Configuring Eudora

The Eudora options are the same in Windows and Macs, but how you get to them is different:

Windows:

Tools -> Options

Macs:

Special -> Settings

Click on the icons in the area on the left to open the related options on the screen on the right. We're using our fictional staff member, Ada Byron Lovelace, netid adabyron, email account on mailserv as an example. You replace Ada's details for your own.

When you're finished configuring Eudora, click the OK button on the bottom left.

Click on Getting Started

Under Checking Mail:

 

User Name:

your netid; Ada types: adabyron

Mail Server:

for the ACCC email account your netid@uic.edu email is sent to, mail.uic.edu, regardless of which ACCC email server it is on. Ada types: mail.uic.edu

Under Sending Mail:

 

Real Name:

Ada types: Ada Byron Lovelace

SMTP Server:

If you only use your computer on campus, you can use:

smtpserv.cc.uic.edu

If you use your computer off campus, using a commercial ISP (not the UIC dialin lines):

• You can use the ACCC's authenticated SMTP server mail.uic.edu, which works regardless of whether you are on or off campus:
          mail.uic.edu
  And check Allow authorization and select an SMTP Relay Personality if the default is not suitable. This is the personality whose userid and password will be used to authenticate to mail.uic.edu. (Not that I ever got the SMTP Relay Personality to work.)
  Using mail.uic.edu is useful because it works both on and off campus, which means that you don't have to create an alternate personality if you use the same computer both on and off campus.
  For Eudora for Macs, you also have to set an SSL for SMTP: option.
  For Eudora for Windows, also check Required Alternate Port.
  
  
• Or you can use your ISP's SMTP server; ask them what its name is. For more information, see Changing to Your ISP's SMTP Server.)

Email Address :

The standard return address that people use at UIC is their uic.edu address; this allows them to change their principle email machine without having to change their actually email address. Thus Ada types: adabyron@uic.edu

Make Eudora the default Mailer (Eudora for Mac only)

Check if you want to.

Note on Netids:

For students, the netid is the first letter of their first name plus the first five letters of their last name followed by a number, (jtesti1). Faculty and staff can choose their own netids that usually reflect their name (such as adabyron).

In this set of options, you select whether you're going to use Eudora with POP or IMAP. In general, the ACCC recommends IMAP because using it allows you to also use WebMail to read your email from anywhere, without setup, on any Web browser, on the Web.

Configuring Eudora for IMAP

Configuring Eudora for POP

See Configuring Eudora for POP to learn how to configure Eudora for POP.

And there are two general options in this tab:

Check for mail every xx minutes:

Please make this 10 minutes or more. More often will be bad for all of us -- for you because it will interrupt you too much and and for the rest of us because it will clog the mail server too much.

And do NOT check Save Password.

If it is checked, remove the check mark, and select Special -> Forget Password to delete your password if you've already entered it. If this the Save Password Preference is left checked, Eudora will not ask you to enter a password after the first time you use it, which means that anyone who can get at your computer can check your email.

Having Eudora save your password also makes it more difficult to change your password. To change your password, use the ACCC Password Change Utility or choose one of the other methods discussed in Changing Your ACCC Passwords. You can not use Eudora's password change utility to change your ACCC password.

You must use SSL to protect your password when you check your new incoming email if you are using your primary ACCC email account with your netid@mail.uic.edu address. You must also use SSL for your outgoing email when you use mail.uic.edu as your SMTP server.

What does SSL do? When Eudora connects to the server to download email, it has to send your netid and password to identify you to the server. When it is sent as plain text, it is very easy to sniff -- capture -- if someone wants to. SSL, Secure Sockets Layer, allows you to sent your password to the sever encrypted, so no one can steal your password as it is going to the server.

Turn SSL on if You are Using mail.uic.edu

If you are checking the email on the ACCC account that you receive your netid@uic.edu at, then you must use mail.uic.edu as your email server. mail.uic.edu requires the use of SSL for checking and sending email. The details depend on whether you are using IMAP or POP, what version of Eudora you are using, and, for Macs, what version of Mac OS you are using. There are instructions for all manner of situations in the following pages:

• Instructions for setting mail.uic.edu up as your outgoing SMTP server: Using the mail.uic.edu Authenticated SMTP Outgoing Email Server.
  
  
• Instructions on using mail.uic.edu as your incoming netid@mail.uic.edu email server: Using mail.uic.edu for Your Incoming Email Server and Turning SSL On.

Brief instructions for Eudora 6 for Macs and Windows are below.

SSL for Macs

You must use SSL to protect your password when you check your new incoming email if you are using your netid@mail.uic.edu address. You can do this if you're using Mac OS Classic or Mac 10.2 or later. You must also use SSL for your outgoing email when you use mail.uic.edu as your SMTP server.

Select Required, Alternate Port from either the SSL for POP or SSL for IMAP popup boxes, depending on whether you're using POP or IMAP to check your email. The Maximum Compatibility radio button is correct for Alternate Port SSL Negotiation.

If you are using the mail.uic.edu authenticated SMTP server, also select Required, Alternate Port also for SSL for SMTP.

SSL for Windows

You must use SSL to protect your password when you check your new incoming email if you are using your netid@mail.uic.edu address. You must also use SSL for your outgoing email when you use mail.uic.edu as your SMTP server.

On Windows, you turn on SSL for incoming email on the Checking Mail options screen. Select Required, Alternate Port in the Secure Sockets when Receiving box. For outgoing SSL instructions, see Using the mail.uic.edu Authenticated SMTP Server.

Under Server:

Email Address and SMTP Server:

Are already filled out

Default Domain:

Put uic.edu in for this. Eudora will add this in as the "machine name" at the end of any email addresses that you only type the username for. So if you want to send email to jtesti99, then all you have to type is jtesti99 and Eudora will fill in the rest.

Under Connection:

This pretty much depends on how you're using Eudora. You might want to check the Use separate thread for sending checkbox; it allows Eudora to send outgoing messages at the same time it's receiving incoming messages. If you're always connected, then use Immediate send and don't check Send on Check.

Under Message:

Fix curly quotes:

Don't check this. If you ever want to add support for a foreign language or UNICODE, this will mess it up.

Keep copies:

Check this if you want to keep a copy of each message that you send.

Automatically Fcc to original mailbox:

If you reply to an email message that's in any mailbox other than In or Inbox, this tells Eudora to keep a copy of the reply in that same mailbox. This is particular useful when you're using IMAP.

You might want to select:

Auto-complete nicknames
Expand nicknames immediately
And you'll probably want to enter a signature; use Eudora -> Windows -> Signatures to enter it, and use the Signature: popup menu to select the signature that you've entered.

You should select:

Word wrap

Do not select:

May use Quoted-Printable. This will make your email look weird to people who used text-only email programs.

Under Sending Attachments:

Make sure that the Encoding method selected is AppleDouble ("Mime"). That's the only type that everyone can use.

Under Receiving Attachments:

You can select the default folder that Eudora will put your attachments into. To make Eudora safer, chose something other than just "Attachments" as the name of your attachment folder. I use safe-attach.

This one is important for security.

Don't select:

Display graphics in messages
Automatically download HTML graphics
Animate animated GIF images
If you want to see the graphics in an HTML email message, use File -> Open in Browser. But only if you are sure the message is OK.

Don't use Message Previews. Uncheck all of those options. It there is no point in opening spam or viruses, which together make up the majority of the mail that most people get these days. So previewing every message a waste of time. But you don't have to uncheck this if (1) you use antispam filtering, which everyone does by default now, and (2) you're careful about checking each mailbox's index list and delete all suspicious email messages before you begin reading them.

Message Window box:

Uncheck Use Microsoft's viewer (This is important.)

Preview Pane box:

Uncheck: Show message preview pane
Uncheck: Automatically open next message It's dangerous to open viruses and useless (and often offensive) to open spam, so opening every message is a waste of time. But you don't have to uncheck this if (1) you use antispam filtering, which everyone does by default now, and (2) you're careful about checking each mailbox's index list and delete all suspicious email messages before you begin reading them.
Uncheck: Allow executables in HTML content

Styled Text gets its own section because sending messages with styled text to listserv lists, newsgroups, and lots of people who still use plain text-only email programs is downright impolite. So don't do it, please.

Under Sending mail with Styles:

Click the radio button beside Send plain text mail only
Uncheck: Ask me each time
You'll be making a lot of the people that you correspond with very happy.

Check any options that you want. I have Eudora Check spelling Automatically as you type (radio button) and Warn when sending/queuing message with misspelling (I go for suspenders and belts).

You can also configure the spelling checker to ignore special types of words and to tell it what types of words to suggest when it finds a misspelled word.

SpamWatch

SpamWatch doesn't work at UIC because our IMAP servers don't support UIDplus, nor do we have any plans on implementing it. Nor, in fact, do most anyone's IMAP servers. We're not sure why Eudora choose to write an anti-spam tool that depends on it.

Junk Mail

Junk Mail, on the other hand, not only works, but is very handy, both for IMAP and POP.

Eudora's Junk mail feature is turned on by default:

Make sure that both Junk and Address Book options are turned on:

• Mail isn't junk if the sender is in an address book
• Put Not Junk-ed senders in address book

Eudora looks through each email message for keywords and assigns the message a percent probability that it is spam based on the number of spam keywords it finds. It's a learning process; it notes it when you tell it that a certain message is Junk or is Not Junk (Message -> Junk or Message -> Not Junk ) and modifies its keyword list. Or you can put Junk and Not Junk icons on the Toolbar.

The Junk feature can even find IMAP messages that are Junk that the anti-spam filters have missed. It will have a significant number of false positives (identifying messages as Junk that aren't), especially at the beginning, so you should look through your Junk mailbox before you delete the messages in it.

Choosing a Junk Folder

The first time you open Eudora after you install it, it will ask you to choose a Junk mailbox. If you are using IMAP, create a Junk mailbox on the server (under <Dominant>).

This is a valuable addition to the anti-spam filters, even with the antispam filters, but you do have to check and make sure it doesn't filter real stuff -- it will. But if you use both the Mail isn't junk if the sender is in an address book and the Put Not Junk-ed senders in address book options, it will go pretty far to teach the Junk filters what isn't Junk. (See "Junk Extras" below for an address book setting.)

Junk Extras

The Junk Extras Options includes Junk Trimming, which allows you to tell Eudora to automatically remove old junk to a different mailbox (say your Trash mailbox) or to delete Junk entirely. After you've trained your Junk so it doesn't catch real email, you might want to consider turning these options on.

On Macs, it also allows you to select an address book to add your whitelisted Junk senders to, if you don't want them messing up your regular address book. That's a good idea.

For more information on using the Junk options, see Eudora's SpamWatch tutorial.

For more information on Eudora options that that are important for your safety, be sure to look at Safe Email Viewing with Eudora to set the options you need to make your Eudora email safe from viruses and worms.

And check out Table 1: A Visual Guide to Eudora Options for more information on many Eudora options. Most of them are ones that I use, with explanations of why I use them.