Email to the Desktop
Introduction
This document contains general information about email to the desktop.
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The email server at Mount Holyoke College is also the computer
that many people log into -- mhc.mtholyoke.edu. On that computer
a number of
people run the email program called "pine". Pine is a
mail agent that takes care of sending and reading email. It allows
one to store and manipulate mail folders on the server.
While a shell login to mhc.mtholyoke.edu provides services beyond pine,
that is such a common reason for logging in that many people (erroneously) use
the phrase, "logging into pine". (People are really logging into a
computer system and running "pine" as a program.)
At one level pine is the fastest and most reliable method for
obtaining email. However, because pine is a text-based program that does not
directly handle attachments (other than simple Word files),
only a minority of people use it. Desktop email clients are much
more efficient when dealing with attachments.
Desktop
email clients communicate with mhc.mtholyoke.edu by one of two
protocols: IMAP or POP.
We provide IMAP and POP services for email access for email clients on
personal computers that have direct Internet
access. POP can only be used from on-campus computers, but IMAP
can be used from any properly named computer on the Internet.
We recommend IMAP and discourage POP.
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POP
The "post office protocol" (POP) has been around quite a while.
It is a relatively simple protocol and does not have a lot of
features. Most email clients are able to use POP.
The major disadvantage to this protocol is that it moves all email to
the local machine thereby precluding its use from multiple locations.
Be very careful if you experiment with a POP email client.
IMAP
The "Interactive Mail Access Protocol" (IMAP) is designed to function
in a client/server environment where there is true interaction between
the desktop client and the server. It allows for the manipulation
of folders on the server and mail can remain stored on the server.
This allows the use of email from numerous locations and with numerous
email clients.
Choosing
In choosing what form of email to use, there are several things to keep
in mind:
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POP clients move all mail directly to the desktop computer,
a disadvantage for a mobile user who might check mail using
pine from home, or with an email client at the office desk,
or from a lab location. An IMAP client, or using pine
from a shell login to the main computer, allows storage
of email folders on the server.
On the other hand, POP client programs have been around longer
than IMAP clients and are feature-rich, so if you read
email from one location, something like Eudora may be perfect.
The (currently) less powerful IMAP clients offer more control
over where your email is stored and are better for the mobile
user.
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The most significant advantage with email to the desktop is the
simplification of dealing with attachments. Attachments are used
for sending images, wordprocessing documents, or any other
computer file via email. With pine used from a shell login to
mhc.mtholyoke.edu, documents must be moved back and forth
between the mhc computer and the desktop computer since that
is where the attachment or extraction of an attachment in pine
is done.
While this process is made relatively easy by mapping a network
drive to your home directory so that you can work
directly on the network with programs such as Word, it is an
additional step. In addition, some email messages have URLs
embedded in them which an email reader such as Netscape can
directly access.
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While the ability to easily send and receive attachments is a great
advantage, the receipt of an attachment can be a major disadvantage.
Normal, text-only email cannot transmit any virus. An attachment,
however, can be an image, a word processing document, or a program.
When you receive such a thing, you need to treat it the same way
you would obtaining a file on diskette -- it may contain a virus.
With the proliferation of Microsoft Word macro viruses, you may
wish to be hesitant about opening a Word document sent to you
as an attachment.
Recommendations for desktop email
If you wish to use a desktop email client, we recommend
Mozilla using IMAP as the protocol. In this way
you can also continue to read email with pine when you log into
mhc. (If you use Mozilla,
it is important that you select IMAP as the protocol
and then stop and restart the program before attempting to access
email. If you do not, you may find it has used POP to transfer
all of your INBOX to the local computer.)
For reasons of security and backup,
for college employees whose email may contain critical college
business, we recommend that POP not be used. If IMAP is used,
email folders pertaining to college business should be left on the
server.
Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express can also be used for email with IMAP.
The history of security flaws with these has caused some institutions
in the summer of 2004 to recommend avoiding these products.
Macintosh OS X has a good IMAP mail client called, "mail".
General setup
If you are setting up an IMAP or POP client on campus, you may need to specify
both a server from which to obtain your email and a server to handle
your outgoing email. These are different. If you are setting up on
a machine that is off campus and using a commercial Internet Service Provider
(ISP) such as AOL, you will need to use that ISP for your outgoing email,
even though you could attach to Mount Holyoke's server for your incoming email.
- Email server (for incoming email):
mail.mtholyoke.edu
- SMTP server (for outgoing email, on campus setup only):
smtp.mtholyoke.edu
- SMTP server (for outgoing email, off campus setup,
Check with your ISP)
- SMTP port:
25
If you are setting up an IMAP client from an ISP other than mtholyoke.edu,
you need to set the SMTP server to the one your ISP recommends.
You cannot use smtp.mtholyoke.edu.
Even though the mail server today is mhc.mtholyoke.edu and it may seem
to work, do not use that name in the setup.
Setup for Thunderbird
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Creating or modifying your Thunderbird email setup.
Here are a the most important settings when you create an account
in Thunderbird. (The wording below was taken from a Windows
installation. If you are using Macintosh, the wording may be
slightly different but the concepts remain the same.)
Make sure you are doing IMAP and not POP!
Tools/Account settings:
Server settings
Server name: mail.mtholyoke.edu
Username: (your username, such as: sam20j)
Security settings: (our recommendations)
Select "SSL"
Do not check "Use secure authentication"
Advanced: (this is very important)
IMAP server directory: mail
Uncheck: Show only subscribed folders
Check: Server supports ...
Check: Use IDLE...
Outgoing server (SMTP) settings:
smtp.mtholyoke.edu
Select and Edit the selection to get the dialog box:
SMTP server:
Username:
Off campus, make sure your username is included.
On campus, you may use your username. It will then ask for
authentication the first message you send that session.
Check "TLS, if available"
Checking "TLS, if available" with username allows you to send
email through our outgoing mail server from off campus.
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