Writing an Email Above you see the Outlook Express control bar (Your's may look a little different... still you should be able to follow along.). To begin writing a new email message click on Create Mail. (In Netscape this would be New Msg). This will pop up the new email message window. In the box labeled To: type the address of the person you are emailing to (Example: support@vallnet.com) If you are sending to more than one person you have two choices: either add several email addresses separated by semi-colons (;) or you can add them in the section labeled CC: which stands for Carbon Copy. Clicking on the little page looking item next to the To: or CC: will open up your address book, allowing you to pick your recipient from there. You may also have a BCC: option, which means Blind Carbon Copy. No one that receives the email from you will see the recipients listed under BCC:. The Subject: line should have something, but can be anything you like. Remember though that people tend to delete emails with cryptic subjects due to viruses and spam The buttons on top do various things: The Send button places the email in your outbox, waiting to be sent (depending on your email client's settings, the email will either be sent immediately, or it will wait until the next time you click 'Send and Receive Email'). The button labeled Check checks what you typed into the To and CC boxes to see if they are either valid email addresses or names that appear in your Address book. Spelling checks your spelling, (depending on your settings it may check your spelling automatically when sending) and the Copy, Cut, Paste and Undo buttons allow you standard editing functions within the email itself. The Attach button deserves special mention. It allows you to send a file (such as a picture or sound file) with your email. You should be warned that they can be slow to send if you attach a large file. Additionally, some ISP's have size limits on their customers' email boxes, which means large files will bounce or fill their box until retrieved. Finally, Valley Internet restricts the transmission of any executable files through email, due to the large number of viruses that propagate using that method. The Priority button will allow you to flag this email as more or less important than 'normal'. Most people ignore those tags because they are greatly overused by people who don't need to use them however.