The date command can format its output anyway you specify.
Some of the specifications are:
%Y the year
%m the month
%d the day
so date "%Y.%m.%d" would yield
2005.06.14
Create and run a script called s3 that will accept as the
first argumnet a file name. The script will then create a backup copy of the
file name with the date appended to it. like:
$ ./s3 s3
copied s3 to s3.2005.06.14
email me both the script and an ls of the file you copied.