Using electronic mail with Webmail

Electronic mail, or email for short, is the most popular computer application in the world, and it is widely used by UIC students, faculty and staff. Over 60% of UIC students use email on a regular basis.

Email provides a fast and effective means of communications. Instructors use it in their classes to keep students updated on assignments, events, as well as to answer questions and to disseminate information quickly and easily. Besides class work, email is widely used to communicate with acquaintances both on and off campus.

To use email one needs three things:

1. An email mailbox (e.g. Icarus)
2. Email addresses (e.g. jsmith99@uic.edu)
3. An email handling program (e.g. Webmail, Eudora)

1. Email Mailbox
A mailbox is essentially an account on a computer(s) that can send and receive email messages. At UIC, students typically receive their email on Icarus, while faculty and staff get it on Tigger or Mailserv.

Actually, email service is much more complicated than that, involving several other computers, servers (POP, SMTP, IMAP, ...) and other programs. The whole email system is what determines one's email address.

2. Email addresses
At UIC, email addresses follow the format netid@uic.edu, where netid is the unique network ID assigned to students, faculty and staff. The domain name alias uic.edu gets resolved into the actual name of the computer hosting the mailbox, such as icarus.uic.edu, tigger.uic.edu or mailserv.uic.edu, for example.

NOTE: for an email address of the form netid@uic.edu to work, one must not only have a netid, but also a computer account and an entry in the UIC Online Phonebook.

Students are automatically added to the Online Phonebook, a few days after they are registered. (Faculty and staff need to consult with their departmental Phonebook Contact Person to get a netid and be added to the Online Phonebook.) In any case, they must still need to get a computer account to establish a mailbox to receive their email.

The Phonebook entry associates the netid@uic.edu email address with the actual computer account and host computer where the user receives and sends email.

A Phonebook (ph) lookup can be performed to check anyone's email address at UIC.

To send outgoing email, one needs to know the email addresses of the recipients, which can be found by asking the acquaintances or by looking at the top email headers of their messages. Also, like UIC, most universities maintain online staff directories to help find people's email addresses and other information.

3. Email handling programs
ACCC supports two email programs: Webmail and Eudora. Webmail is a new Internet-based email program used by UIC which allows users to access email from any Web browser. Eudora has a graphical user interface and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh personal computers.

Using Webmail
Webmail is the newest edition to using email at UIC. Webmail is especially useful for students who may not own their own computer and frequent public computer labs on campus. Students then have the ability to send messages and files to others, both on campus and off. Their email can be accessed from anywhere in the world. An internet connection and a Web browsing program are the only requirements.

To use webmail, a user should find a computer that is connected to the internet and go to the following URL: http://webmail.uic.edu. You then enter your NetID, password, and the server on which your email resides. (For most students, this is Icarus.)

Webmail has the ability to read and send messages. Students can also reply, forward, and send messages with attachments. Students can maintain an online address book and organize their email into different folders.

It should be noted that the amount of space given to each student for their email is limited.  It is recommended that students delete unwanted messages from their mailbox to conserve space.

For more information on Webmail, see:

• Reading Email from Anywhere with Webmail seminar materials
• INFORM's Email documentation

Using Eudora
Eudora is a much more versatile and elegant email system but it is meant to be used by people on their own personal computers. At UIC, Eudora is widely used by faculty and staff on campus. It is also used on home computers by UIC students, faculty and staff.

Eudora is included in the NSKit for Windows and Macintosh, is also available through ACCC Server Services and may be downloaded directly from the ACCC FTP File Server.

For more information on Eudora, see:

• Reading email with Eudora seminar materials
• INFORM's Email documentation
• Configuring Eudora on Windows
• Configuring Eudora for Macintosh
• Eudora frequently asked questions (faq)