% $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}
Pine� - 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. 
