E-Mail Web Sites

FPEN Internet Training
http://fpen.org/train

E-Mail: Web Sites
Revised: December 13^th, 2000

General

E-mail Training: FPEN.Org's Training Materials: Handouts from the Internet Courses for Physicians on electronic Mail. Includes materials for both the beginner and intermediate user. http://fpen.org/train/email/
Everything E-Mail: Contains information for both the beginning and advanced user. E-mail programs, etiquette, discussion lists, and managing lists are among the topics. http://everythingemail.net/
e-mail - PC Webopaedia Definition and Links: Another great starting point for learning about e-mail. Also a good site to return to find out definitions of strange terms and links to other sites with useful resources. http://www.pcwebopedia.com/e_mail.htm

Getting Started

A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email: Very thorough. Worth reviewing to learn better habits and some very useful hints for using e-mail. Since it was first written in 1994, contains some of the more traditional practices when communicating by electronic mail. http://www.webfoot.com/advice/email.top.html
Take Control of your E-Mail: Overview: Article from PC Magazine Online which gives s good general overview of e-mail. Good place to start. http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/e-mail/mail1.html
BMJ Guide: Electronic Mail: An older article but quite a good introduction. Does not touch on the newer features in e-mail. http://www.bmj.com/archive/7018ed.htm
E-Mail Tips - Everything E-Mail: Another place for tips about using e-mail. Covers signature files, discussion groups, etiquette and software. http://everythingemail.net/email_help_tips.html
Finding An E-Mail Address - Everything E-Mail: Lists several sites for finding e-mail addresses of others along with instructions. http://everythingemail.net/email_address.html
WebTeacher: Site sponsored by the cable television industry and TECH CORPS. Automatically presents the correct tutorials based on the computer and browser you are using. Really Cool! Gives you a step by step for using attachments. http://www.webteacher.org

Reviews

The Client Side of E-Mail: Article from PC Magazine Online which compares 15 e-mail packages for use on the Windows PC. Rather thorough though somewhat dated. http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/e-mail/client.html

Packages

WinFiles.com Mail Tools for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT: Lots of e-mail tools for the Windows 95/98 and Windows NT operating systems. Mail Clients lists about 60 e-mail packages and indicates whether they are free, shareware or commercial. Provides links to download or purchase software. http://www.winfiles.com/apps/98/mail.html and http://www.winfiles.com/apps/nt/mail.html
Yahoo! E-Mail Software: Links for all types of e-mail packages. Valuable. http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Software/Internet/Email/
Everything E-Mail - E-Mail Software: An extensive list of e-mail software and resource sites. At the time of this writing, several of the links on her site were broken. Includes a pointer to free e-mail to pager software. http://everythingemail.net/email_software.html
Pegasus Mail by David Harris: Official Homepage. Product works on a PC. Rather robust. http://www.pegasus.usa.com/
Eudora: Qualcomm's Software for the Mac, PC, Newton and PalmPilot. Freeware version is excellent. Commercial version has additional features including more advanced filtering. http://www.eudora.com/

Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)

Quick Study: IMAP: A good introduction to the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) and how it compares to the more widely accepted Post office Protocol (POP). Useful information for anyone who has to access their e-mail from multiple computer systems. Not very widely used because the protocol was slow to evolve and because it uses more server and network resources than POP mail. Also has pointers to useful links. http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO34199,00.html
The IMAP Connection: Everything you wanted to know about IMAP and then some. Has a searchable database of all types of IMAP software for any platform from Amiga to WinCE. http://www.imap.org

Free and Web Based E-mail

Free Email Providers Guide: Extensive listing of providers of free e-mail. Very handy comparison chart available. Definitely worth a look if you are interested in establishing another e-mail account for yourself with different features than the one you already have. Also good for those who have net access but no personal e-mail account. http://fepg.net/providers.html
HotMail: Free e-mail account with a web browser interface. Very convenient for sending and receiving mail while you are away on a trip from any web browser in the world attached to the Internet. Additionally you can configure your HotMail account to retrieve e-mail from other pop-mail accounts so that you can read and delete them from HotMail. http://www.hotmail.com

Encryption

E-mail Encryption, C|net: CNET article (February 1998) on how to use PGP to encrypt messages and add digital signatures. http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Encryption/index.html
E-Mail Encryption, PC Magazine: From last year but a good introduction to e-mail encryption. http://search.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/utility/encrypt/_open.htm
MIT Distribution site for PGP: The first of the encryption packages that was mired in court for a long time. This version of PGP is free for non-commercial use available for Windows 95/98/NT, MacOS, Solaris and Linux. Site also has links to other sites which give more information about PGP. http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html
Public-Key Encryption for Dummies: Good short description of the public key encryption process from NetworkWorld. http://www.nwfusion.com/news/tech/0517tech.html
Quick Study S/MIME: Secure Multipurpose Mail Extensions (S/MIME) is another encryption and authentication protocol. Article describes it and contains links to vendors. http://www.computerworld.com/home/features.nsf/All/980511qs

Clinical Use of E-Mail

Guidelines for Clinical E-Mail, AMIA White Paper: “Guidelines for the Clinical Use of Electronic Mail with Patients” Reprinted from the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. An excellent discussion. http://www.amia.org/pubs/other/email_guidelines.html
AMA Guidelines for Physician-Patient Communications: “AMA Guidelines for Physician-Patient Communications” More succinct than the AMIA guidelines above and more practical. A must-read for anyone considering it. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2386.html
Guidelines for the Use of Patient Centered E-mail: “Guidelines for the Use of Patient Centered E-mail” Goes into greater detail than the other two documents describing some of the risks and pitfalls of using the medium. Difficult to find on the Masachusetts Health Date web site, On the home page, select “Privacy Resource Center” from the navagation bar, enter the center, and you will then see a link for this resource. http://www.mahealthdata.org/

Discussion Lists

Discussion List Etiquette: This is the etiquette page created for the discussion lists at FPEN.Org. This is a document in evolution. You are welcome to check back over time as it evolves. http://fpen.org/lists/etiquette.html
PAML Search Form: A searchable listing of "Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists." Yielded fewer results than CataList. http://www.neosoft.com/cgi-bin/paml_search/
CataList, the official catalog of LISTSERV lists: Searchable listing of Listserv lists by key word or by host site. Also points to archives when they exist. http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html
Liszt: Health: An index of health related lists along with descriptions and instructions. Also sponsors commercial lists of unknown quality. http://www.liszt.com/select/Health/
OB-GYN-L Mailing List Archives: An excellent example of a mailing list that makes good use of e-mail, newsgroups and the Web. http://forums.obgyn.net/forums/ob-gyn-l/
Discussion Forums - Medical Matrix: Several peer-reviewed clinical discussion lists. MedMatrix Web site requires a username and password but it is free and used for tracking only. http://www.medmatrix.org/_SPages/Discussion_Forums.asp

List Moderation

The Moderator's HomePage: Good resource for those considering starting a mailing list. List moderation is an art and several veteran moderators have contributed to this site. http://www.emoderators.com/moderators.shtml

Mailing List Software

LISTSERV Home Page: The classic discussion list software and the most popular. As of 11/1/97 is serving over 71,000 lists to 22.000,000 subscribers. A free version is available for non-profit use. http://www.lsoft.com/listserv.stm
Majordomo Home Page: Written in perl. Runs on UNIX. Requires a continuous connection. Less robust filtering that Listproc or Listserv but is free and continuously improved. Performance drops as list size and number increase. http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/
ListProcessor Home Page: Commercial version continuously improved. Freeware version available but has not been improved in several years. Robust filtering. Difficult to learn but worth the effort. http://www.cren.net/listproc/index.html

Web Collaborative Software

Conferencing Software for the Web: Great listing of resources a web site owner can use to set up a text-based, asynchronous group discussions. Over 100 commercial and 45 free packages described with links to their websites. Software for Windows NT, Windows 95/98, UNIX, MacOS, OS/2 VMS and others available. Provides links to reviews and other resources . http://www.thinkofit.com/webconf/

Spam

Quick Study: Spam: An article which appeared in the April 5, 1999 ComputerWorld newspaper. Has an excellent definition as well as things to do about it. Includes links to several articles, organizations, books and resources to block it. http://www.computerworld.com/home/features.nsf/all/990405qs

Chat

Chat for Success: An article available only on-line which discusses some of the risks and benefits of using Internet Chat. Evaluates several options of setting up or joining different chat lines. http://www.pcworld.com/may98/chat

Paul Kleeberg, M.D.         O   o          paul@fpen.org
Allina Health System       -+---+-    Voice 612-775-1338
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