pinging using dos?

[oolo]

if using a dos box while in windows, and typing in "ping joe@joe.com" and it comes back with
"request timed out" 4 times..... does that mean that
'joe' isnt online? or in this case, it is a gmail address, does that make
a difference??
just want to know if pinging lets me know if 'joe' is online at the time of
the ping.

thanks

 

[Jeff Richards]

It means that the address you have specified cannot be located, which is to
be expected since you have used an e-mail SMTP address instead of an IP
address or computer name. It is not possible to identify whether or not the
user of a particular e-mail address is 'online' or not - there is no such
concept as 'on-line' attached to e-mail addresses. You may be confusing
e-mail with some other form of messaging.

For information on how to use the ping command see:
http://www.computerhope.com/pinghlp.htm
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"oolo" <oolo@ser.com> wrote in message
news:eEnJFdNCIHA.3940@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> if using a dos box while in windows, and typing in "ping joe@joe.com" and
> it comes back with
> "request timed out" 4 times..... does that mean that
> 'joe' isnt online? or in this case, it is a gmail address, does
> that make
> a difference??
> just want to know if pinging lets me know if 'joe' is online at the time
> of
> the ping.
>
> thanks
>
>