The sender and all recipients must have their own email accounts which provide them an email "address". Such an address usually consists of an email identity such as, sarahj followed by a network location, @yahoo.com. Thus Sarah Jane's email address could be sarahj@yahoo.com. Email is not case sensitive so it does not require capital letters. Some people like to have their email address on their business cards and will add capitol letters to make it look nicer.
There are several companies that still offer free email accounts; Yahoo, MSN, Excite, Juno, Lycos and M@il, are examples. The library does not recommend any one over another, but for the purposes of this class and time constraints we are providing specific instruction on only one of them, one that the instructor has had at least some personal experience with. You are not obligated to keep the email account you signed up for, if not used for more than 4 months it becomes inactive, after 8 months Yahoo will remove it.
Once you enter the address hit the enter key. You should see these images:
You should now see the sign-up page which asks you a mixture of questions (see example below), such as the email address you hope to get, the password you hope to use (a minimum of 2 characters but 6-8 is safer), your name, gender, etc. You must fill out all the required fields (they have the asterisks *)
NOTE: You MUST give an age greater then 18 years. Otherwise Yahoo will ask for an adult to co-sign and provide a credit card (which they assume that children will not easily acquire).
The most difficult part of this process is figuring out a unique ID (email address) that has not already been used. Remember that there are millions of people with email accounts, the obvious choices are already taken. Your name is probably no longer available, simple words may be taken as well so you will need to create something unique. The easiest method is to add numbers to your name or favorite word. Adding your zip code or some other number that has significance would be easier to remember. Ex. Yarn97459.
NOTE: Your password cannot be the same as your ID. Your password can include both upper or lower case, but you MUST remember to type it the same each time.
TIP: You cannot use spaces in an email address. You can use the underscore character "_" but it is hard to see and could confuse recipients of your email.
In the login box, type in the user name and password you set up earlier. Remember that passwords are case sensitive.
You should now be in your Yahoo! email account.
button.
, then type in the To box the following email address: coosbayteach@yahoo.com
Press the Send button. You should then see a message like this: 
You now may either click on the Check Mail button to return to your inbox or you have the option of Add to Address Book. Selecting the later will add the the receipient to your address book, called "contacts" by Yahoo.
You are doing great! Now click on the blue and underlined text "Test email to teacher PC#5"
You are now reading your first email. Notice that you have a number of options: you can delete the message, reply to it, forward it to someone else, or even tell Yahoo that it is spam. You can also organize your emails by moving them into subject folders. Some folders are standard in Yahoo! (and most other email services); Inbox, Sent, Draft, and Trash (where your deleted emails go, which gives you a chance to change your mind). If these don't meet your needs you have the option of adding more.
Notice how your previous message is still there with space for you to type at the top. This way if your recipient forgets what was said they can scroll down the screen to read the prior messages.
Click on the first Browse button.
In the next window click on the arrow next to the text box, 
douple click on "My Computer", then in the drop down box find the A: drive and click on it. When you do that you should see a file called loon1.jpg. Click on that file, and then click on the Open button. 
You should now see: 
Click on the Attach Files button. You should then see a message saying that "The following file has been attached." Click on the Continue Message button. To tell whether it has worked for you look to see if the loon1.jpg file now shows up on your email like this example:
Go ahead and click the Send button. 
Notice that your email shows an attachment as a yellow paper clip. It also indicates that the email is 15k in size. Because of the attached picture this message is much larger than your other emails.
NOTE: Some email systems will not accept messages over a certain size limit. Keep this in mind if you need to send especially large pictures or documents, or if you plan to attach several to one email message.
Go ahead and click on your message. In Yahoo! the picture is usually visible if you scroll down the message (i.e. it usually appears at the end of the email if it is an image). You have the option of using the Scan and Download Attachment link to download the image. You can also "right click" the image to gain a drop down menu such as the option of saving the picture, copying it to paste into a new message, or printing it.
If using Yahoo! at home you can save attachments to your computer or to a floppy disk. At the library you are blocked from saving to the PC's hard drive and can only download to a floppy. We will practice doing this if there is time.
To print your attached images the Print Target option from the same drop down list will work.
Be sure and return the disk loaned to you for this exercise!
Congratulations, you now know how to do email. There are of course additional features such as having an address book, using the calendar, or even keeping notes to yourself online.
TIP - watch how much space you have left in your account. If you have too little you will not receive any new emails nor will you be able to send any. Some email accounts will delete old messages to make room.
For homework go through the Yahoo! tour, it is an excellent review and will show some advanced features we did not cover in this class.
If you have further questions after this class be sure and check Yahoo's Help section.