REASONS FOR GETTING VCSC MAIL AT HOME

The VCSCIS department gets a lot of inquiries on how people can read their VCSC e-mail from a machine other than the one in their classroom or on their desk that they use during normal working hours.  Obviously the VCSCIS department does not have the resources to come and install programs on your system at home so you can read your mail. It is, however, convenient for users to read their mail at home for various reasons.
 

THE LIFE OF AN E-MAIL MESSAGE REVEALED

The sending and receiving of e-mail is one of the least trumpeted but most used tool that the Internet provides. A person can send and receive programs, pictures, sound, and, of course, text. Most people never understand or even know the concept of standard SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) e-mail and therefore get themselves into a lot of trouble when trying to select a mail client program and configure it.  The next few paragraphs will try and explain some concepts (as opposed to keystrokes) about sending and receiving e-mail.

To send a message you first must create it in some kind of editor. Nearly all e-mail clients have some sort of editor built into them. Some use "outboard" editors but it is unlikely that you will run into any of those. Our supported software e-mail client "Netscape Messenger" comes with the Netscape Communicator package. The NetScape Messenger client has some variant of a text editor that pops up when you click new message.  Every message has a destination and a return address that must be specified by the user. Additional fields are available for file attachments, subjects and priorities, though, these are optional.

Once your message is complete, a send or deliver option is clicked via a button or a dropdown menu. Your system then sends the message to the outgoing mail server or SMTP server. The terms are synonymous but confusing to the not-so-internet-literate. Once the SMTP server gets the message, it reads the header and finds out where it needs to send it. It connects to the SMTP server on the machine that handles the destination address and delivers the message to it. The message stays in a file until it is picked up by the owner of the destination address.

Now that the message has been delivered to the remote server where the recipient will pick it up, it just stays there in a file until requested. Usually, it is requested by a POP (Post Office Protocol) client. Netscap Messenger is a POP client. The POP client connects to the POP server and identifies itself with the defined username and password. It then proceeds to tell the POP server to release (and possibly delete) each message.  Once the messages have been downloaded to the POP client, it disconnects (disconnect here = network disconnect) itself from the remote POP server and allows the user to read the mail where the process starts all over again, presumably, with a reply.
 

USING A POP CLIENT AT HOME TO GET YOUR MAIL

Obviously a POP client can run from anywhere, unless restricted. So, this means that you can dial into the internet with your own system and download your mail and read it. In doing this you insert another POP client into the process. Instead of going from mail client to local SMTP server to remote SMTP server to POP client, you go from mail client to local SMTP server to remote SMTP server to multiple POP clients. This causes a problem because, at some point, mail must be deleted from the server. If its not deleted, buildup will occur and you may not be able to get any of your messages. So, each POP client is set to delete each message after it is downloaded. However, if that happens, messages you got at work won't be there for you to get at home. The solution is simple: configure home system to "leave the mail on the server".  Basically that means that your system will download the mail but leave it in place so it can be downloaded again on another POP client.

CONFIGURING NETSCAPE TO PICK UP YOUR MAIL FROM HOME

Note: when first configuring Netscape, you will be given the setup wizard. It is fairly easy to understand. I will not explain the setup wizard since many will need to to the blow procedure anyway. If you have not installed Netscape on your system yet, read the section below. It will foster and understanding of the settings and will help you through the setup wizard. If you then fail on the setup wizard.

Configuring Netscape to work from your home computer is similar to configuring it here at work. One big difference is that your SMTP or Outgoing Mail Server will be different. All other parts of the configuration will be the same. To configure Netscape for your mail, open Netscape and click on the [Edit] dropdown menu. It will drop down. Now select [Preferences]. Upon selection of  [Preferences] you will see many sections.  The section we are concerned with is the "Mail & Newsgroups" section. It may already be expanded to its individual components. If it is, you will see a small minus sign (-) beside it to the left. If it is not expanded, click on the small plus sign (+) beside it to the left. This will expand that section to several subsections. The subsections we are worried about are the  "Identity" and "Mailserver" sections.

The identity section is fairly self explanator. Just use your name and your ???@vigoschools.org address. Some ISPs will not allow you to have an "off-net" e-mail return addres. You may have to use your ???@your_ISP.com address as the e-mail address, however, in all cases that I know of, you can use any address you want in the "Reply To:" field without causing any problems. For instance if your ISP is XyZ, the contents of the fields would be something like this:

Name: George Bowles
E-Mail Address: gvb@vigoschools.org
Reply to Address: [BLANK]
 

But! If XyZ.com won't let you do that, you would do something like this:

Name: George Bowles
E-Mail Address: GeorgiePorgie@XyZ.com
Reply to Address: gvb@vigoschools.org
 

In all situations that I know of, the second example will work.

The mail server section is a bit more cryptic. There are actually two sections. There is an incoming section that uses terms like "incoming", "POP" and "receive". There is an outgoing section referred to as "SMTP", "outgoing" or "sending". (I have included these other terms in case you wish to configure some other mail client rather than Netscape.) In the incoming mail server section you must either edit the server that is there, or, if there is not one on the list, you must add one. Make sure you set it to POP3 and use your username (not your First and Last name) that has been assigned to you. Usually its your three initials and (maybe) and number. Also, use the mail server "mail.vigoschools.org" as the incoming mail server. I would recommend that if you decide to have the machine automatically check your e-mail, set the number of minutes to check at least 20.
 
 

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