Chapter 5 - Electronic Mail

5.1 Reading your mail

If you see the icon for the academic vax on the desktop, click twice to open the academic vax. If you do not see the icon, ask the instructor or use the find command under the file menu to find the academic vax.

Next type your user name after User name prompt. The screen should look like this:

Username: Your name is typed here

Hit return and type your Password and hit return again.

After a few seconds you will see the prompt $. If you get a message that says "User Authorization Failure" you probably made a typing error. Hit return and try again. At the prompt $ type mail and hit return to see something like this:

You have 8 new messages.

 

After the mail prompt, mail>, type dir, to see a list of your mail. If you type the number of the message you want to read, that message will appear. If you want to save a message, select the part you want to save and copy into Wordª.

 5.2 Sending mail

Type in mail and after the mail prompt, mail>, type send the screen should look like this:

 

MAIL> send

 

Press return, then type the account name of the person to whom you wish to send mail, hit return and you will see

Subj:

 

Type the subject of the message. Hit return to see:

 

Enter your message below. Press CTRL/Z when complete, or CTRL/C to quit:

 

Type your message, or paste it in from a word file. When you are done, type keys control and z together.to quit.

5.3 Sending mail to outside of CSUB

Type in mail and after the mail prompt, mail>, type send the screen should look like this:

 

MAIL> send

 

When you see to: you must type in the complete address. It looks something like this:

To: smtp%"aeinstein@sci.heaven"

 

In every case you must type smtp%". This tells the program that you are using a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol to package the message. The address says to send the message to Albert Einstein who is in the science section of heaven. Don't forget to close the quotation marks.

Faculty members at CSUB have address that look like this:

fmember@csubak.edu

 

which says the the message is being sent to fmember at csu which is in the domain (that is the correct computert term) of education, at csu.

Joe Schmoe may have an address like this:

Schmoe@aol.com

 

which tells me Schmoe is using an America Online account in the domain of commercial activities.

5.4 Logging off

 You must log off after you send mail. Type q to quit mail and hit return, type lo to log off the vax. If you are working at home type e to exit the vax.

 5.5 Sending a copy of a document to another person at CSUB

 One of the problems with sending mail by the VAX is that all formatting is lost. Text is sent as ASCII text and graphics, etc. will be sent as binaries that have to be decoded. It is possible to send any document together with all the information that document contains (e.g. formatting, graphics, spread sheet, etc.) to someone on campus by the following technique:

1. Open the chooser.

 

2. Choose Appleshare.

 

3. Choose bak_labs.

 

4. Scroll to VAXshare on CSBIBN. The chooser should look like this:

 

5. Click on o.k..

 

6. Log on as Guest.

 

7. Select transfer to put a new icon on your desk top.

  

8. This icon can be treated like a storage device. You can transfer any file to the icon and it will be stored. Anyone who wishes to download the file can use the same technique (steps 1 to 6 above) to access the storage device and download the information.

 

9. All information stored on this storage device is lost at the end of the day.

 

10. Dont forget to use the chooser to select a printer when you are finished.