e-mail

with Eudora/Webmail

Electronic Mail Overview

Assumption uses a "post office" based electronic mail system for students and faculty. An e-mail serverstays on all the time to receive and hold your mail until you ask for it from your PC or Mac. You should use Eudora on your computer to read, send, and manage your mail. For occasional access from off-campus or on a lab or library machine, use the campus webmail system. This system talks to the Assumption electronic post office server for you and will transfer copies of messages on it to you. To use either of these, you need an e-mail account. These are set up for each member of the community on request. Check with Charlie Davidson at x7596 (the Assumption Network Manager) or Bob lavner (the Lab and Classroom manager) with any account setup issues.

Sometimes webmail or Eudora can get a problem where you can't log in or another kind of problem where the listed messages don't match the content (like the subject says its a message from Eddie Bauer, but the message is from your history professor). In either case, exit the program immediately and call Mr. Davidson or Mr. Lavner (listed above).

E-mail is extremely reliable, but can also be a source of frustration. Basic e-mail transfers unformatted text only. In order to increase the complexity of data that is transferred, e-mail uses attachments. In addition, many e-mail programs (including Eudora) will interpret web tags in the text of e-mail, thus allowing formatting to finally be included in messages.

One of the great challanges in the future for e-mail is that of user identity authentication. When you send a message from your PC, it goes directly to the receiver's post office server. It does not go through your server on the way out. Thus there is no authentication used. Outgoing messages can be sent where the sender name is forged.

e-mail Topics:

Webmail

Addresses: e-mail style
Attachments in Eudora
Distribution Lists
Filtering
Listservs
Mailboxes (Adding) in Eudora
Eudora Overview
Reading mail in Eudora
Sending mail in Eudora
Spam
Starting Eudora e-Mail


Addresses - How do they work?

Your e-mail address consists of your username followed by the characters @assumption.edu (an Internet address). For example, George Murphy might be gmurphy@assumption.edu (Notice that no spaces are allowed.) Finding someone's address can often be an adventure. The best advice often is to call them on the phone and ask them. If they send you a message, you can use the Reply command to answer and the computer will (usually) build a correct address for them. Users of commercial systems such as America-On-Line or COMPUServe can also be reached. Contact Computer Services at Assumption for help in finding addresses. There are now some internet white pages that might help. Try Four11 White Page Directory at http://www.four11.com/ for example.

Text Format

Electronic mail only sends and receives data in plain text format. That is, it cannot transmit word processing files unless they are reduced to plain text. One exception to this is the use of attachments. There area also other programs (like FTP) for transmitting formatted files. Further, the newest versions of Eudora support using web tags to format text. This allows you to send text that appears formatted. Note, however, that the receiver's e-mail software may not properly interpret these tags. The only true international e-mail standard you can full deped on in plain text. Plain text means no underlines, no bold, no centering, no font changes, etc.. The biggest difference (and nightmare) is that every line must end with a hard return (like old typewrite style). This is something Eudora puts in for you when it sends out a message. As you know, this is not like an ordinary word processor. If you get data in, when you put it into your word processor, it will be in plain text format. There is a procedure to remove all the hard returns once it is in your local word processor.

 

 

Eudora Overview

When you ask for it, your Mac or PC gets all new mail from Eve and puts it on your local disk. The program we use on the Mac to get the mail (and to compose and send mail out) is Eudora, now owned by QUALCOM Corp.It is the world's most popular e-mail program and its free for academic users. As soon as you enter Eudora, you will see a screen window showing your Inbox. Each message is listed in a line with information as to who it was from, the date and time, and the subject. You can then read, reply to, or delete any message. By using the pull-down menus, you can also write messages as well as move messages to other mailboxes.. (If you are using a lab machine that is already running when you begin, make sure no one else has left Eudora running.

Starting a Mail Session in Eudora

Start Eudora on a PC like any other program from the Start button. The exception to this is if you are working on a machine with multiple copies of Eudora set up for multiple different users. In this case, open the folder containing your copy of Eudora and double click the Eudora program.

On a Mac, to start up the Eudora system, double click on the Eudora settings icon in the Eudora Folder.

The program will load and will open a window for your Inbox.

Reading Mail in Eudora

Before you can read new mail though, you must connect to Eve and download your mail. To do this pull down under File to Check Mail. After verifying your password, the computer will connect to Eve and download all your new messages. You can move among the messages with the arrow key or by clicking the mouse button. Double clicking will open a window to view the contents of the selected message. You can create a reply by pulling down under the Message menu to Reply. The computer keeps track for you of which messages you've read. If there is a dot next to the message, you haven't read it yet. If you create a reply, the computer will place a letter R next to it.

Sending Mail in Eudora

To begin a new message, pull down under Message to select New Message. A window will open for you to create your message. Enter the various fields. Enter the e-mail address of the recipient (s) on the To line. If there are more one recipients, separate them by commas or spaces. Hit Tab and fill in a Subject. Hit Tab and fill out Copy to: (Cc:) and Tab to Blind Copy to (Bcc:)

Attachments -- and Viruses

As stated above, e-mail documents are plain text. You can, however, now send word processing, spreadsheet, graphics, etc. Files as attachments to other users. Watch out, though, This is now the most common way to distribute viruses. Any attached file is a potential virus. Only trust those you expect. Even attachments from people you trust can be infected. They may not know that their machine has the virus and may notknow they are sending out the virus. Still, attachments are very useful. The system encodes your binary file as text but the systems for encoding and decoding are not yet completely standardized. We use a system called MIME encoding. On a Mac its also called AppleDouble. As long as your recipient is also using MIME for decoding the process will work smoothly. If their e-mail uses a different system for encrypting, the process gets more complicated.Check with Computer Services to find a solution.The good news is that MIME is used today almost everywhere.

To send an attachment, pull down under the Message menu to Attach Document... The computer will open a standard dialog box where you can go to the folder your document is in and select it. You can then also put text in the space used for the body of the message. This text will be sent out to your recipient along with the attachment.

To read an attachment, note that the Eudora program will automatically put the file in whatever folder your computer uses for attachments. If you don't specify otherwise, they go in a folder called Attachments inside the Eudora folder. In many cases, you can just double click the file reference in the message and the appropraite program will load to open the file. If this doesn't work, Leave Eudora after downloading mail and open the attached file inside that folder as you normally would on your Mac or PC.

You can change the attachment folder by pulling down to Settings, scrolling the menu choices on the left side to Attachments to get to the screen where you can specify the folder on your machine that you would like to use.

Discussion Lists - Listserv

You can join discussion groups on academic (or nonacademic) topics called listservs, as well as receive copies of electronically distributed journals and newsletters through network e-mail. Both the Library and Computer Services maintain lists of these journals, newsletters and lists. These descriptions also provide information on how to sign up for these services. Generally, you'll need to use 4 different addresses as a member of a listserv:

1. To sign up, sign off, or temporarily turn off your mail, you'll use the address of the server program. For example, you (John Smith) could subscribe to a fictitious list on multimedia at Assumption by sending a message to listproc@.assumption.edu with no subject and a single line of content saying:

subscribe mmac John Smith

2. To send a message to everyone on the list, you'd use a different address, say mmac@assumption.edu Every subscriber would get a copy. Use this wisely. Most responses to queries on the list should be sent to the originator of the question (see 3 below), not to the entire list.

3. To respond to a query or comment posted to the list by a user, it is usually assumed that respondents will address their answers to the originator who will summarize the responses back to the entire list.

4. Occasionally, you may need to send a message to the user (person) who manages the listserv. When you subscribe, you'll get a message letting you know who this is.

Once you become active with e-mail, you may end up with lots of it. Eudora gives you several tools for managing your mail. You can create mailboxes along whatever theme you wish. Mail can then be moved from the In box to an appropriate mailbox. To create a new mailbox and put a starting message in it, highlight a message and pull down under Transfer to New... The computer will open a dialog box asking you to specify a name. Generally, don't create a new folder. Once you've named and created the mailbox, you can go to it by pulling down under Mailbox or move highlighted messages to it by pulling down under Transfer. Note that you can transfer messages from any mailbox to any mailbox.

You can also create your own distribution lists if you want to send messages to a certain group frequently. Use the Window pull-down menu to open windows to define Nicknames on the left and list members of the Nickname group on the right.

Filtering

Eudora lets you filter out unwanted messages. (You can also filter messagegs to a special mailbox, but this document does not describe that process.) To send messages with unwanted text in the Subject or From fields, pull down under Special to Make Filter (See the left image below) and in the dialog that opens (right image below) make your settings. In the example, we send any incoming message with the letters "bad stuff" to the Trash.

 

Spam

E-mail spam is a significant problem throughout the Internet. Many Assumption e-mail users are receiving a rapidly increasing number of these messages. Some of the messages are particularly distateful.
Assumption has a server that scans all our messages and deletes those that are from an address designated as a spam-originating address by a national spam-filtering subscription service. The vendor for this service updates their addresses daily. Unfortunately, the "spam community" has responded lately by switching their addresses every couple of days.
Because of the spam problem, Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo have begun a project to find ways to reduce spam (and viruses). There has also been a substantial increase in media attention about spam. Arguably, the coverage about spamming and about the fact that even those states with the stiffest laws against spam have been ineffective in reducing it, has lead to to step increase in spam frequency.
One question that often comes up is "How did they get my address?" Each of our addresses is known to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other computers. If any of these is "hacked" or infected, their address book can be sent to a spam originator who distributes it to other spammers. They can then send spam to you or send spam to others "spoofing" your address in the "From:" part of their message.
So what can you do about it?
1) If you do see a pattern of particular text in the subject or "From:" field of frequent spam massages, you can set up a filter in Eudora (our campus standard e-mail program) to send such messages immediately to the Trash. Check the campus e-mail documentation at ... for the details.
2) Many spam messages include a button at the bottom to submit a request to stop getting mail from that sender. The current wisdom is to use these buttons. It is true there is a risk generally in sending information out, but the spammer already knows more than this reply will tell him or her about you.

Webmail -- Off-campus e-mail access

No matter where you are in the world, you can have unlimited access to your e-mail account to receive new messages, forward, reply or to send new mail. All you need is your Assumption College e-mail account, your password and an computer connected to the Internet.
To use the system, in Internet Explorer or Netscape, connect to:

http://webmail.assumption.edu/

Assumption College webmail is intended to provide Assumption College e-mail users with the ability to view their NEW e-mail. The messages are viewed directly from our e-mail server and remain on the server until they are downloaded to your personal computer via Eudora.

The first time you use Webmail, you'll need to put in some settings. In almost all cases, the defaults will do. If you have a problem, check with Charlie Davidson at x7596 (the Assumption Network Manager) or Bob Lavner (the Lab and Classroom manager) with any account setup issues.

Sometimes webmail (or Eudora) can get a problem where you can't log in or another kind of problem where the listed messages don't match the content (like the subject says its a message from Eddie Bauer, but the message is from your history professor). In either case, exit the program immediately and call Mr. Davidson or Mr. Lavner (listed above).

 

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Page maintained by Dr. Robert Fry. Last updated May 8, 2004.

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