1999 vs. 2009 Then And Now – E-Mail

In a few short months it’s going to be 2009, and a ton of stuff has changed in the world of computing over the past almost-ten years. Some of the modern advancements have proven to be a notable improvement while others still produce the same crapola they did nearly ten years ago.

In this installment we’ll be taking a look at e-mail.

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The first experience I had with internet was in the late 1990s with web browsing. The second was e-mail.

E-Mail is one of those forms of communication that will exist as long as computers do. Through thick and thin, e-mail has survived the test of time and is still considered to be an absolute vital means of internet communications.

Electronic mail does predate the internet all the way back to 1966 when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wanted a means to send electronic messages from computer to computer – and did so successfully.

The internet as we know it today still uses e-mail widely and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.

Let’s take a look at how e-mail has changed from 1999 to 2009.

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In 1999 e-mail was very simple. Web-based e-mail at that time was very shaky in its operation and most people were afraid to use it for fear of losing messages, so the preferred choice was to use an e-mail client; a separate application used specifically just for mail alone.

Popular e-mail clients of the day

Netscape Mail

This was a bundled e-mail application provided with some bundled of the Netscape Navigator web browser.

Microsoft Mail and News / Microsoft Outlook Express

Microsoft Mail and News was the predecessor to the Microsoft Outlook Express mail client. Both operated the same way but Outlook Express was obviously better because it had more advanced features and was easy to use.

In 1999 there were still a fair amount of people using Windows 95 even though Windows 98 had been released one year prior.

Microsoft Exchange

This was a very simple mail client that could be used with Windows 95.

Microsoft Outlook

For those that had the full version of the Microsoft Office Suite, this came bundled with the Microsoft Outlook mail client.

Not to be confused with the Express version, Outlook was much more than just mail and included scheduling, task management and much more. However for most people they used it solely for mail and not much more as a home-user.

Eudora

The Eudora mail client had a rather large following for many years. Both Windows and Mac users absolutely loved using this software and happily paid for it (it wasn’t free).

Some people were so hooked on this software that you were called a “Eudorka” if you chose to use it. Eudora users took this in stride because they knew they had a great mail client.

PINE

PINE is a text-only mail client originally developed at the University of Washington. You used this if you were in college with internet access back in 1999. And unless you were using Unix at home (which basically none of us were) you were most likely using something else. However it was still widely used in ’99 at college campuses around the country.

To note, the modern variant of PINE is Alpine. You can check it out here if you like:

http://www.washington.edu/alpine/

Plain text, no file attachments

The vast majority of e-mails in ’99 were “plain text only”. No bold/italic/underline ability, no colorization, no imagery. None of that was present – nor was it needed.

Being that server space was very minimal it was rare that you ever sent or received a file attachment in an e-mail.

To give you an idea of how little server space there was back then, sending anything over 60k would usually flag a “bounce” by the receiving mail server, meaning the mail would be received by the server, deemed too large to deliver and sent back to you as undeliverable.

Conduct

It’s very safe to say that people were a whole lot nicer on the internet back in ’99. The reason is because at the time the internet was primarily populated by adults. As such, we acted accordingly.

I’ll put it to you this way: You could easily get in trouble back then for even writing curse words in an e-mail. That was grounds to be “blacklisted” and possibly have your service disconnected by your ISP if someone reported you.

Speed

Because the network infrastructure of the internet was much smaller in 1999 it sometimes took up to almost twenty-four hours before an e-mail was delivered. However on average it wouldn’t take more than two.

And bear in mind this is just text with no file attachments.

Things that have changed from then to now

E-Mail still works the same way it did ten years ago, however quite a bit has changed since ’99.

From client to web

People today prefer the use of web-based e-mail over using a client; there a few key reasons for this.

First, most people have broadband-speed connectivity, which allows them to load everything in the browser, just as fast as mail clients could years ago.

Second, it’s now common that people own more than one computer – and they’re all internet-connected. As such, having the mail be completely accessible from computer to computer is important.

Third, accessibility is important outside of the home. When you’re at a friend or neighbor’s house and want to do a quick check of your mail, you can with web-based.

Fourth, web-based mail reliability has increased exponentially. Whereas years ago it was a maybe/maybe not guess as to whether it would work or not, these days it’s very rare that mail goes down.

Unlimited space

We’re very close to the point where mail (web-based mail in particular) allows for unlimited storage. Yahoo! Mail for example, offers unlimited storage in both their free and paid versions. Microsoft’s Hotmail has recently started to follow suit by offering more storage and Google’s Gmail will also be likely to follow in line as well.

This sure beats the 2MB(!) limitations from years ago.

Larger file attachments

It is now common for people to send file attachments that are 5MB or more in size. Most web-based mail providers (and many ISPs) will allow a 10MB send limit per message. Google’s Gmail currently allows a 20MB send limit that is sure to increase in availability over time.

To note: Paid e-mail accounts (such as Microsoft’s Hotmail) will currently allow for a 20MB per-message send limit at the time of this writing.

Spam prevention

“It wouldn’t be e-mail without spam.” That is what many people say and they’re correct. Spam is an ever-present problem with e-mail but fortunately all e-mail providers offer means of spam prevention, whether it’s by your own ISP or web-based mail provider.

The only complain about spam filters is the same it’s always been: Either it works too well or not well enough.

Things that haven’t changed

What hasn’t changed with e-mail is the human factor. To this day there are many who do not understand the fundamentals of something called netiquette (pronounced like etiquette with a pronounced n at the beginning). This was a term coined years ago about how to conduct yourself properly when writing e-mails to people.

Guides are easy to find, just search Google:

http://www.google.com/search?q=e-mail%20netiquette

This is the short list of annoying things that haven’t changed when it comes to e-mail.

ALL CAPS

WHEN YOU TYPE MESSAGES USING NOTHING BUT CAPITAL LETTERS, IT APPEARS THAT YOU ARE SHOUTING. THIS CAN GET VERY ANNOYING VERY QUICKLY.

Some wonder why people type in all capital letters.

Believe it or not there is a reason for it.

Older folks who worked in corporate environments using nothing but mainframes were exposed to nothing but all-capital-letters when using a terminal. As such, it seemed natural to compose electronic messages in the same way.

To look at messages in standard case just “didn’t seem right”, so it was tap, on with the CAPS LOCK AND OKAY HERE WE GO, THIS LOOKS NORMAL, RIGHT?

Wrong.

Joke and chain mail forwarding

Someone receives an e-mail from a co-worker or friend. That someone thinks it’s funny so what they do is forward that message to all their friends.

I cannot even begin to tell you how unbelievably rude it is to do this. You are sending a joke that you think is funny to someone else who did not ask for it.

It gets to a point when you see any subject line starting with a “FW: THIS IS FUNNY!” or similar you don’t even bother reading and just delete it.

What are even worse are the e-mails that state “If you want good luck, send this e-mail to ten of your closest friends by midnight tonight!” Those are chain mails. For all intents and purposes, you’re spamming your own friends if you send these!

Don’t do it.

The huge attachment

You’ve always got that guy (or girl) who sends you stuff in e-mail and it’s always got a file attachment. And, of course, the file attachment is at least 3 to 5MB in size. It’s huge. If you’re using a mail client it almost crashes just trying to open the mail.

Fortunately, if you use web-based mail this isn’t too much of a problem being the space is plentiful and any file attachments are not downloaded directly to your computer unless you specifically click a link to download it – so at least you have that option.

The reply thread that lasts (seemingly) forever

Even if you have “threaded” views for e-mails (such as with a traditional client or Gmail), when you get past 15 replies from the originating mail it turns into a complete mess.

There has never been a cure for this even to this day.

If you have an e-mail “conversation” go on so long that you completely forgot what the original mail was all about, it’s time to start a new thread.

Privacy advantages of today’s e-mail

Compared to ten years ago it’s much easier to maintain your privacy with electronic mail.

The single largest advantage is that we have “blacklists” and “whitelists”.

In web-based mail systems like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail there is a feature called the “blocked senders” list. This is a friendly name for a blacklist. It means that for whatever e-mail address you place in that list, anything sent from it will never go to your inbox. Ever. It will be deleted by the server upon arrival and won’t even go to the “Trash”, “Spam” or “Junk” folder. This is very handy to have.

Being that there are spam laws in effect now, companies are obligated (else they get fined otherwise) to never send you e-mail unless you specifically request it. And if you’re “on a list”, and instruct the system not to send you any more e-mail, it does in fact stop. This is a notable advantage compared to years ago when companies would be sneaky and “share” your address with anyone solely for profit.

E-Mail is here to stay

Not once (as far as I know) has anyone ever said that e-mail was going to go away. It’s here and one of the most reliable (if not the most reliable) means of internet communication there is.

Enjoy your e-mail!