I just hit reply and get going. Bruce, like most people, doesn't want to waste a whole lot of time on formal rules of letter writing. He just wants to get his thoughts off to other people with a minimum of fuss, and that's where email shines most brightly. Email is what faxes should have been in the first place. Live text beamed at electronic speed between thinking humans.
Email is usually the first thing that Internet newbies try in cyberspace.
It is also, regrettably, usually the first thing they get wrong. Email is handled by software known as an email client, and there are several offered by different software companies. Messages you send are bounced from server to server around the world until they reach their destination. The most common and freely distributed email client is Eudora Light, the stripped down but still capable junior version of the commercial product Eudora Pro. Microsoft is introducing a well regarded mail client as part of its Internet Explorer package.