Tips from
the Techie
Timely
how-to advice for keeping your systems running
John AndersEn
Owner, John AndersEn & Co
LLC
Where's My
Email?
Sooner or later each of us will
experience the frustration of not receiving an email we were
expecting. Although this is actually a rarity, it helps
to understand how email finds its way from one person to
another. The process is actually very analogous to P.O.
boxes lining the walls at your local Post Office. When
you address an email, it typically uses the format
"<person>@<some company>". Then what
happens?
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| Email is like having your own P.O.
box |
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When your local email provider
receives an email you are sending to another party, it tries
to determine where the "<some company>" is. It
accomplishes this task by asking the local directory service
(called a "Domain Name Server") how to reach "<some
company>". When a proper Internet address is found,
the email is sent to that email service provider's computers
for temporary storage until the next time the "<person>"
checks for their email. Similarly, when you receive
email, your computer is working like a personal courier who
runs to the local Post Office to check your P.O. box for
mail.
So what happens
when part of this process breaks down? Email is rarely
lost. It often times is eventually returned to the
original sender with some type of cryptic message attempting
to explain the reason for non-delivery. Some problems
are addressing (i.e. typos or people moving to another email
address), others are delivery problems (i.e. Internet and
computer outages). The next time this happens to you,
think over this process to understand what problem may have
occurred in your case.
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