Chapter 2 Summary
Brittany Ritsick
CIS 145 – SP24
Summary Chapter 2
12 February 2024
The dreaded world of email. When I was answering phone calls as a customer service representative, email calls were the most unbearable phone calls. I would hear a customer mention Thunderbird and knew I was in for a long call. It was never anyone my age that was calling about email. I have had generous experience with trouble shooting mail client software programs such as Gmail, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, AOL, etc.
I have experience with going into devices’ email settings and verifying IMAP or POP settings. A common issue that I would see was where a customer has their username entered incorrectly on Thunderbirds settings, but correctly on our RCN client server. While it was never easy to get a customer to do this, once they finally did, we were one step closer to figuring out their sending / receiving issue. I am also familiar with messages being queued as I have experienced that when sending emails to myself from one device to another. I have also helped customers with using and managing their email storage across email apps.
Something new that Chapter 2 taught me is the origin of email and MIME. I was unaware of the hot air balloon story. I also did not have any knowledge of MIME being a protocol that tells how to encode non-text data. Most of my knowledge around email does come from my previous customer service job, as well as my current job as an order entry specialist. In my personal life I only use email a very limited amount as I feel it should be used as a professional space.
When it comes to the formatting of emails, such as their message header, message body, and signature, and the To, Cc, and Bcc, and From lines; I use these daily in my job as a main form of communication. I am happy to admit that I have never blind carbon copied anyone! I also use attachments daily in my work environment as I need to send spreadsheets to certain departments. However, I did not know that the process of saving an email file is called detaching a file. As far as signatures, I have seen other people use them, but I am accustomed to just typing a simple “Thank you,” followed by my name.
I have been aware for some time that the Internet has its own standards to follow, but I did not previously know that this set of rules is called Netiquette. I agree with Chapter 2 that acronyms should not be used in emails. However, I believe acronyms can be useful only if all parties included on the email have equal knowledge on the subject. For example, in my place of work we use DIA, and it is understood as Dedicated Internet Access. I also agree with the book that emoticons and emojis should not be used in emails.
When it comes to viruses, I receive training every six months to spot spam or phishing emails. Being that our company has went to 85% work from home, email security has become a top priority. While Chapter 2 was mainly a refresher of what I use in my day-to-day life, I always enjoy learning new things. However, I will admit that I still get scared every time I see POP3 or IMAP.