ijs@eplunix.UUCP (Ishmael) (09/25/90)
Does INTERNET != Internet? In today's mail I received a flyer from Gerber Electronics describing all the various ways to contact them, and in addition to the usual phone, FAX, cable, MCI, EZlink, GEISCO addresses, they had the following paragraph: Our MCI Mail number is xxx-xxxx. This is particularly useful for customers connected to INTERNET. They can send messages to us via MCI MAIL by addressing them: TO: Gerber Electronics/MCI IC: 403-8582 EMS: INTERNET/MCI IC: 403-8582 and of course we can reply to them via MCI MAIL if they furnish their INTERNET address. The above bears no relation to any Internet address I have seen before. Do we have another trademark fight in the offing? How many Internets can we have before overloading the language? -- |\___/| Ishmael J. Stefanov-Wagner |/. .\| Eaton-Peabody Laboratory \=^=/ {think,harvard,mit-eddie}!eplunix!ijs
ergo@netcom.UUCP (Isaac Rabinovitch) (09/26/90)
In <940@eplunix.UUCP> ijs@eplunix.UUCP (Ishmael) writes: >In today's mail I received a flyer from Gerber Electronics describing >all the various ways to contact them, and in addition to the usual >phone, FAX, cable, MCI, EZlink, GEISCO addresses, they had the following >paragraph: > Our MCI Mail number is xxx-xxxx. This is particularly useful > for customers connected to INTERNET. They can send messages > to us via MCI MAIL by addressing them: > TO: Gerber Electronics/MCI IC: 403-8582 > EMS: INTERNET/MCI IC: 403-8582 > and of course we can reply to them via MCI MAIL if they > furnish their INTERNET address. >The above bears no relation to any Internet address I have seen before. >Do we have another trademark fight in the offing? How many Internets >can we have before overloading the language? Hey, chill out! Obviously whoever wrote this never used any mailer except MCI's, and thought all mailers have the same user interface. Apparently an MCI user has to specify the above "EMS" (whatever that is) to send to somebody on the internet. According to the Nutshell handbook, the internet form of an MCI address is xxxx@mcimail.com, where xxxx is the "accountname", "mci id" or "full user name". Never having used MCI, I've no idea what those terms correspond to in Gerber's example, but I'd guess you could write them at 403-8582@mcimail.com. >-- > |\___/| Ishmael J. Stefanov-Wagner > |/. .\| Eaton-Peabody Laboratory > \=^=/ {think,harvard,mit-eddie}!eplunix!ijs -- ergo@netcom.uucp Isaac Rabinovitch {apple,amdahl,claris}!netcom!ergo Silicon Valley, CA Collins's Law: If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything. Corollaries ("Rabinovitch's Rules of Sane Dialogue"): 1. Everybody who matters is stupid now and then. 2. If I'm being stupid, that's my problem. 3. If my being stupid makes you stupid, that's your problem. 4. If you think you're never stupid, boy are you stupid!
cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan) (09/26/90)
In article <13830@netcom.UUCP> ergo@netcom.uucp writes: >In <940@eplunix.UUCP> ijs@eplunix.UUCP (Ishmael) writes: >>In today's mail I received a flyer from Gerber Electronics describing >>all the various ways to contact them, and in addition to the usual >>phone, FAX, cable, MCI, EZlink, GEISCO addresses, they had the following >>paragraph: > >> Our MCI Mail number is xxx-xxxx. This is particularly useful >> for customers connected to INTERNET. They can send messages >> to us via MCI MAIL by addressing them: >> TO: Gerber Electronics/MCI IC: 403-8582 >> EMS: INTERNET/MCI IC: 403-8582 >> and of course we can reply to them via MCI MAIL if they >> furnish their INTERNET address. >Hey, chill out! Obviously whoever wrote this never used any mailer >except MCI's, and thought all mailers have the same user interface. >Apparently an MCI user has to specify the above "EMS" (whatever that EMS = Electronic Messaging System. Essentially it gives MCI Mail an indication of the interpretation domain of the address. For example "INTERNET" indicates that the recipient is on the Internet, "TELEX" indicates that the recipient is a Telex number, etc. If no EMS is mentioned, of course MCI Mail assumes MCI Mail as the interpretation domain. >According to the Nutshell handbook, the internet form of an MCI >address is xxxx@mcimail.com, where xxxx is the "accountname", "mci id" >or "full user name". Never having used MCI, I've no idea what those >terms correspond to in Gerber's example, but I'd guess you could write >them at 403-8582@mcimail.com. 4038582 is the "MCI Id" and uniquely specifies a recipient. The "full user name" is a name like "John.Jones", which may or may not be unique. If it isn't unique, postmaster@mcimail.com will send back a polite message informing you of all the John Joneses on line and giving you the MCI ids of them all, plus (hopefully) some other identifying information to help you guess which one you wanted. The "accountname" is the name used by the MCI Mail user to log in. It is not necessarily unique and is typically shorter than the full user name, and hard to guess. Better to avoid it. -- cowan@marob.masa.com (aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan) e'osai ko sarji la lojban