These are the steps to make an email at gmail.com or email at google.com :
1. open this url or website www.gmail.com
2. Fulfill the form
3. Click Create account
4. Your email ready to be used
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Post to your blog using email
Post to your blog using email
WordPress can be configured to use e-mail to post to a blog. To enable this functionality, you need to:
1. Create a dedicated e-mail account to be used solely for posting to your blog,
2. Configure WordPress to access that account, and
3. Configure WordPress to publish messages from the e-mail account
You can blog by e-mail using most standard e-mail software programs or a Weblog Client -- a program specifically designed to send posts via email.
Setting Up Post via E-mail
Step 1 - Create an e-mail account
1. Log in to WordPress with the administration login you use to administer your WordPress blog.
2. Go to Options > Writing.
3. Read the instructions under Post via e-mail at the bottom of the page. At the end of these instructions, WordPress will suggest three random strings of numbers you may want to use for the login name of the new e-mail account you'll create.
4. Create a new e-mail account on your web host's mail server or a separate e-mail server, using one of the suggested numeric strings (or your own secret word) for the username (also called a "login name"). A mail server receives e-mails on your behalf and stores them for retrieval. Do not use public, free e-mail servers like Yahoo, Hotmail, etc., for this account.
Note: It is strongly recommended that you use a "secret" address - that is, an e-mail account name that is very difficult to guess and known only to you, such as those suggested by WordPress. Any e-mail sent to this address will automatically be posted to your blog. Be aware, however, that some e-mail servers do not allow numbers-only e-mail accounts or accounts starting with a number. Please check with your web host.
Step 2 - Configure WordPress to access your new account
1. When you are done creating the new e-mail account , return to the Writing Options panel and fill in the name of the mail server and port number your web hosting provider uses. (If you don't know these, refer to your web hosting provider's FAQ or manual pages. The port number is usually 110.)
2. Next, enter the login name and password for your new e-mail account .
NOTE: In the Login Name field, use the full e-mail address (e.g., user@example.com).
3. Choose the default category that will be assigned to posts submitted via e-mail.
4. Click Update Options .
NOTE: If you are using the Administration > Settings > Writing > Post via e-mail section to specify the e-mail address before you've actually created the e-mail account, remember to use the same login and password when you create the account as you specified in the section.
Step 3 - Publish Your E-mail Posts
You've created the new e-mail account and configured your WordPress blog to accept e-mails from that account, but you still need to set up WordPress to publish those e-mail messages on your blog. Do one of the following:
Manual Browser Activation
Go to the following link http://example.com/installdir/wp-mail.php immediately after you send an e-mail to your new e-mail account. (Note: You must do this every time you send a new post.)
Automated Browser Activation
An alternative to manual browser activation is to add the following iframe code to the footer of your blog:
Edit the above line of code so that it refers to the location of your wp-mail.php file. Add this line of code to the footer.php file in the directory for whatever theme you are using (don't include it within an HTML paragraph).
You may have to refresh your blog to see the new post. New users may find this method the most helpful.
If you're using or would like to use the Postie Plugin for WordPress, use the following iframe code, which will call Postie's check mail commands:
Add this code to your footer, and the next time anyone goes to your blog, your new emails will be automatically posted, so you need to do nothing but send them. You may have to refresh the blog to see the changes.
WP-Cron Plugin Activation
Download, install, and activate the WP-Cron Plugin. It will work in the background without user intervention to update your site about every 15 minutes.
Cron Job Activation
Set up a UNIX cron job to have your blog periodically view http://example.com/installdir/wp-mail.php using a command-line HTTP agent like wget, curl or GET. The command to execute will look like:
wget -N http://example.com/installdir/wp-mail.php
If you use a different program than wget, substitute that program and its arguments for wget in this line.
Note: Another possibility is to run "php /full/path/to/wp-mail.php" in a cronjob. This will run the php-script using php, without the need for an extra program to run. (You are more likely authorized to run php than wget.)
WordPress can be configured to use e-mail to post to a blog. To enable this functionality, you need to:
1. Create a dedicated e-mail account to be used solely for posting to your blog,
2. Configure WordPress to access that account, and
3. Configure WordPress to publish messages from the e-mail account
You can blog by e-mail using most standard e-mail software programs or a Weblog Client -- a program specifically designed to send posts via email.
Setting Up Post via E-mail
Step 1 - Create an e-mail account
1. Log in to WordPress with the administration login you use to administer your WordPress blog.
2. Go to Options > Writing.
3. Read the instructions under Post via e-mail at the bottom of the page. At the end of these instructions, WordPress will suggest three random strings of numbers you may want to use for the login name of the new e-mail account you'll create.
4. Create a new e-mail account on your web host's mail server or a separate e-mail server, using one of the suggested numeric strings (or your own secret word) for the username (also called a "login name"). A mail server receives e-mails on your behalf and stores them for retrieval. Do not use public, free e-mail servers like Yahoo, Hotmail, etc., for this account.
Note: It is strongly recommended that you use a "secret" address - that is, an e-mail account name that is very difficult to guess and known only to you, such as those suggested by WordPress. Any e-mail sent to this address will automatically be posted to your blog. Be aware, however, that some e-mail servers do not allow numbers-only e-mail accounts or accounts starting with a number. Please check with your web host.
Step 2 - Configure WordPress to access your new account
1. When you are done creating the new e-mail account , return to the Writing Options panel and fill in the name of the mail server and port number your web hosting provider uses. (If you don't know these, refer to your web hosting provider's FAQ or manual pages. The port number is usually 110.)
2. Next, enter the login name and password for your new e-mail account .
NOTE: In the Login Name field, use the full e-mail address (e.g., user@example.com).
3. Choose the default category that will be assigned to posts submitted via e-mail.
4. Click Update Options .
NOTE: If you are using the Administration > Settings > Writing > Post via e-mail section to specify the e-mail address before you've actually created the e-mail account, remember to use the same login and password when you create the account as you specified in the section.
Step 3 - Publish Your E-mail Posts
You've created the new e-mail account and configured your WordPress blog to accept e-mails from that account, but you still need to set up WordPress to publish those e-mail messages on your blog. Do one of the following:
Manual Browser Activation
Go to the following link http://example.com/installdir/wp-mail.php immediately after you send an e-mail to your new e-mail account. (Note: You must do this every time you send a new post.)
Automated Browser Activation
An alternative to manual browser activation is to add the following iframe code to the footer of your blog:
Edit the above line of code so that it refers to the location of your wp-mail.php file. Add this line of code to the footer.php file in the directory for whatever theme you are using (don't include it within an HTML paragraph).
You may have to refresh your blog to see the new post. New users may find this method the most helpful.
If you're using or would like to use the Postie Plugin for WordPress, use the following iframe code, which will call Postie's check mail commands:
Add this code to your footer, and the next time anyone goes to your blog, your new emails will be automatically posted, so you need to do nothing but send them. You may have to refresh the blog to see the changes.
WP-Cron Plugin Activation
Download, install, and activate the WP-Cron Plugin. It will work in the background without user intervention to update your site about every 15 minutes.
Cron Job Activation
Set up a UNIX cron job to have your blog periodically view http://example.com/installdir/wp-mail.php using a command-line HTTP agent like wget, curl or GET. The command to execute will look like:
wget -N http://example.com/installdir/wp-mail.php
If you use a different program than wget, substitute that program and its arguments for wget in this line.
Note: Another possibility is to run "php /full/path/to/wp-mail.php" in a cronjob. This will run the php-script using php, without the need for an extra program to run. (You are more likely authorized to run php than wget.)
Monday, May 11, 2009
How to send mass email legally
Can I legally send targeted email?
The question, "Can I legally send targeted email?", is a common question and the simple answer is YES.
The more difficult question is HOW?
If you are sending targeted email - even to your own customers who really want to hear from you - you could be at risk of losing your account with your ISP or be subject to fines of up to $11,000 by the FTC.
Who is your ISP?
Chances are you have more than one ISP. We might host your site and your email, but we may not be your ISP for your connection to the internet. We only offer that service to our customers in the Santa Monica area, and most of our hosting customers are not located in the Santa Monica area. We are not the only ISP even for our customers who have their internet connections through us - at some level there is a telco involved.
ISPs may not allow their customers to engage in SPAM practices. If they allow such practices, they can lose their ability to do business. Therefore, if you are the customer of an ISP and you engage in spam practices, your ISP has the right to turn off your service without notice.
Check the policy of your ISP
The acceptable use policies of ISPs tend to be a bit vague. They tell you more what not to do than what you can do. PLEASE CHECK WITH YOUR ISPs for specifics. You may use this page is a guideline. However, since we are not your only ISP, you could follow the instructions on this page and still experience a termination of services!
Acceptable Use Policy
A User may not use the services provided by CompanyV.com Corp to transmit unsolicited commercial e-mail messages or deliberately send excessively large attachments to one recipient. Any unsolicited commercial e-mail messages or a series of unsolicited commercial e-mail messages or large attachments sent to one recipient constitutes Unsolicited Commercial E-mail "UCE" and is prohibited. In addition, "spamming" or "mailbombing" is also prohibited. Use of the service of another provider to send UCE, spam or mailbombs, to promote a site hosted on or connected to our network, is similarly prohibited. Likewise, you may not use the services provided by CompanyV.com Corp to collect responses from mass unsolicited e-mail messages.
If we detect unacceptable use by any of our customers we may halt services without notice. A $250.00 service charge will be billed for halting services plus $125.00 per hour for any and all actions required by us for resolution.
So, what CAN you do?
NEVER send mail with lists in the "TO:" or "CC:" line
ONLY send to addresses you obtained through honest means.
If you are sending targeted email from an account provided by CompanyV.com, do not send to more than 10 recipients at a time - and make sure that all those addresses are in the "BCC:" line
Follow the laws and use good Netiquette...
Good Netiquette
Everyone's time is valuable. One person's "cause" or "concern" may mean nothing to the next. People who have no interest in your message may consider it spam, become upset and complain. With this in mind, the basic rule is, Do not send a message to anyone unless you absolutely know that he/she wants to receive it.
Do not send large attachments.
Do not send lengthy content when you can send links to information online.
DO NOT USE ALL CAPs
Do Not use all BOLD Don't use many colors and fonts either. Make sure your message is not hard sell, or the recipients' spam filters will probably eat it.
Test your own OPT-OUT system. Make sure you have a policy and procedure in place and that everyone understands how important it is to adhere to it.
Ideally, your message should consist only of properly formatted text. If HTML is required, it should not simply be pasted in from a web page, but should be prepared specifically for the purpose. Also, if HTML is used, there should also be an equivalent text section with the same message as text only.
Professional list management practices:
Email should be addressed specifically to the addressee and no one else. Your email database should contain the name of the addressee as well as the email address itself, so a mailing system can easily personalize the message in the body of the email.
Best Practice:
Provide an automated unsubscribe link that puts people directly into the "remove" database. Keep records of where an address came from and records of addresses that have asked to be removed.
Professional preparation: Targeted email should be composed and formatted at least as carefully as any other marketing material that a company would produce.
The question, "Can I legally send targeted email?", is a common question and the simple answer is YES.
The more difficult question is HOW?
If you are sending targeted email - even to your own customers who really want to hear from you - you could be at risk of losing your account with your ISP or be subject to fines of up to $11,000 by the FTC.
Who is your ISP?
Chances are you have more than one ISP. We might host your site and your email, but we may not be your ISP for your connection to the internet. We only offer that service to our customers in the Santa Monica area, and most of our hosting customers are not located in the Santa Monica area. We are not the only ISP even for our customers who have their internet connections through us - at some level there is a telco involved.
ISPs may not allow their customers to engage in SPAM practices. If they allow such practices, they can lose their ability to do business. Therefore, if you are the customer of an ISP and you engage in spam practices, your ISP has the right to turn off your service without notice.
Check the policy of your ISP
The acceptable use policies of ISPs tend to be a bit vague. They tell you more what not to do than what you can do. PLEASE CHECK WITH YOUR ISPs for specifics. You may use this page is a guideline. However, since we are not your only ISP, you could follow the instructions on this page and still experience a termination of services!
Acceptable Use Policy
A User may not use the services provided by CompanyV.com Corp to transmit unsolicited commercial e-mail messages or deliberately send excessively large attachments to one recipient. Any unsolicited commercial e-mail messages or a series of unsolicited commercial e-mail messages or large attachments sent to one recipient constitutes Unsolicited Commercial E-mail "UCE" and is prohibited. In addition, "spamming" or "mailbombing" is also prohibited. Use of the service of another provider to send UCE, spam or mailbombs, to promote a site hosted on or connected to our network, is similarly prohibited. Likewise, you may not use the services provided by CompanyV.com Corp to collect responses from mass unsolicited e-mail messages.
If we detect unacceptable use by any of our customers we may halt services without notice. A $250.00 service charge will be billed for halting services plus $125.00 per hour for any and all actions required by us for resolution.
So, what CAN you do?
NEVER send mail with lists in the "TO:" or "CC:" line
ONLY send to addresses you obtained through honest means.
If you are sending targeted email from an account provided by CompanyV.com, do not send to more than 10 recipients at a time - and make sure that all those addresses are in the "BCC:" line
Follow the laws and use good Netiquette...
Good Netiquette
Everyone's time is valuable. One person's "cause" or "concern" may mean nothing to the next. People who have no interest in your message may consider it spam, become upset and complain. With this in mind, the basic rule is, Do not send a message to anyone unless you absolutely know that he/she wants to receive it.
Do not send large attachments.
Do not send lengthy content when you can send links to information online.
DO NOT USE ALL CAPs
Do Not use all BOLD Don't use many colors and fonts either. Make sure your message is not hard sell, or the recipients' spam filters will probably eat it.
Test your own OPT-OUT system. Make sure you have a policy and procedure in place and that everyone understands how important it is to adhere to it.
Ideally, your message should consist only of properly formatted text. If HTML is required, it should not simply be pasted in from a web page, but should be prepared specifically for the purpose. Also, if HTML is used, there should also be an equivalent text section with the same message as text only.
Professional list management practices:
Email should be addressed specifically to the addressee and no one else. Your email database should contain the name of the addressee as well as the email address itself, so a mailing system can easily personalize the message in the body of the email.
Best Practice:
Provide an automated unsubscribe link that puts people directly into the "remove" database. Keep records of where an address came from and records of addresses that have asked to be removed.
Professional preparation: Targeted email should be composed and formatted at least as carefully as any other marketing material that a company would produce.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Finding Someone's Email Address
Understanding Email Addresses
To be able to start looking for someone's address, you need to understand how email addresses are composed. In general, email addresses have two parts: your email name (also called user name or email ID) and your email domain, separated by an @: emailName@emailDomain.
Domains are unique identifiers for the organization that manages the email accounts. They are covered more extensively in Domain Names. Some examples are
* whitehouse.gov - the United States White House
* ibm.com - International Business Machines, Incorporated
* aol.com - America On-Line internet access provider
* arc.nasa.gov - the Ames Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Association
My email address is ducky@webfoot.com. My email ID is ducky and webfoot.com is my domain.
The @ symbol is pronounced "at" and all periods are pronounced "dot". Thus my email address is pronounced "ducky at webfoot dot com".
Email domain are explicitly and always case insensitive. The address ducky@webfoot.com is exactly equivalent to ducky@WebFOOT.com.
The email specifications clearly state that email IDs are allowed to be case sensitive. (Thanks to Phil Smith III for correcting me on this!) However, in practice email IDs are case insensitive also. I've never seen an Internet Service Provider of any sort that distinguished between upper- and lower-case letters in the email ID.
Finding Email Addresses
Many people are disappointed that there is not a master list of all the email addresses in the world. There isn't one for much the same reason that there isn't a book that has the work telephone number for every person in the world. To make such a master email directory complete, every organization that provides email service for its members would have to submit all additions or removals to a master list. Not only would this be a headache for every email service, but some international body would have to be created to administer it.
Who would pay for maintaining the master list? Who would make sure that the master list wasn't abused? Many people would feel that such a list would be an inappropriate use of private information. They would go whatever lengths that they could to keep their email address out of the database. Therefore, you will have to resort to one of the following methods to find your correspondent's address.
Use Previous Messages
If you have email from a correspondent, finding his or her address is trivial. There should be a line somewhere that starts with From: and has an email address after it. All of the following are legal From: lines for a woman named Mabel Garcia who has the email address mabel@flossresearch.com:
From: Mabel Garcia
From: "Mabel Garcia"
From: mabel@flossresearch.com
From: mabel@flossresearch.com (Mabel Garcia)
If there are angle brackets (<>), ignore them. They frame the email address but are not part of it. Anything in parentheses (( )) is purely advisory, not part of the email address. The From: line may also have a "real name."
Ask Them
The next best way to find people's email addresses is to ask them. If they refuse to tell you, you shouldn't send them email. That could be considered stalking, which is illegal in some places. If you can't ask them for some reason, there are some other things you can try.
Directories
There are some directories of email addresses, but they are limited. They find email addresses in a number of ways, but most of them watch Usenet newsgroups and by snooping around Web pages. (Individuals can also volunteer their email addresses to the directories if they want to be found.) If your correspondent posts to newsgroups or has a web page, these directories will probably find him or her.
Here are some Web directories that you can use to look for an address:
* Yahoo's People Finder
* Mesa - MetaEmailSearchAgent
* Switchboard
* WhoWhere?
You can also try the Search Aids section of Yahoo.
You might also be able to find them with two kinds of online phonebooks called Ph and LDAP. Ph and LDAP are tools commonly used by large organizations to keep their internal phonebooks on-line. (Ph was around before the Web; LDAP is more recent. Both can be accessed through the Web.) Universities particularly like using Ph or LDAP, since they have large, changing, and publicly-available phonebooks. The eMailman site has lists of the public Ph and LDAP and directories.
Search the Web
Another way to look for someone's email address is to search for their name on the Web. For example, if you are looking for your aunt Mabel Garcia, you could search the Web for "Mabel Garcia". The pages that have her name on it might have an email address for her. Or, they might tell you what organization she is affiliated with, which will help in guessing her address. Be careful, however. It might be a different person with the same name.
Here are a few search engines that you can try:
* Google
* Yahoo
* Metacrawler
When you search for the name, you should probably put it in quotes, e.g. "Mabel Garcia". On some search engines, if you don't put the name in quotes, you might find pages that have the first name and the last name but not the two together. If I were looking for Mabel Garcia, I might find a page that has Mabel Friedenhopper and Robert Garcia on it.
If you can't find the person, try variants of the name. For example, if you can't find "Robert Garcia", try "Bob Garcia", "Bobby Garcia", "Rob Garcia", and "Robby Garcia".
Guessing Strategies
You can also try guessing at an email address. The worst that can happen is that you'll reach someone else who might get very confused (and/or not answer). Another possibility is that the mail will bounce, i.e. be returned to you. Neither outcome will be particularly painful for you, so guessing is worth trying. This section will show how to guess corporate and academic accounts.
Corporate Email Accounts
Many companies have their email receiving system set up so that if it doesn't recognize an email address, it hunts around until it finds an address that is close. If your correspondent is likely to get his or her email through work, first figure out what the domain name is by making a few guesses and searching for a Web page with that domain name. (For more information on understanding domain names, see Domain Names.)
Once you have a likely domain name, try sending a message to
firstname.lastname@domainname
and/or
firstname_lastname@domainname
For example, if Aunt Mabel works for (the imaginary) Floss Research Incorporated, try
mabel.garcia@flossresearch.com
This isn't likely to be her "true" email address, but may get forwarded to her.
Even if your message doesn't reach Aunt Mabel, you may get an automated response with more information. The response might tell you what Aunt Mabel's address is, or it might explain how to figure it out.
If that doesn't work, you could try guessing at her "true" email address. Many companies have a policy on how they assign addresses. Common addressing schemes are
* last (family) name
* first (given) name plus last initial
* first initial plus last name
* last name plus first initial
For example, Aunt Mabel's address is likely to be at one of the following:
* garcia@flossresearch.com
* mgarcia@flossresearch.com
* garciam@flossresearch.com
* mabelg@flossresearch.com
It is rare to have any characters other than letters and numbers in an email ID, although periods ( . ), underscores ( _ ), and hyphens ( - ) show up occasionally. It is extremely rare in English-speaking countries to have any other characters in the email ID.
The bigger and more high-tech a company is, the more likely that it will have implemented the firstname.lastname or firstname_lastname scheme for looking up email addresses. Bigger companies are more likely to require that all email addresses follow one of the above schemes. However, the bigger a company, the more likely that extra characters may be inserted in order to make the address unique. Suppose that when Aunt Mabel joined Thrombles Corp., there was already a Maureen Garcia whose email address was
mgarcia@flossresearch.com
Your aunt might then be given
mabgarcia@flossresearch.com
or
mgarcia2@flossresearch.com
or something similar.
Universities
If Aunt Mabel is a student, teacher, or staff member at a university, you may be in luck. Most universities have some sort of email directory. For example, see the University of Illinois' online phone book.
To find the phone book, find the university's web site and then hunt around a little bit. Usually, universities list their directories or phone books on their top page.
If you can't find their directory, you can guess at the email ID, using the same kinds of rules as above. For example, if Mabel is a professor at the (imaginary) University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, her address might be one of the following:
* garcia@usndh.edu
* mgarcia@usndh.edu
* garciam@usndh.edu
* mabelg@usndh.edu
Universities, since they serve so many people, are likely to run out of simple email IDs. Frequently, they use numbers to make the addresses unique. Your aunt's address could easily be
mabel72@usndh.edu
Nicknames
If your aunt has a very distinctive nickname that she uses all the time, try that. If, for example, your aunt has always been called "Marbles", try using that as her email ID. Aunt Mabel might have the address
marbles@flossresearch.com
or
marbles@usndh.edu
Ego-surfing Bait
If all else fails, you could try to get Aunt Mabel to come to you. Publish a Web page that has the title, "Desperately Seeking Mabel Garcia" and that says, "I'm looking for my aunt. Her name is Mabel Garcia. If you are she, or know where she is, please send me email." Then, if she ever goes ego-surfing -- looking for her own name on the Web -- she'll see your message.
This tactic may work, but are three potential problems to be aware of. The first is that you have no idea how long it will take her to look for her name. She might never go ego-surfing. Second, she might not respond. Maybe she just doesn't like you. Third, this will get your email address out on the Web, and you will probably start getting spam - unsolicited commercial email.
Summary
To find a friend's email address, you can
* Find your friend's address in a message that they sent you
* Ask your friend for their address
* Look in a directory
* Search the Web
* Guess
* Lay ego-surfing bait
To be able to start looking for someone's address, you need to understand how email addresses are composed. In general, email addresses have two parts: your email name (also called user name or email ID) and your email domain, separated by an @: emailName@emailDomain.
Domains are unique identifiers for the organization that manages the email accounts. They are covered more extensively in Domain Names. Some examples are
* whitehouse.gov - the United States White House
* ibm.com - International Business Machines, Incorporated
* aol.com - America On-Line internet access provider
* arc.nasa.gov - the Ames Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Association
My email address is ducky@webfoot.com. My email ID is ducky and webfoot.com is my domain.
The @ symbol is pronounced "at" and all periods are pronounced "dot". Thus my email address is pronounced "ducky at webfoot dot com".
Email domain are explicitly and always case insensitive. The address ducky@webfoot.com is exactly equivalent to ducky@WebFOOT.com.
The email specifications clearly state that email IDs are allowed to be case sensitive. (Thanks to Phil Smith III for correcting me on this!) However, in practice email IDs are case insensitive also. I've never seen an Internet Service Provider of any sort that distinguished between upper- and lower-case letters in the email ID.
Finding Email Addresses
Many people are disappointed that there is not a master list of all the email addresses in the world. There isn't one for much the same reason that there isn't a book that has the work telephone number for every person in the world. To make such a master email directory complete, every organization that provides email service for its members would have to submit all additions or removals to a master list. Not only would this be a headache for every email service, but some international body would have to be created to administer it.
Who would pay for maintaining the master list? Who would make sure that the master list wasn't abused? Many people would feel that such a list would be an inappropriate use of private information. They would go whatever lengths that they could to keep their email address out of the database. Therefore, you will have to resort to one of the following methods to find your correspondent's address.
Use Previous Messages
If you have email from a correspondent, finding his or her address is trivial. There should be a line somewhere that starts with From: and has an email address after it. All of the following are legal From: lines for a woman named Mabel Garcia who has the email address mabel@flossresearch.com:
From: Mabel Garcia
From: "Mabel Garcia"
From: mabel@flossresearch.com
From: mabel@flossresearch.com (Mabel Garcia)
If there are angle brackets (<>), ignore them. They frame the email address but are not part of it. Anything in parentheses (( )) is purely advisory, not part of the email address. The From: line may also have a "real name."
Ask Them
The next best way to find people's email addresses is to ask them. If they refuse to tell you, you shouldn't send them email. That could be considered stalking, which is illegal in some places. If you can't ask them for some reason, there are some other things you can try.
Directories
There are some directories of email addresses, but they are limited. They find email addresses in a number of ways, but most of them watch Usenet newsgroups and by snooping around Web pages. (Individuals can also volunteer their email addresses to the directories if they want to be found.) If your correspondent posts to newsgroups or has a web page, these directories will probably find him or her.
Here are some Web directories that you can use to look for an address:
* Yahoo's People Finder
* Mesa - MetaEmailSearchAgent
* Switchboard
* WhoWhere?
You can also try the Search Aids section of Yahoo.
You might also be able to find them with two kinds of online phonebooks called Ph and LDAP. Ph and LDAP are tools commonly used by large organizations to keep their internal phonebooks on-line. (Ph was around before the Web; LDAP is more recent. Both can be accessed through the Web.) Universities particularly like using Ph or LDAP, since they have large, changing, and publicly-available phonebooks. The eMailman site has lists of the public Ph and LDAP and directories.
Search the Web
Another way to look for someone's email address is to search for their name on the Web. For example, if you are looking for your aunt Mabel Garcia, you could search the Web for "Mabel Garcia". The pages that have her name on it might have an email address for her. Or, they might tell you what organization she is affiliated with, which will help in guessing her address. Be careful, however. It might be a different person with the same name.
Here are a few search engines that you can try:
* Yahoo
* Metacrawler
When you search for the name, you should probably put it in quotes, e.g. "Mabel Garcia". On some search engines, if you don't put the name in quotes, you might find pages that have the first name and the last name but not the two together. If I were looking for Mabel Garcia, I might find a page that has Mabel Friedenhopper and Robert Garcia on it.
If you can't find the person, try variants of the name. For example, if you can't find "Robert Garcia", try "Bob Garcia", "Bobby Garcia", "Rob Garcia", and "Robby Garcia".
Guessing Strategies
You can also try guessing at an email address. The worst that can happen is that you'll reach someone else who might get very confused (and/or not answer). Another possibility is that the mail will bounce, i.e. be returned to you. Neither outcome will be particularly painful for you, so guessing is worth trying. This section will show how to guess corporate and academic accounts.
Corporate Email Accounts
Many companies have their email receiving system set up so that if it doesn't recognize an email address, it hunts around until it finds an address that is close. If your correspondent is likely to get his or her email through work, first figure out what the domain name is by making a few guesses and searching for a Web page with that domain name. (For more information on understanding domain names, see Domain Names.)
Once you have a likely domain name, try sending a message to
firstname.lastname@domainname
and/or
firstname_lastname@domainname
For example, if Aunt Mabel works for (the imaginary) Floss Research Incorporated, try
mabel.garcia@flossresearch.com
This isn't likely to be her "true" email address, but may get forwarded to her.
Even if your message doesn't reach Aunt Mabel, you may get an automated response with more information. The response might tell you what Aunt Mabel's address is, or it might explain how to figure it out.
If that doesn't work, you could try guessing at her "true" email address. Many companies have a policy on how they assign addresses. Common addressing schemes are
* last (family) name
* first (given) name plus last initial
* first initial plus last name
* last name plus first initial
For example, Aunt Mabel's address is likely to be at one of the following:
* garcia@flossresearch.com
* mgarcia@flossresearch.com
* garciam@flossresearch.com
* mabelg@flossresearch.com
It is rare to have any characters other than letters and numbers in an email ID, although periods ( . ), underscores ( _ ), and hyphens ( - ) show up occasionally. It is extremely rare in English-speaking countries to have any other characters in the email ID.
The bigger and more high-tech a company is, the more likely that it will have implemented the firstname.lastname or firstname_lastname scheme for looking up email addresses. Bigger companies are more likely to require that all email addresses follow one of the above schemes. However, the bigger a company, the more likely that extra characters may be inserted in order to make the address unique. Suppose that when Aunt Mabel joined Thrombles Corp., there was already a Maureen Garcia whose email address was
mgarcia@flossresearch.com
Your aunt might then be given
mabgarcia@flossresearch.com
or
mgarcia2@flossresearch.com
or something similar.
Universities
If Aunt Mabel is a student, teacher, or staff member at a university, you may be in luck. Most universities have some sort of email directory. For example, see the University of Illinois' online phone book.
To find the phone book, find the university's web site and then hunt around a little bit. Usually, universities list their directories or phone books on their top page.
If you can't find their directory, you can guess at the email ID, using the same kinds of rules as above. For example, if Mabel is a professor at the (imaginary) University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, her address might be one of the following:
* garcia@usndh.edu
* mgarcia@usndh.edu
* garciam@usndh.edu
* mabelg@usndh.edu
Universities, since they serve so many people, are likely to run out of simple email IDs. Frequently, they use numbers to make the addresses unique. Your aunt's address could easily be
mabel72@usndh.edu
Nicknames
If your aunt has a very distinctive nickname that she uses all the time, try that. If, for example, your aunt has always been called "Marbles", try using that as her email ID. Aunt Mabel might have the address
marbles@flossresearch.com
or
marbles@usndh.edu
Ego-surfing Bait
If all else fails, you could try to get Aunt Mabel to come to you. Publish a Web page that has the title, "Desperately Seeking Mabel Garcia" and that says, "I'm looking for my aunt. Her name is Mabel Garcia. If you are she, or know where she is, please send me email." Then, if she ever goes ego-surfing -- looking for her own name on the Web -- she'll see your message.
This tactic may work, but are three potential problems to be aware of. The first is that you have no idea how long it will take her to look for her name. She might never go ego-surfing. Second, she might not respond. Maybe she just doesn't like you. Third, this will get your email address out on the Web, and you will probably start getting spam - unsolicited commercial email.
Summary
To find a friend's email address, you can
* Find your friend's address in a message that they sent you
* Ask your friend for their address
* Look in a directory
* Search the Web
* Guess
* Lay ego-surfing bait
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