Email Information

Q: What is Email?
A: Email is a communication medium that uses the connections of the Internet to pass messages back and forth between Internet users. In order to use email, you must have a "mail browser" which is included in both Internet Explorer and Netscape. Check the "Help" menu on whichever software browser you are using. The "help" menu usually allows you to search by topic and is very helpful in explaining the various commands available to you.

The mail browser is available to you once you make the connection to your Internet server and click on the "mail" icon in the browser window.

Mail is received from other servers and each message is appended to YOUR mail file in the order in which it was received. When your PC establishes a connection to the server, it asks for any mail which matches your userid. The server then sends the COMPLETE file to your PC where is it broken down into separate email messages by the email software on your PC. The file on the server is deleted once the PC acknowledges receipt.

Q: What is my email address?
A: Your email address is your assigned userid, i.e. yourusername@seidata.com. I.E. to get mail your sender should address it to yourusername@seidata.com.

If you use any other name in your mail browser other than your assigned email name, your messages will reject. Please make sure your address matches the format stated above. NOTE: when sending mail to another user on our server, it is NOT necessary to put @seidata.com in the address.

Q: How do I address email?
A: When sending email to another user on seidata, all you need put in the "address" box is the users name.

If you attempt mail to ANY user with a space in the address, it will reject. If you attempt to mail with your return email id other than your username@seidata.com, it will reject.

When sending email to a user on another server, you must use the form username@machinename. If you wanted to send email to a user name test100 at aol.com, you would address it as test100@aol.com.

Q: Why can't I download my email?
A: Either one of two things is wrong. If you get a message that the POP 3 server has timed out, and when you look at the information bar along the bottom of your mail browser and it has stalled while downloading messages (i.e. it says "downloading 3 of 50"), it is probably because there is a message in the mail file that is of excessive size (i.e. message 3 in this example). If this is the case, you can do one of two things:
1. Contact Tech Support and have them delete the offending message in the mail file.
2. Wait until the large messages downloads. If you choose this option, DO NOT pound the "Get Mail" keys, or any other keys. Just be patient and wait. The message will eventually be downloaded to your PC. The time it takes is related to the speed of your computer and the speed of your modem.

It is recommended that you NOT send very large files via email. This medium was not designed for this type of activity. An acceptable limit would be a maximum of 50K bytes (this would be equivalent to 125 8.5x11 inch pages). Some sendmail routines limit the size of files they will accept. This limit is arbitrary and set by the administrator of each server.

In addition, if this is the case, please contact the sender and advise them that the file they attempted to mail to you is too big. You can then use ftp to download the file if you still need it. (See FTP elsewhere in this FAQ).

If you just can't seem to log in, check that the email address in your options settings is correct. (Select Options, Mail and News Preferences, and check the Servers and Identity tabs.) On the SERVERS tab, the Incoming and Outgoing SMTP server name must be mail.seidata.com. The POP3 name must be your userid. On the IDENTITY tab, "Your Email" must be your userid@seidata.com.

Q: Why is there a delay on my email delivery?
A: Once an email is sent from your PC to our server it is put into the "queue" for delivery. At that time, the system attempts to "lookup" the domain name, i.e. it attempts to translate the domain name into an IP address in order to make the connection to the distant server. If the server can make the translation the process proceeds and the email is sent to whatever server the address "lives" on . Typically, there is no way to know exactly how the message will be routed. Each server the message goes through to connect to the "end" server, has its own "sendmail" routine and timings. Depending on how many "jumps" the message makes, and what status the timers are set at on each "jump", it may take more than a day or two to deliver. In some cases, a server can get the message and then go out of service before the message is sent. This in turn adds to the delay. Usually though, delivery is "instantaneous", but NOT always and this is never guaranteed.

If an immediate connection cannot be made to your destination, the message is left in the mail "queue" and a resend is attempted every 30 minutes for up to 5 days. After 4 hours, you will be automatically sent an "informational" message that the mail cannot be sent. Please do NOT resend the message! At the end of the 5 day period of time, if the message is still not sent, the server is configured to delete the message, on the assumption that the message will never be delivered due to incorrect addressing or some other permanent error.
Occasionally, the name to IP address translation cannot be made because of problems with the Domain Name Service that does the translations. There can be problems within the definitions for the receiving domain, or that domain may be out of service for many reasons.

Q: Why can't I get attachments?
A: As a general matter, we do not recommend sending attachments. This is because not all Internet users are running the same types of Browser software, and more specifically, attachments are used to send viruses and trojans. There are differences between the software as to what comes equipped within it. In addition there are so many different types of files that not all browsers have the appropriate "plug-ins" to handle all types of extensions. If you must send pictures, try to stick with .gif or .jpg formats. Most browsers automatically open these types of graphics files. If you must include data other than what you type by hand, then open a file that contains the data, "select all" and copy/paste the information into your email. Try to keep your emails a "reasonable" size. Sending pictures via email is not nearly as efficient as using the "ftp" facility (see elsewhere on this page for information on ftp).