An email address is a designation for an electronic mailbox which sends and receives messages on a computer network.
EMAIL ADDRESS EXAMPLE
Considering this sample of an email address john@cozy.com, we can examine the elements in the address from right to left, starting on the right, the .com component represents the top-level domain (TLD). It is different from a Disposable Email Address.
EMAIL ADDRESS ORIGIN
The word email was gotten from the traditional word Mail service. It is the electronic postal email. The E stands for electronics. This time, you don’t have to transport the mail physically but electronically. 1 That is while it is called email.
Other top-level domains include .edu, .org, and others. The commonly used top-level domains are:
- .com: This is used by entities engaged in commerce
- .edu: This TLD is used by educational institutions
- .org: Used by nonprofit organizations
- .gov: This is used by and for governmental agencies
- .net: Used for network providers
To the left of the address, the cozy portion is the specific name of the organization. The combination of the organization’s name and the top-level domain is the address that is entered into a browser to get to that organization’s website. Thus the website name and email address are connected.
The @ (at) symbol is the connector between the domain and person using the email address.
From the example given, we can say the person using the email address is John. It belongs to John at a cozy corporation.
EMAIL ADDRESS FORMAT
The general format of an email address is username@entity.TLD. Specific characters are allowed for email address names. They are letters, numbers, a few punctuation marks like the period or underscore are also allowed.
User names can be in different formats such that a person could use his or her first name (for example, John@cozy.com), some persons could use first name, last name (for example, john.greg@cozy.com) or a name and an initial (for example J.greg@cozy.com)
Names can be capitalized too, although capitalized characters of an address do not affect the sending or receiving of emails for the email address. For instance, given our sample address (johngreg@cozy.com) and a person sends a mail to JohnGreg@cozy.com, John would still receive the sent mail not minding the capitalized characters. 2
OBTAINING AN EMAIL ADDRESS
Getting what you will call My Email Addresses, is a simple thing to go about. Email addresses are gotten from the internet service providers, company, school, or a web-based email service like Yahoo, iCloud, Outlook, or Gmail. A person can decide to get an email address that won’t change as he changes service providers or jobs. To do this, you can create your domain (such as johngreg.com)
Some persons have multiple accounts for work, personal use, and other purposes. In this way, communication for each area of life is separate from the others. In using multiple accounts, you would have to check all accounts from time to time, so that you don’t get to miss messages.
Desktop clients like Outlook can be connected to multiple accounts so one only has to look in one place to view his messages.
