University Migrating Students to Windows Live Mail? 450
An anonymous reader wonders: "My University has begun a migration of student email services to Windows Live Mail. All students will be forced onto the system by the end of the semester, but it doesn't support POP or IMAP. Because of that limitation, the only freely available mail client it supports is Windows Live Desktop, which is only available on Windows and I'm worried its ads might be vulnerable to malware just like the ones in Live Messenger. I depend on my mail client and I am concerned about this, because we're not allowed to forward our mail but are responsible for information received there from the University and classes, I'm not on a Windows machine, and I don't have the time to regularly check for web-mail, during the day." What are the pros and cons of such a move for a mid-sized or large college? If you were in charge of the communications of a such a university, would you outsource [please note the vendor neutrality, here] your e-mail?
Has anyone else's tech department migrated to Windows Live Mail? Why did they make that decision, and how did it work out for the students? For those of us who have already switched our accounts with no way to revert, what ways exist to get around the lack of POP and still use a client? Is there any hope we can get the University to change back or Microsoft to implement POP before the semester's end? How does your University manage their email?"
Contact them (Score:5, Insightful)
Use this form to contact them and tell them what you want (pop, imap support, or whatever).
http://feedback.msn.com/eform.aspx?productkey=mai
Re:Contact them (Score:5, Insightful)
You also won't end up locked in.
The correct answer to the student's questions is to go to a different school. Its institution's staff IT people are obviously incompetent or getting kickbacks if they are going with this "solution" that, like Windows Vista (makes XP look like a dream), gets in your way. Microsoft's products are become a severe hinderance to productivity.
Re:Contact them (Score:4, Informative)
You can also define externals contacts. You can install connectors to view Calendars from Notes Organizations, etc. pp.
Step spewing nonsense.
Re:Contact them (Score:4, Informative)
And the GP's reply was correct. Whomever thinks Exchange cannot forward email to an external (non-Exchange) server just doesn't know anything about Exchange, (or how to use Google or the MS-KB either!).
Not that I'm advocating using Exchange mind you, I still think it sucks/blows majorly for a whole host of reasons, but the above sorts of statements are just painfully ignorant.
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Get what you pay for -- free email hosting from MS (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Get what you pay for -- free email hosting from (Score:3, Informative)
Free, huge storage, POP3, all kinds of rules you can make, excellent SPAM filtering (way better than MSN), and Google has another service that offers free web hosting.
A new feature being gradually implemented (I think be seniority) is the ability to check other POP3 accounts from Gmail. Gmail also has the best AJAX interface in existence, IMHO.
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Who needs freaking MS and their "Live*" crap? Apparently not the IT department, whose natural instinct would have been to pile on more MS junk but they went the Gmail route because whatever solution they picked would have had to work on the Macs at WU too.
The Googleplex has made recent decisions I would have to categorize as "evil." However,
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yes and no (Score:5, Insightful)
Your university might want to consider outsourcing to Google Mail...
Does Google support IMAP yet? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does google's hosted service offer IMAP? Or are there plans to in the near future?
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Re:Does Google support IMAP yet? (Score:4, Informative)
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IMAP would make sense, though, since you could access to the gmail account with your favorite client. Nevertheless, since gmail does not use folders (uses labels) I guess they do not offer IMAP because of that lack (heh, they say it is a feature
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Google Ads don't make you money based on hits; people have to click them first.
What are the specific requirements? (Score:5, Insightful)
#1. Must support pop3 - will test using clients X, Y & Z.
#2. Must support imap - will test using clients X, Y & Z.
#3. Must support 1 & 2 with encryption - will test using clients X, Y & Z.
etc.
It is the requirements that make or break projects. Determine the requirements and how you'll be testing to see if those requirements will be met and THEN you can start looking at which vendors can meet those requirements (and testing to see that they actually DO meet them).
Sounds complicated (Score:5, Funny)
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The question is not that everyone uses windows, but that everyone will have to use windows forever- which is a different thing. Also, when choosing standard tools and protocols, everyone using windows will not loose any capability.
Furthermore, your point is in contradiction with the word "university".
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It's funny that Americans say 'communism' when they refer to a centrally planned economy in a totalitarian government. Of course, there's nothing centrally planned or totalitarian about everyone using Windows.
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Re:yes and no (Score:5, Insightful)
Free vs Not-Free, webmail vs who-knows-what client (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:yes and no (Score:5, Interesting)
Our boss dismissed the idea of outsourcing to Google or anybody else based SOLELY upon the fact that they reserved the right to advertise in the future to our students. We don't view our students as a commodity to be sold, so that kinda killed the whole "outsource the email" idea.
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that's not outsourcing (Score:5, Insightful)
Outsourcing means you pay market rates for the service. Then, your students won't be subjected to advertising.
(As an aside, the ads are easy to kill.)
Uh, complain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh, complain? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your suggestion seems a tad excessive, IMO.
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I would probably think about it if I were in this position, and weren't especially attached to that school, and here's why: an action as poorly thought out as this one is surely not the only silly thing the school has done or will do in the near future. In other words, stupidity is almost positiv
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Speaking as one of those "average students"...
1. Webmail, of any sort (including gmail), is annoying to use. No matter how sophisticated your javascript/AJAX tricks are, you can't make a webmail interface as sensible or responsive as that of an ordinary desktop mail client.
2. Most of us have university and non-university accounts. If we use webmail, we either have to forward messages from one account to the other (exactly what the OP is complaining he can't do with his harebrained Windows Live setup), o
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He should switch schools because he goes to the University of Idaho. The fact that the school uses Windows Live Mail is just one of the many reasons he should jump ship.
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I think there's a name for that feeling...something like the "holier-than-thou" attitude?
Re:Uh, complain? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can't be serious. Goddam, people have it so good these days. When I was at uni all our e-mail was on a VMS system and I had to actually go onto the campus site and access it through a VT100 terminal. If I wanted to read my e-mail at home I had take it home on paper after printing it out on a dot matrix line printer that normally had about 2 days worth of jobs queued up ahead of me. With this kind of thing we just put up and shut up. You can't let trivial things make big decisions for you.
Now maybe if t
Which university? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Any quota is a particularly low quota. If one is set at all, it's with the expectation that it will be hit -- why else set it?
As for bouncing (or worse), that depends on whether the quota is hard or soft, and whether it is set at system level or application level. If on the latter, yes, a system can still accept e-mail, but if the former, the MTA has no other recourse than to
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I imagine that it'd cost perhaps $5k for a server that'd handle University of Idaho (scaling down from my university's setup). Setting it up for webmail and POP3/IMAP/SMTP access (OpenWebmail, IMP, Hula, Citad
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It appears that they are being forced to use this on a condition of participating in schoolar activities. It also appears to be a state funded school (at least partialy) and freedom of speach liabilities could arise from having to use windows software.
Maybe the decision process could be backtracked to a piont were someone actualy recieved something for
POP access (Score:5, Informative)
Re:POP access (Score:5, Informative)
Ludicrous, idiotic, stupid, corrupt (Score:4, Insightful)
When word gets out what University is comtemplating
this, well, I would not want to be associated with
the decision.
No POP service? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why can't they just offer POP service to those who want it?
Re:No POP service? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't they just offer POP service to those who want it?
Because then you could use non-Microsoft products to access your mail.
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Free is still about money..lol
My experience as a student and campus IT admin. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't understand the problem with having a universal campus-hosed e-mail service. They have servers accessible to
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Students will rely on whichever email system is more useful to them. If you do not provide a superior level of client compatibility, accessibility, reliability, and usability, then students will resor
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Are you high? Seriously, what color is the sky in the world you live in?
As a campus system admin, I would completely say bollocks to that. You're opening yourself up to tons of "I never got that message, Professor Xavier," and crap like that.
You give them a campus e-mail addres
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Since gmail, or even AOL became ubiquitous, university-based email addresses really are extras that most students don't need or want. For that ma
Please check out Thunderbird (Score:4, Informative)
Good luck.
So basically they don't provide e-mail (Score:2, Interesting)
No, worse than not providing email. (Score:2)
Just open a gmail account, forward e-mail from Windows Live and use the free POP.
They won't let you, so you are forced to use something that can use Windows Live or miss out on University communications.
Even LSU had enough sense to outsource to a mail service that had POP and IMAP and works with kmail. Why does it work with kmail? Because the service is based on free software and coded to REAL STANDARDS, not some M$ crap d'jour.
You have my sympathy (Score:3, Insightful)
If they tried this at my institution there would be riots quite frankly - does everyone in your CS department run Windows? Even in the Biology departments not everyone runs Windows! I certainly couldn't accept this kind of situation occurring for staff, so I wouldn't therefore accept it occurring for students. In a world where the concept of choice is so readily bandied about as being 'a good thing' this is a retrograde step, regardless of who the vendor is.
Of course many of the students and staff already forward their email en masse to Gmail and either store it/deal with it there..
Sounds Dubious (Score:5, Interesting)
I am skeptical of your question/issue. I strongly suggest that you post a link to your institution's new policy. Or, post the policy here yourself. Your description is so "worst-case-scenario", that I have too many doubts. University's are not completely stupid and you have framed this as a "dumb-big-institution" gripe. I mean, your question is framed so that there is no possible answer. It seems to be a setup for a bunch of anti-MS posts and "what's-a-poor-student-to-do" grandstanding.
Also, if what you say is true then you can always get a free (as in beer) bot that will provide any auto-forward capabilities that Windows Live may not (or may) provide.
Re:Sounds Dubious (Score:5, Informative)
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Can I change the appearance of VandalMail Live?
Windows Live Mail is extremely customizable. Not only are there several color themes, but students will be able to change the layout of reading panes.
Oh the choice! Several color themes no less...
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You've obviously never been to mine.
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I wish they would outsource! (Score:2, Informative)
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is it really cheaper to have all your internal e-mail (must be quite a large volume if people are readilly hitting the limits on 250meg boxes) flying on and off campus several times.
also have they considered the potential cost of losing internal e-mail service if they lose thier internet connection?
Outsource to Microsoft?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Would I outsource it to Microsoft? Not a chance in hell.
I'd find a company whose primary focus is email. That way I could expect some kind of service.
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Better idea: load up a small Linux box in a closet and drywall it:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010409S001
Virtual machine (Score:2)
I find that somewhat funny. I think the real problem is that you hate it that they force a way of working onto you, which as an added benefit runs on the Evil Empire's platform.
My solution would be to run a virtual machine at home using VMWare, Xen or something. At the Uni, there will be enough Windows boxes available.
Google Apps (Score:2, Informative)
2GB of space. POP3. Spam filtering. Cost? $0.
I use a .forward file at my school just because the local mail is so unreliable (downtime, messages lost, etc.). Even *that* has been a liability when they have managed to crash their RAID array and not have a backup. That was when final projects were due, too. And they limit us to 250 megabytes total on the system. Oh how I yearn for the day they will here my humble petitions and switch to Google Apps.
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I hope you're not on an English course.
State university; needs of professors (Score:5, Interesting)
Talk to professors. Some of them may be running projects which require that certain information never leave the school campus except over secure channels. Or they simply might not want to send certain information anywhere within 1000 miles of Redmond. Find out who they are and have them lobby to change the requirement.
Also find professors and students who are anti-monopoly and anti-forced-advertisements. There should be plenty of them in the School of Liberal Arts. Get them to lobby also.
Given that the decision has already been made, it's probably too late for you. I hope these suggestions help others whose schools are considering outsourcing functions to unrelated entities.
When it comes to educational IT outsourcing of just about anything other than consumer software, I recommend:
Because of security, outsourced email is short-ter (Score:2)
Academic Freedom (Score:2)
Yikes (Score:2)
I betchya what happened is some CIO drank some Redmond Kool-Aid and made a deal with the devil. Sounds like everything on that campus is about to go to Exchange. My condolences.
Vendor-neutrality (Score:5, Interesting)
Even in my own institution, which is slavishly Microsoft-dominated, both student email and faculty/staff email are accessible from any platform. Not necessarily optimally -- OWA is probably the suckiest email interface ever devised -- but no-one is placed in the position of not being able to read college email just because they happen to use a Mac, or a Sun, or a Linux box.
It's an education/training problem: most Windows users are only very dimly aware that anything else exists: they may have heard of Apple Macs but probably not of Linux. They've certainly never seen or used anything except Windows, and are thus completely baffled and uncomprehending at the concept of someone who is not a Windows user.
When that species of ignorance exists at decision-making level, you will get people making unwise decisions because they are simply unaware that any problem exists. If they are already that badly brainwashed, then recommendations for alternative action from lower down the food chain will have no effect, because they lack the cognitive hooks on which further information can hang.
Outsourcing in a university environment (Score:2)
- Is the IT department that made the e-mail outsourcing call in charge of purchasing hardware and OS/software licenses for academic departments' general computing needs? If not, is there a plan to provide academic departments with fully functional access to the e-mail solution on whatever platforms they are using?
- What about ADA compliance? Do the proprietary client and the platform it runs
Uni = large percentage of Mac users (Score:2)
Of the 10 or so people I'm close friends with that bought new computers while in school (graduated 06), every single one of them bought Macs. About 50% were former Mac users, and 50% switched from Dell or H
I see 2 problems (Score:2)
2 - relying on a proprietary product ( schools should teach choice, and encourage experimentation. This is counter productive )
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Its all about money (Score:2)
1. It is free. To do it ourselves would be expensive when you start looking at the HW requirements.
2. No ads for current students. Once they become alumni MS will put ads in their stuff.
3. When the decision was made, Google supposedly wanted 10K a year. Now its free I think.
4. Colleges want student email so they can eliminate paper communications (save on postage) for "official" communicatio
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By default it is on.
I'm going to call this "CIO Syndrome" (Score:2)
But those users and their impacts don't come out of the CIO's budget, so they don't count.
Has anyone ever met a CIO who didn't have "CIO Syndrome"?
dave
Outsourcing email doesn't make any sense (Score:2)
scalable mail system using open-source tools on cheap hardware.
An *example* of such a combination might be: OpenBSD, postfix,
SpamAssassin, CLamAV, UW-IMAP, perdition. This combination
supports secure POP and IMAP, along with mail submission via
SSL and TLS, thus accomodating horribly broken clients like Outlook.
Building a cluster of such systems (to distribute load and provide
fault-tolerance) is a well-understood exercise.
Second, any solution w
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Vendor Neutrality? Brain Dead! (Score:2)
please note the vendor neutrality, here
You mean forget everything I know? No way! Even if I thought outsourcing email was a good idea, M$ is the last group I'd trust. I don't, but I can say that LSU's outsourced email works.
No Forwarding? (Score:2)
However, the forwarding ban was only for *external* mail servers. Other mail servers within the school's domain were OK. So I forwarded my university mail to the Computer Science Department's internal mail serv
Get Alumni Involved (Score:2)
Another good one is to get in touch with Alumni. If you can contact any of the technically minded ones, get them involved. Nothing hurts a university more than uproar from Alumni who are perspective donors.
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On the other hand "let the Uni IT department do their job" is a two edged sword. I don't think University IT services are
anywhere near infallible, and they certainly can use (constructive) critisism. One thing that has astonished me is the degree to
which the fraction of the University budget consumed by the IT (or computing services, or whatever) seems to stay constant or increase while the actual servi
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Because of that limitation, the only freely available mail client it supports is Windows Live Desktop, which is only available on Windows and I'm worried its ads might be vulnerable to malware just like the ones in Live Messenger. I depend on my mail client and I am concerned about this, because we're not allowed to forward our mail but are responsible for information received there from the University and classes, I'm not on a Windows machine, and I don't have the time to regularly check for web-mail, during the day."
He notes the client, notes that it is Windows only.
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He knows about the program, but doesn't use Windows so the program is useless to him and many others at his university, and he doesn't want to use webmail.
As for emails it might be. Uni announcements probably will be sent out a week or two in advance so he can check them fine on campus, but universities use email for more