Email: The Next Generation

Email is rapidly becoming more sophisticated and essential. Years ago, all you needed were a CMS account and a dumb terminal. But now we have graphical interfaces, working on campus, from home, or while traveling, and even ways to pre-process mail automatically. Are you sure that your email system is still meeting your needs?

The Academic Computing and Communications Center recommends two email packages, Eudora and Pine. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses; perhaps some that you haven't considered. Let's talk a bit about how Eudora and Pine work, so you'll have a better idea of what they can do for you.

To use email, you really only need two things: (1) an "email account" or "maildrop" or "POP account" -- they're all more or less the same thing, and (2) an "email program" to send and receive mail. This is "electronic mail," so your email account or maildrop and your email program must be on a "properly networked" computer.

If your email account is on icarus or tigger, what is your email address? The obvious answer is yrnetid@icarus.cc.uic.edu or yrnetid@tigger.cc.uic.edu, where yrnetid is the login id for your ADN UNIX account. But there's a better answer, one that is easier to remember and independent of your maildrop: yrnetid@uic.edu. (See Netids, Userids, Aliases, Oh My!.)

When using Pine, you have to be connected to the ADN network in any way that allows you to do telnet; any telnet anywhere will do. All your mail stays on your UNIX account, so you're not tied to using your own personal computer. Telnet to icarus or tigger and login to your ADN UNIX account. Then enter Pine, do mail, quit from Pine, do other UNIX stuff, and then repeat the process. Pine is "full screen" (in the mainframe sense) rather than "graphical" (in the personal computer sense), but you can do almost anything in it using one or two keystrokes and it has complete, context-sensitive online help. Copy-and-paste is available only if your telnet program supports it. (Many do these days.)

When using Eudora, you have to be connected to the ADN network only when you're checking for new incoming mail or sending mail or replies. Connect to the ADN, then start Eudora on your personal computer -- Eudora moves your mail to your personal computer, so only your own personal computer will do. Check for incoming mail and download it if you have any. (This can take a long time if you have a lot of mail.) You can disconnect now if you want, and reconnect later to check for additional new mail or to send messages. Eudora is a full-fledged graphical personal computer program, with cut-and-paste, pull down menus, and everything else.

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Choices, Choices

Of course how you use Eudora and Pine is one thing to consider when you choose between them, but you should also consider how they work. You might be more comfortable using your personal computer, but comfort and cut-and-paste aren't everything. Your choice of email program should also depend on when and from where you want to read your mail, and on how secure you want to keep it.

"Comparing Eudora and Pine" on page 3 shows how Eudora and Pine stack up with respect to each of these considerations. But don't get lost in the details; the bottom line is:

• If you tend to read your email from many different locations, including the ADN dialin lines (as most students do), you should probably use Pine.



• If the "personal computer" you use at school is a public one -- in an ADN public lab, for example -- the time is not quite right yet for you to use Eudora at school. But it can be once we get the Novell Server Services accounts going for everyone.
  
  
• If you use a shared personal computer or if you're really concerned with the security of your mail, you might want to use Pine. The mail you keep on your ADN UNIX account is as safe as you keep your UNIX password and your UNIX files.

On the other hand, "password protection" in Eudora can only prevent others from "checking" your email (downloading new mail), and then only if you do not tell Eudora to "Save password" (select Tools->Options->Checking Mail; make sure that the "Save password" option is not checked).
Eudora's password protection does not stop people from reading email that you have already downloaded to your personal computer or any mail that you've moved into other mail folders on it. Anyone who has access to your personal computer also has access to the files on your computer and therefore to your email.
To prevent others from seeing your Eudora mail:
1. delete it (but deleted files can often be recovered),
2. save it to a floppy disk that you can take with you, or
3. encrypt it.
   
   
• If you regularly read mail at school and at home, even if you use different personal computers at school and at home, you can still use Eudora, but it takes a bit more work. See Using Eudora from Multiple Machines below.
  
  
• Otherwise, Eudora or another personal computer email program is probably your best choice. Even if you usually use Eudora, you can still check your mail from anywhere -- just login to your ADN UNIX account and use Pine. You'll still be able to download to Eudora any messages you leave in your Pine INBOX.

Email account and maildrop:

I've assumed in this table that you're using your ADN UNIX account as your email account/POP account/maildrop.

Inbox:

Most email programs call the mailbox or mail folder that holds incoming mail your "Inbox" or "In box" or "In Box", but the details of where these Inboxes are and how they work varies.

Other mail folders:

You can have additional mail folders or mailboxes -- usually associated with a particular person or group. The incoming messages you save and copies of the messages that you send are kept in these.

To read email from two different personal computers -- "personal" personal computers, ones that belong to you -- first decide which will be your primary machine, the one you'll read most of your email on. Then:

On your primary machine,

use Eudora as usual but be sure to Exit Eudora when you leave (so it won't automatically download your new incoming mail).

On the other machine,

use Eudora's "Leave mail on server" (LMOS) option and select "Status: headers" under "Determine first unread message by:".

In newer Eudoras, the LMOS option and related switch settings are under the Tools menu (Tools->Options), in Checking Mail and Miscellaneous. In older versions of Eudora, they're under Special->Configuration.

 

We're testing new POP server software that will make Eudora's LMOS easier for you to use. We'll let you know when it's ready in the Computer Center's "What's New" Web page, at: http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/home/news.current.html.

Select: Delete from server after_____:

(Tools->Options->Checking Mail) Fill in the blank with the number of days that you want your incoming mail to stay in your UNIX mailbox. We recommend 7 days, which is not so large that too much email will build up and not so small that you will not have looked at all your mail in that amount of time.

And: Delete from server when emptied from Trash:

(Tools->Options->Miscellaneous) This option allows you to delete from your POP server the "left on the server" mail that you've downloaded to your secondary machine and discarded. (It's great for junk mail!) It uses a two-step process: first Eudora moves the mail you discard to its Trash mailbox. Then when you tell it to Empty Trash (Special->Empty Trash), Eudora deletes the messages from your Trash mailbox and connects to the POP server (on icarus or tigger) and deletes those messages from your UNIX mailbox also. Of course, this will only work when you remember to "empty your trash"!

Comments are welcome; send them to:
Joshua Frigerio, joshua@uic.edu, or
Judith Grobe Sachs, judygs@uic.edu