manually.
The above error message is due to me trying to print the attached photograph file john.jpg, by right clicking on it and selecting PRINT, which could not be printed because no program is associated with printing it directly. After saving the photograph file (john.jpg) into the Documents folder I then right clicked on the photograph file and chose its PRINT menu-item. The Printing Wizard then appeared, which enabled me to print the file.
Another reason why a file might not be able to be printed, or opened, is because another program is using its association.
For example. When you install some media software it might ask you if you want all media files to be associated with its
media playing program. Clicking on its YES button can be a mistake as it might not have the same playing power as your
previous (default) media player. In some cases they do not have a certain CODEC (decoder) installed which means the player
cannot play a certain type of media file.
This attach box section has hopefully given you some insight into what you should be aware of with regards to Attachments
in general. Remember. If you keep your software up-to-date and give a little thought for your recipient's software and
e-mail account storage capacity you should not come across too many problems. Basically. The chances of you coming across
someone who has exactly the same software as you, the same storage capacity as you, the same computer settings as you and
the same nature/personality/thoughtfullness as you are slim. So expect the odd attachment to be too large, the odd file not
to open and so on.
Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation. As stated here by the Microsoft Corporation.
All HTM files in the yoingco.com folder and its sub-folders are (c) John White, August 3rd 2005 - 2008. All Rights Reserved. FREE Vista Helpline: Contact John