This hour introduces you to the world of electronic mail and faxes using Windows 95. This hour explains how to expand the use of Windows 95 to manage electronic mail and faxes. Of course, you will need to have a fax and modem combination to take advantage of this technology. Most modems sold in the last five years have fax send and receive capabilities.
This hour teaches you how Windows 95 improves upon the standard electronic
mail and electronic faxing that you might already be doing. The Windows 95 application
named Microsoft Messaging (Microsoft Messaging is called Microsoft Exchange
in some versions of Windows 95) contains a universal Inbox that acts as a
repository of electronic mail you can send and receive. To Windows 95, electronic
mail can be more than simple messages and
files. Microsoft Messaging supports the management and exchange of all kinds of electronic
mail, including faxes and files, and it provides support for virtually any online
service you might use.
In conjunction with Microsoft Messaging, you might want to use the Windows 95 Microsoft Fax application to send and receive faxes. Microsoft Fax uses Microsoft Messaging's universal Inbox for storing sent and received faxes. Therefore, you'll be able to track all your sent and received messages, including faxes and e-mail.
The highlights of this hour include:
It is common for computer users to access more than one online service. Perhaps you work on the Internet as well as on CompuServe. Each morning you might log on to the Internet to get incoming messages and send your outgoing Internet messages. Once finished, you might log on to CompuServe to send and receive those messages. The burden of managing that electronic mail grows as more people sign up for more online services.
JUST A MINUTE: Are we living in a paperless society, as promised by the Management Information System gurus of the early 1970s? Not a chance. Computers help us use more paper and at a faster rate than ever before. It's often said in the computer industry that, despite the prevalence of electronic mail, we'll have paperless bathrooms before we'll have a paperless society!
Wouldn't it be nice to tell your computer to send and receive all your electronic mail without any intervention on your part? The computer could store all received mail in a central location; you could then manage, sort, print, respond to, or delete from there. Windows 95 has the answer: Microsoft Messaging.
Microsoft Messaging is a Windows 95 program that features a central repository, called a universal Inbox, where you store, receive, and send all electronic mail from virtually any source. Once you collect your electronic mail in the universal Inbox, you can sort and filter the mail any way you like.
TIME SAVER: As soon as Windows 95 recognizes that you have messages in the universal Inbox, an envelope icon appears next to the taskbar clock to alert you that you have new mail.
Windows Minute
Using Microsoft Messaging
The Microsoft Messaging program uses a document file format named rich-text format
(RTF). You can send an RTF document over a phone line, and different programs
might exchange those files.
Unlike straight text files, RTF files can be formatted with special characters and properties. You do not have to know how to convert your document files to the RTF format, because Windows 95 does the conversion automatically, as needed.
JUST A MINUTE: This hour discusses both Microsoft Messaging and Microsoft Fax. The distinction between these two programs becomes cloudy at times because they work so closely together. When you send and receive faxes, you use Microsoft Fax for the transmission. Those faxes are stored in Microsoft Messaging's universal Inbox before you send them and after you receive them. If you use a third-party program such as WinFax Pro, your program probably integrates with the Microsoft Messaging Inbox as well, so you'll still be able to track sent and received faxes.
Along with Microsoft Messaging, you get a Personal Address Book that can contain all of the following:
If developers of Windows 95 applications choose to do so, and hopefully they will, they can write their applications to access Windows 95's Personal Address Book instead of building one of their own. Therefore, if you want to use someone else's fax software instead of Microsoft Fax, the other fax software can read your Personal Address Book so that you don't have to keep two sets of address books up to date.
JUST A MINUTE: Due to the wide variety of e-mail services that different readers of this book will use, it's impossible to list tasks that make sense for everybody. Therefore, these tasks acquaint you with the different things you can do with Microsoft Messaging and then, from Microsoft Messaging, you can explore Microsoft Messaging with your own specific needs in mind.
One of the problems associated with a book of this kind is that the book can demonstrate the services provided by Microsoft only for the Windows 95 product. If you want to add services not supplied by Microsoft, such as America Online or CompuServe, you must obtain Microsoft Messaging profile disks from those services so that Microsoft Messaging can exchange electronic information with the service. As long as you get the profile disks from your online service, Microsoft Messaging can read that profile disk and work with that service.
In addition, you'll hear a lot about Microsoft's new product named Microsoft Outlook,
which comes with Office 97. Outlook somewhat replaces the Windows 95 Messaging Inbox
by giving you additional address book fields and keeping track of your message logs.
Outlook's name and address phone book (called the Contacts database) is more complete
than Windows 95 Messaging's address book and integrates well with Microsoft Word.
This book will not discuss Outlook, because Outlook is not included with Windows
95, but you should check out Outlook's features if you often send and receive electronic
mail and faxes from your computer. You might like the extra features Outlook provides
for a central messaging center.
Task 23.1: Getting Started with Microsoft Messaging
Step 1: Description
Microsoft Messaging is a service that provides a central mailbox for all your electronic
correspondence. When you first installed Windows 95 with Microsoft Messaging, Microsoft
put a message or two in your mailbox; assuming that you or someone else hasn't erased
these initial messages, this task shows you how to start Microsoft Messaging and
read from your universal Inbox.
Step 2: Action
Figure 23.1.
The universal Inbox, with messages waiting for you.
JUST A MINUTE: Your incoming messages might be different from those described here, depending on the date of your Windows 95 release.
TIME SAVER: The Inbox is usually available as an icon from your Windows 95 desktop. Therefore, you can bypass the Start menu if you want to start the Inbox program from the desktop screen.
Windows Minute
Handling RTF Documents
The RTF documents used by Microsoft Messaging are flexible enough to contain virtually
any kind of data or hotlink to an embedded OLE object. If you send an RTF file to
another Windows 95 user as e-mail, that user receives the file as an RTF document.
If, however, you send the RTF file to a user who does not run Windows 95 and who
uses a text-based service, such as a textual Internet provider, Microsoft Messaging
transforms your mail into text and attaches embedded objects as external files
that the user will download along with the text file.
You can drag any or all of the messages you receive to any other Microsoft Messaging folder or to any drive or folder on your computer. Once you drag the file to a location not inside Microsoft Messaging, Windows 95 stores the file with a .MSG filename extension. Windows 95 uses the extension to tell itself how to read the file if you double-click the file's icon to open the file or use a Quick Viewer to look at the message file from Explorer. All the sender and recipient information stays with the message file even after the file leaves Microsoft Messaging so that you'll always know who sent messages to you.
TIME SAVER: To delete items permanently from the Deleted folder, open the folder by double-clicking the folder's icon. Click over the message you want to delete or use Ctrl+click to select multiple messages. Once you select the message or messages you want to delete, right-click the mouse button and choose Delete to delete the messages.
Step 3: Review
This task got you started using Microsoft Messaging. The next task explains how to
work with the Personal Address Book so you can begin to add your business associates
and friends to the address database.
Task 23.2: Maintaining the Personal Address Book
Step 1: Description
You access the Personal Address Book through the Microsoft Messaging window. Although
other programs might use the Personal Address Book, the Microsoft Messaging is where
you'll manage and update the Personal Address Book to keep the information current.
Step 2: Action
Figure 23.2.
The Personal Address Book holds many kinds of details.
CAUTION: Don't add anything to the entries beneath the group labeled Microsoft Network. Only after signing up for the Microsoft Network can you work with the Microsoft Network group. You might see additional entries if you use WinFax Pro, Outlook, or other messaging service programs.
TIME SAVER: Suppose you aren't sure of the recipient's address information. Call the recipient by entering any phone number you know for the recipient, and press the Dial command button next to that number. Windows 95 dials the number and displays the message box shown in Figure 23.3. When the recipient answers, click Talk or, if there is no answer, click Hang Up.
Figure 23.3.
Let the Windows 95 fingers do the walking!
Figure 23.4. Your computer is also your phone.
Figure 23.5.
The information is now complete.
Step 3: Review
The Personal Address Book is an integral part of Microsoft Messaging. Not only does
the Personal Address Book support Microsoft Messaging but also the Phone Dialer and
all other communications applications on your system that read the Personal Address
Book. Over time, the information you store in the Personal Address Book will be very
valuable, because you'll use that information for so many things.
TIME SAVER: If you use Microsoft Word's mail merge capabilities, you can access the Personal Address Book from within Word. You then don't have to keep a separate address book for each program.
Task 23.3: Creating New Messages To Send to Others
Step 1: Description
This task shows you how to create your own mail to send to others over the Microsoft
Network or using your own online service. You won't actually send the message in
this task, because you may use one of several online services, and Windows 95 does
not come with the other online services' profiles. Therefore, you'll have to wait
until you sign up for the Microsoft Network or get your online service's Microsoft
Messaging profile disk before you can send the mail you create here.
Step 2: Action
Figure 23.6.
Here's where you create new mail to send.
Step 3: Review
This task briefly explored how to send e-mail. Once sent, your messages remain in
the Sent Items folder. You can move the messages to the Deleted Items folder or to
the Outbox to send them again.
Microsoft Fax is capable of turning your computer into a fax command center as long as you have a combined fax and modem. When you install your fax/modem, you'll be able to select that fax/modem instead of a printer from within your favorite Windows 95 word processor. You can also fax directly from Microsoft Messaging by running the fax wizard contained in Microsoft Messaging.
If you send a document fax to another user who happens to have Windows 95 answering his fax modem, Microsoft Fax actually sends the document itself so that the receiver gets the fax not as a fax but as a document inside the universal Inbox. If the recipient has a standard fax machine or a computer fax not using Windows 95, the recipient gets a standard fax transmission.
TIME SAVER: As soon as you start Microsoft Messaging, Windows 95 turns on the faxing support in the background. A fax machine will appear next to your taskbar's clock. You can click the fax machine icon to see the fax options that are currently set.
Task 23.4: Faxing Easily
Step 1: Description
Much of the time, sending a fax means using your word processor to type what you
want to send and then printing to the fax/modem connected to your computer. If the
document's already saved to the disk and you're using Microsoft Messaging, you can
fax directly from within Microsoft Messaging to any recipient in the Personal Address
Book.
Step 2: Action
Figure 23.7.
Microsoft Fax is getting ready to send your fax.
TIME SAVER: If you want to send a fax from Microsoft Messaging, select Compose New Fax from the Microsoft Messaging menu. There is also a Microsoft Fax menu on the Accessories menu, from which you can design your own cover pages, compose a new fax without first working in a word processor or Microsoft Messaging, and control the way you receive faxes from fax-retrieval services.
Step 3: Review
Microsoft Fax makes faxing almost as easy as printing a document on a printer. Fax
all your documents and graphic files from Windows 95. If the recipient is also using
Windows 95, the recipient will receive the file in the file's native format.
JUST A MINUTE: There are options within the Microsoft Fax program that you can set to send a fax as a standard fax instead of as an RTF document, even if Windows 95 answers the recipient's phone.
Task 23.5: Receiving Faxes
Step 1: Description
Unless you are already set up to receive faxes, Windows 95 does not make the receive
fax designation obvious. If you don't see a fax machine icon to the left of your
taskbar's clock, you cannot receive faxes. To set up your computer to receive faxes,
follow this task. Step 2: Action
Figure 23.8.
Setting up the modem to receive faxes.
Step 3: Review
If you don't see a fax machine icon on your Windows 95 taskbar, you will see the
icon after you complete this task. The Microsoft Fax program both sends and recieves
faxes but must load Microsoft Fax first.
TIME SAVER: If you've turned off the receipt of faxes, you can still receive a fax that you know is incoming on the line by selecting Request a Fax from the Fax menu on the Accessories Start menu.
JUST A MINUTE: You might want to change the redial properties on the Microsoft Fax properties sheet's Dialing page. The redialing properties determine how many retries to attempt when a faxed number is busy or does not answer and specifies the time to wait between retries.
If you have call waiting, you'll need to disable the feature before using your
modem for fax or data transmissions. Fortunately, you can disable call waiting very
easily. Open the Modems dialog box from the Control Panel and click the Dialing
Properties button to see the dialog box shown in Figure 23.9. Click the option labeled
This location has call waiting, and then enter the code to disable your call
waiting feature; this code is usually #70. When you close the Dialing Properties
dialog box, Windows 95 will disable call waiting before each call.
Figure 23.9. You can
disable call waiting.
CAUTION: #70 usually, but not always, disables the call waiting feature. Check with your local phone company to make sure that you enter the correct code. Often you'll find the call waiting disabling dialing sequence in the front of your phone book.
This hour explained how to use Microsoft Messaging to work as the central messaging
center for your computer. As you add online services to Microsoft Messaging's profile
settings, you'll be able to let Microsoft Messaging send and receive all your e-mail
messages instead of
having to log on to every service and do the job yourself.
Microsoft Messaging integrates itself with the Phone Dialer application, as well as with Microsoft Fax and the Personal Address Book. This enables you to have one command center for all your communications.
Microsoft Fax integrates your fax/modem to work with all Windows 95 applications that print. Instead of going to the printer, the fax documents will route through Microsoft Fax so that you can send the document to a recipient within the Personal Address Book or to a new recipient whose fax number you enter. One of the most interesting features of Microsoft Fax is the recipient analysis that Microsoft Fax makes. If the recipient is running Windows 95, the recipient receives your fax as a normal Windows 95 document file instead of as a fax. That way the recipient has more flexibility in working with the file than if he or she received the document as a paper fax.
attach Add a binary file to an e-mail message so the receiving user can receive the binary file or load the file using tools available to the receiving user.
carbon copy A secondary recipient that gets a copy of someone's e-mail message.
e-mail Message files sent electronically to others, who receive the messages via a modem. E-mail stands for electronic mail.
header A one-line message that describes the sender information for electronic messages.
Microsoft Messaging The application that uses a universal Inbox to log on to all your electronic mail sources and to send and receive any waiting mail.
Microsoft Fax A program that uses your fax modem to send and receive faxes, as well as to create cover pages and provide for viewing of received faxes.
paperless society The lofty and incorrect prediction from the early 1970s that said electronic mail and files would replace most of the paper used in the workplace and homes.
Personal Address Book A central address book that holds people's names, phone numbers, addresses, fax numbers, e-mail numbers, and notes.
profile A file that describes a specific online service to Microsoft Messaging. Once Microsoft Messaging reads an online service's profile, Microsoft Messaging can manage that service's information, using the Windows 95 universal Inbox.
redial properties Determines how many retries and the time between retries Microsoft Fax attempts when a called fax number is busy or does not answer.
Rich-Text Format (RTF) A file format that enables different applications
to exchange formatted documents.
universal Inbox A central repository of electronic mail where you can send,
receive, and manage all your electronic mail and faxes.
