Electronic Mail Addresses

An electronic mail address has two parts:

• an account identifier, commonly known as "login id", that identifies the individual to whom the mail is addressed, and
• a nodename that identifies the computer system the account is on.

When both parts are used in a mail address, they are separated only by an "at" sign, @ (no blanks):

loginid@nodename

For example: snow@sherwood.forest.edu

The single most important thing you need to know before you begin using electronic mail is your electronic mail address and that of your correspondents.

Everyone at UIC can have two UIC-related email addresses.

If you have an ACCC account on icarus, tigger, or mailserv, your netid is your login id for that account and your netid at the system's nodename is a valid email address.

For example:

These email addresses have an advantage over your netid@uic.edu address (below) because they are real email addresses and will work as soon as you open your ACCC account.

Your netid at uic.edu is a valid address for incoming mail or to use as your From: return address. For example:

However, your netid@uic.edu is an alias, not a real address. Before you can use your netid as an email address with the uic.edu "machine name", you must specify the real mail address which will receive this mail. You do this the Web, naturally. For more information, see Setting a Real Email Address for Your netid@uic.edu.

Your netid@uic.edu email address is "machine independent", which means that:

It gives you a UIC-related email address that you can use to receive email at any actual email address, even one that's not in the uic.edu domain.

Just point your netid at uic.edu to your existing email address and you'll have an email address that associates you with UIC without having to change anything else about how you do email. You can even use your netid@uic.edu as your From: return address when you're actually sending email using your other account.

Your netid@uic.edu email address doesn't change even if the actual email address that you receive the email at does.

Switching from your old ISP to a new one? Switching from icarus to mailserv or from tigger to mailserv? No problem; your netid@uic.edu won't change. Just change the real email address that it points to and you'll continue to receive all your email on your new account.

And your netid@uic.edu address is a lot shorter than your full, machine-dependent address. Most people find that these advantages more than make it worth the time it takes to set the real email address for their netid@uic.edu alias.

Use the Change the Email routing of your netid utility to select (and to change if you wish) the actual mail address to which mail addressed to your netid@uic.edu will be delivered. (To get there from the ACCC Home Page: Click the Email button, then select Email - Change netid@uic.edu email forwarding address under Mail Tools.)

Remember, you can send your netid@uic.edu email to any valid email address. It does not have to be on the UIC campus. Also, make sure the address you enter is correct. We have no way to check its validity.

The email forwarding address you select applies immediately.

There's an easy way to find the email address of people at UIC. There is an online email and telephone directory database that includes all UIC students, faculty, and staff, as well as the information on UIC departments and units that's found in the front of the UIC printed faculty/staff telephone book.

You can search this UIC online phonebook database:

• By clicking button labeled Phonebook or Search on the the UIC World Wide Web home page and many other UIC Web pages.
  
  
• By using the ph command on the ACCC UNIX machines or the ph client in the ACCC Network Services Kit.
  
  
• From while you're doing email, using mail program tools:
  • Eudora's Directory Services tool: Tools->Directory Services. (Use ns.uic.edu as your ph server.)
  • The Phonebook button on WebMail's Create Message page.

In any case, the information returned about students includes their netid, email address, and major. For faculty and staff, campus address and office telephone numbers are also included.

Identifying electronic mail address of someone somewhere else can be a very complicated task because of the wide variety of networks and email service providers available worldwide.

For this reason, the best way by far to get someone else's electronic mail address is to ask them.

But, there are other ways to finding people's email addresses in the cases where you can't ask.

• The Internet FAQ: How to find people's E-mail addresses explains the various ways you can lookup email address and has links to various popular online phone/email directory sites. It should answer most of your questions.
  
  
• Sending email to other computer networks (such as CompuServe) isn't much of a problem anymore, but, if the question should come up, the Inter-Network Mail Guide has the answer.

A word of caution: Finding an email address for someone isn't necessarily the same thing as finding the email address that he or she actually uses. Which brings us back to asking people you want to send email what their preferred email address is.