From bobrankin@MHV.NET Sun Aug 31 20:53:09 1997
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 01:27:29 -0400
From: Bob Rankin
Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: TOURBUS - 26 Aug 1997 - Fun With E-Mail
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\___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/
TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: Fun With E-Mail
In most Tourbus issues, we highlight an interesting web site, but
today I'm going to do something different. I've picked out ten
things you can do with e-mail that are fun, useful or educational.
All you have to do is send an e-mail message to the addresses shown
here to join the party - there's no need for a Web browser or any
other software. After composing your e-mail message as instructed,
send it off and you should get the goodies delivered to your inbox
in a jiffy!
But before we get to the e-mail goodies, I have a correction to make.
Several astute readers pointed out that the address for the free
animated birthday cards was incorrect. Indeed, it should be this:
http://www.mediasyn.com/bday.htm
1. REMINDERS BY E-MAIL
Are you constantly in the dog house because you keep forgetting your
anniversary? If you need a little help remembering important events,
try the E-minder service. Tell it about your important meetings,
birthdays, anniversaries, and when the date of your event approaches,
you will receive an automatically generated electronic mail message as a
reminder. You can specify how early you would like to get the reminder
message, and you can register as many reminders as you like. For
directions on setting e-minder appointments by e-mail, send a message
like this:
TO: e-minder@netmind.com
SUBJECT: e-minder help
BODY:
2. GERMAN/ENGLISH TRANSLATION SERVICE
The LEO translation service, which will translate German to English,
and vice versa, is available by e-mail. Put the words you want to have
translated in the message body and you'll get the translation in reply.
Note that this service doesn't translate sentences--just individual
words and phrases. Input is restricted to ten lines, each line
consisting of up to 80 characters. Try it out "nur zum Spass" (just
for the fun of it)!
TO: translate@leo.org
SUBJECT:
BODY: (words to translate)
3. VIRTUAL PIZZA
Order an electronic pizza by e-mail! Using this service, you can create
an image of a pizza, choosing from a very interesting list of toppings
which includes pepperoni, kittens, mushrooms, footballs, peppers and
bolts. Your pizza will be delivered as an encoded image, so you'll have
to save it as a text file and decode it before viewing. Digital pizza
might not taste so great, but it's definitely less filling. Send a
message like this to get instructions:
TO: pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu
SUBJECT: pizza help
BODY:
4. WORD FUN WITH THE WORDSERVER
The Wordserver will serve up A Word A Day (subscribe and receive a new
vocabulary word each day in your inbox), Thesaurus-by-Mail (find the
synonyms of a word), Acronym-by-Mail (get the meaning of an acronym),
and Anagram-by-Mail (figure the anagrams of a word). Anagrams are
formed by rearranging the letters of a word into other words or phrases.
For example, "partial men" is an anagram of "parliament". To get usage
instructions, send e-mail like this:
TO: wsmith@wordsmith.org
SUBJECT:
BODY:
5. GAMES BY E-MAIL
You can also play games via the PBeM (Play By e-Mail) Server. Some of
the games currently supported are: Chess, Backgammon, Connect4, Dots and
Boxes, Othello, Reversi and Pente. Games are played by e-mail against
one or more e-mail correspondents. Each time a player makes a move, a
copy of the game board is sent to each of the players in that game, and
you can even tell the PBeM server to send mail to all the players of a
given game so you can make comments (or taunts) to your opponents. To
find out how to play these and other games, send e-mail like so:
TO: pbmserv@gamerz.net
SUBJECT: help
BODY:
6. BIBLE SEARCH
Can e-mail reveal the meaning of life? Search the King James version of
the Bible vicariously and find out. Substitute your own search words in
the examples below, and shed a little light on your inbox. Use a "+"
sign to specify multiple words, prefix proper names with "%23", and add
"&PHRASE=ON" to find a phrase (consecutive words) in the KJV text.
TO: getweb@usa.healthnet.org
SUBJECT:
BODY:
send http://estragon.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/KJV?title=&word=angel+%23Mary
send http://estragon.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/KJV?title=&word=fig+tree&PHRASE=ON
7. SEND A FAX BY E-MAIL
Free faxing by e-mail? You bet. Get a copy of this helpful document
which shows how to send free faxes all over the world using e-mail. For
details, send e-mail as follows:
TO: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
SUBJECT:
BODY: send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/fax-faq
8. MOVIE INFO
Are you a cinema buff? Learn how to access a free database with
information on movies, actors, & directors. The Internet Movie Database
contains data on over 115,000 movie titles and over 450,000 cinema
personalities. Find out how to access these screen gems by sending
e-mail:
TO: movie@imdb.com
SUBJECT: HELP
BODY:
9. CURRENCY CONVERSION
If you've got a yen to know how many rupees are in a ruble, this one's
for you. You can get foreign exchange rates for the U.S. dollar and
other currencies by sending one (or both) of the lines shown below to a
webmail server.
TO: getweb@usa.healthnet.org
SUBJECT:
BODY: send http://cnnfn.com/markets/currencies.html
send http://www.dna.lth.se/cgi-bin/kurt/rates/rates?USD+ALL
10. WORLD NEWS REVIEW
This free news digest is summarised daily from international press and
broadcast sources. It is provided by the Broadcast Monitoring Company
in the U.K., and can be had by sending e-mail thusly:
TO: inbox@netserve.FT.com
SUBJECT:
BODY: info nr-world
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LOTS MORE E-MAIL TRICKS
If you don't have direct access to the Net, you can still explore
the wonders of the Web. Get my free guide "Accessing The Internet
By E-Mail" and learn how to access almost anything on the Net even
if you have only e-mail at your disposal. The "Accessing" guide is
available in over 30 languages. To get the latest edition (and a
list of translations) send e-mail like this:
TO: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
BODY: send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email
See you next time! --Bob
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