% $Id: mail.tex,v 1.32 2012/01/12 00:00:09 lfaraone Exp $ \section{Reading Mail and Bulletin Boards On Athena} New Athena users since 2009 use Outlook Web App for email. Documentation is provided by IS\&T at {\tt http://ist.mit.edu/services/email}. \subsection{Evolution and Pine} % discuss athena issues and point to cental docs % omri asks: ``athena issues''? Ximian Evolution is a personal productivity suite available on all Athena workstations. It is also the officially supported mail reader for Athena. It can read the emails you have stored on your server and in your MH folders, filter your email and offers a personal calendar, task manager, and contact manager. To start it just click on the mail icon in your GNOME taskbar. % There does not seem to be an Athena doc source % on evolution beyond starting it and clicking on 'help'. % or going to the building next to TEP and ringing up Nat. % Make sure we point out this difference between athena pine and sipb pine. % The below is 1/2 a braindump, I'll clean it up eventually --jtbraun From {\tt http://www.washington.edu/pine/}: \begin{quote} PineŽ - a {\bf P}rogram for {\bf I}nternet {\bf N}ews \& {\bf E}mail - is a tool for reading, sending, and managing electronic messages. Pine was developed by Computing \& Communications at the University of Washington. Though originally designed for inexperienced email users, Pine has evolved to support many advanced features, and an ever-growing number of configuration and personal-preference options. \end{quote} Pine is an easy to use mail client with comprehensive online help. Many of the keystokes used in the editor are similiar to GNU Emacs (C-c cancels, C-x sends, C-v pages down). In any screen, the most commonly-used commands appear at the bottom of the screen. For other commands at any time, press {\tt o}. In any screen (except the editor) the {\bf ?} key will bring up a context-sensitive help page. You can {\bf e}xit this menu at any time. Pine can filter your incoming mail into seperate mail folders. From the {\bf m}ain menu, enter {\bf s}etup, select {\bf r}ules, and select {\bf f}ilters. Now, you can {\bf a}dd a new filter. %explain filters % explain selecting, appyling, deleting % expunging etc \subsection{Other Mail Readers} Mozilla's Thunderbird mail reader takes a bit of work to configure properly for your Athena account. To use it you will need to open the Mail \& Newsgroups window and follow the dialog to fill in your account information. You will need to have your Mozilla certificates already working when you first try to read your mail, and you will need to know the name of your IMAP server, which you can find out by typing the command {\tt chpobox}. % Add how to configure it, and maybe also mozilla, and point to documentation % Full docs are not our job. I'll do this if no one else does. --yak Gnus is an emacs-based mail and news reader. It is best not used for reading mail, but it is highly useful as a news reader. To start it, open an emacs window and type {\tt M-x gnus}. One other client available is {\tt mutt}. % Short discussion, point to docs. \subsection{The Discuss Bulletin Board System} Athena has a legacy networked conferencing system called Discuss that is used by many people in the community to, well, discuss things. This system is also used to archive many of the email lists used by the MIT community, so you will likely find yourself needing to have a look at the system. Several Discuss clients exist, including the shell client {\tt discuss} and the graphical client {\tt xdsc}, and the \footref{http://www.diswww.mit.edu}{ archives can also be seen from a Web gateway.} For more information on Discuss, there is the SIPB-maintained document \footref{http://www.mit.edu/afs/sipb/project/www/discuss/discuss.html}{Using Discuss}. \subsection{Usenet} Usenet (Users' Network) is a bulletin board shared among many computer systems around the world. Usenet is a logical network, sitting on top of several physical networks, including UUCP, BITNET, and the Internet. Sites on Usenet include many universities, private companies, and research organizations. Usenet predates the Web and has its own protocol (NNTP), its own set of reading and posting software packages, and most importantly, its own conventions and organization. SIPB maintains the Usenet server {\tt news.mit.edu} and several programs through which people can connect to it. These include {\tt trn}, % rn is an alias to trn nowadays. sh/bash kind of thing {\tt xrn}, and Gnus (see above). Another way to reach Usenet is to visit the Google Groups site, which provides a Web gateway to Usenet. For more information, see SIPB's guide to Usenet.