The E-Mail Companion: Communicating Effectively Via the Internet and Other Global Networks

by John S. Quarterman, Smoot Carl-Mitchell

Both a tutorial and reference, this guide to the rapidly proliferating system of business communication covers sending mail between different networks, composing and responding to e-mail effectively, finding people's e-mail addresses, and more. Original. (All Users).

318 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 1994

About the author

John S. Quarterman is an American author and longtime participant in the development of the Internet. He wrote one of the foundational books on networking before the Internet became commercialized and has also contributed to discussions on risk management. Growing up in the Bemiss community near Valdosta, Georgia, he first used the ARPANET in 1974 while at Harvard and later worked on UNIX ARPANET software at BBN, the original contractor for the ARPANET. Twice elected to the board of directors of the USENIX Association, he played a key role in its 1987 decision to approve the first funding for UUNET, one of the first commercial Internet service providers alongside PSINet.
In 1986, he co-founded Texas’ first Internet consulting firm and later co-founded Zilker Internet Park, one of Austin’s early ISPs. He was also a founder of TISPA, the Texas ISP Association. As the founder and Chief Technology Officer of Matrix NetSystems, originally established as Matrix Information and Directory Services in 1990, he published the first maps of the entire Internet and conducted the first Internet Demographic Survey. He launched the first continuous performance monitoring series of the entire Internet in 1993, making it available on the web by 1995 through the Internet Weather Report and ISP Ratings. Matrix NetSystems later merged with Alignment Software in 2003, briefly becoming Xaffire before its Austin operations were acquired by Keynote Systems, which was subsequently merged into Dynatrace by Thoma Bravo.
Recognized for his contributions, he was named one of the "25 Unsung Heroes of the Internet" by Inter@ctive Week in 1998. Internet World featured a full-length interview with him in 1996, highlighting his work in Internet demographics. He has participated in discussions on Net Neutrality, serving as a panelist for events organized by IEEE Central Texas Section and EFF-Austin. His major works include The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide, a comprehensive history of global networking, and The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating System, co-authored with Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall K. McKusick, and Michael J. Karels. His later publications include books on TCP/IP networking and risk management for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. He is also credited with suggesting the acronym RIPE for Réseaux IP Européens at a 1989 meeting in Brussels.