Journey of An E-Mail

TRACKING YOUR EMAIL

Ever wonder how your email wends its way from your computer to another's screen, hundreds or thousands of miles away? And how quickly? Apart from mere curiosity, there's good reason to know whether you can "get there from here," especially if you are setting up a Website or are setting up your own servers. There are several ways to track your email, but here's one of the simplest, known as "traceroute." It's available, for example, from any computer with Windows 95 or 98 or ME or XP.
 

1. Go online in the usual way
   
   
2. Go to MS DOS
   
   
3. At the prompt, type TRACERT and a space, followed by the name of an Internet provider (not the party's name) such as "readersdigest.com" or "yale.edu."
   
   
4. Press Enter
   
   
5. Traceroute shows each stage in the route, giving the time for the "hop" in milliseconds. A message sent from my computer in Menlo Park, California to Cambridge, England, "hops" 22 times and is delivered in slightly over a minute.
   
   
6. To leave MS DOS type Exit and then Enter.

                                
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