Accessing your Carthage e-mail from off campus using POP mail

Now you can use Netscape (or any other POP mail client) to read your campus e-mail. POP is the system used by many educational institutions to provide their students with e-mail capabilities. If you've been wondering how our usual VINES mail system compares to what many others use, you may want to try this.

The primary use of POP mail should be for accessing your mailbox when you are off-campus using someone else's internet connection.

A few caveats to POP mail include:

1. You can only see the contents of your General and Wastebasket folders. No other folders are visible and you cannot file messages into other folders.
2. New messages are not displayed automatically as they come in. Checking for new messages can be performed automatically at set intervals or manually when you wish, but the process can take several minutes, depending on the size of your mailbox.
3. There is no directory service to look up Carthage users' names so you must know the recipients INTERNET ADDRESS (not their Carthage user id) when sending mail to campus users. These can be looked up on our web page at http://www.carthage.edu/ais/alias.html

If you do want to use Netscape to read your mail, you must set up Netscape as follows: (The example below uses Netscape Communicator version 4.72)

1. Click on the Edit menu and drag down to Preferences.
2. Click on the plus sign (+) in front of Mail & Newsgroups
3. Click on the Identity tab and fill out as follows:
   Your Name: First and Last name (or whatever name you want people to see)

E-mail address: your Internet mail address, e.g., l-croft@carthage.edu

Reply to address: your internet mail address (optional)

Organization: Carthage College (optional)

Signature file: (optional)

4. Click on the Mail Servers tab

Click the Add button. Then click the General tab, and fill out

Server Name: pop.carthage.edu

Server Type: POP3 Server

User Name: your internet mail address (don’t include the @carthage.edu)

Click the POP tab, and put the check mark in front of both "Leave messages on server" and "When deleting a message locally, remove it from the server."

IMPORTANT!! Be sure to check “Leave messages on server” or your messages will be downloaded to the hard disk of the machine you’re using to check mail from off campus. Then, when you return to campus, you won’t see any of those messages in your mailbox when you launch Happy Mail, Beyond Mail, or Vines Mail.

Click on OK to return to Mail Servers Preferences window

5. Fill out the following in the Mail Servers preferences window

Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server: smtp.carthage.edu

Outgoing mail server user name: your internet mail address (don’t include the @carthage.edu)

Leave the rest as is or modify as desired.

If you are using a computer that others use, make sure that you remove the Identity settings when you are finished. If you are using a computer that is not at Carthage, make sure you also remove the Mail Servers information when you are finished.

If you want to use any POP mail client other than Netscape to read your mail, please realize that this is not supported and the Computer Center will not provide instructions or assistance for setting up or using it.

To use POP mail through Netscape:

1. Start Netscape
2. Click on the Communicator menu and drag down to Messenger
3. Click on the Get Msg button
4. When prompted, enter your VINES network (campus network) password

5. Your General and Wastebasket folders will show up in the upper left area. The list of messages in that folder will show up in the upper right area. If you click on a particular message, its text will show up in the lower area.
6. The messages may show up in an order that you are not used to (like older messages on top). To change the order of the messages, click on the Message menu and drag down to Sort. To display the new messages on top, drag down to Ascending.
7. To refresh the screen and see new messages you have received since you first brought up your list, click on the File menu and drag down to Get New Mail. This process takes a while, so you may not want to use it often.
8. Use the buttons on the toolbar to Delete and Reply to: (Re: Mail) messages.
9. Use the To: Mail button to compose a new message. In the To: area, you must enter the person's INTERNET MAIL address such as j-smith@carthage.edu Do not put inet[ ] in front of it and do not use campus e-mail address such as smith@stus@carthage.