7.0085 Rs: Mail Systems (2/84)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:43:09 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0085. Friday, 9 Jul 1993.


(1) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 10:57:48 -0800 (45 lines)
From: <goodrich@leland.stanford.edu> (Tom Goodrich)
Subject: Re: 7.0082 Qs: Mail Systems;

(2) Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 10:23:44 +0000 (39 lines)
From: banks@vax.ox.ac.uk
Subject: Re: 7.0082 Qs: E-Groups; Addresses; Mail Systems

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 10:57:48 -0800
From: <goodrich@leland.stanford.edu> (Tom Goodrich)
Subject: Re: 7.0082 Qs: E-Groups; Addresses; Mail Systems; Cambridge (6/125)


Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA> writes:

>
>Thanks to NSF, we are about to hook up to the Internet using our own
>address and host computer.
>I'm searching for suggestions regarding public domain software for
>e-mail in conjunction with the Internet connection. Comments from
>HUMANIST readers, especially based on their experience -- good or
>bad -- with a particular e-mail system for campus use would be greatly
>appreciated.
>

Your choice of email software is, of course, greatly constrained by the
kind of network you'll have and the sorts of workstations people will be
using for mail. If you have Macintoshes or DOS machines running Windows
and an Ethernet network, I would heartily recommend Eudora. This is not
public-domain software, but is available free via anonymous ftp from
ftp.qualcomm.com. At Stanford, we have well over a thousand Eudora users,
many of them faculty in Humanities departments who otherwise would never
have used electronic mail. Eudora is also in wide use on many other
campuses around the country; it actually originated at the University of
Illinois, but subsequently moved to a commercial vendor (Qualcomm) with its
creator, Steve Dorner. While there have been discussions about charging a
(small) fee for Eudora, I've heard of no decision yet, and we would
certainly consider a small site license fee more than justified by the
additional support. By the way, to run Eudora, you also need software
(usually for a Unix machine) that implements POP (Post Office Protocol).
One good version is popper, available via anonymous ftp from
ftp.cc.berkeley.edu.

Good luck.


Tom Goodrich Internet: goodrich@leland.stanford.edu
Faculty Support Group/DSG Bitnet: tom.goodrich@stanford
Data Center Phone: (415) 723-2897
Polya Hall 257
Stanford University
Stanford CA 94305-4136

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------49----
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1993 10:23:44 +0000
From: banks@vax.ox.ac.uk
Subject: Re: 7.0082 Qs: E-Groups; Addresses; Mail Systems; Cambridge (6/125)

In reply to:
>Date: Thu, 01 Jul 93 07:49:06 CDT
>From: Charles Ess <DRU001D@SMSVMA>
>Subject: shareware mail systems?
>
>I'm searching for suggestions regarding public domain software for
>e-mail in conjunction with the Internet connection. Comments from
>HUMANIST readers, especially based on their experience -- good or
>bad -- with a particular e-mail system for campus use would be greatly
>appreciated.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Charles Ess
>Philosophy & Religion
>Drury College
>Springfield, MO 65802 USA

I'm not sure about the central mailing system: this would depend on what
kind of site computer you had and what mailer it already had (eg. vms-mail
on a vax, or Sun mail on a Sun). What I can recommend if your
desktop/networked machines are Macintoshes is the *free* program Eudora
(from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). In conjunction with
POP server software (also freeware) running on the central machine, Eudora
will pick up messages and deliver them to your desktop in a very
user-friendly way. Similarly you send messages out from the desktop with
Eudora, and it hands them on to the 'real' mailer. Our computer officer has
even found a way to make Eudora work on shared machines, by having the
users (students in our case) carry a floppy containing their own settings
files (including passwords etc) and mailboxes. There is a pc equivalent to
Eudora called NuPop I believe, but we haven't tried this. All the programs
should be available from the normal ftp sites. It's a bit fiddly getting
everything up and running smoothly but once it's going it's fine.

Marcus Banks, Oxford, UK