New Web-based UO Alpha Mail Offers Many User-Friendly Features

Many of the early testers of Alpha Mail, the UO's new secure web-based email option, have liked it so much that they are now using it exclusively for all their email needs.

Alpha Mail is still in the process of being enhanced in response to user feedback, but it is already full-featured and ready to use. If you want to try it, go to http://email.uoregon.edu/ and select the link New! New web email (alternative interface to your uoregon.edu account). You'll be presented with a login page that asks for your uoregon.edu username and password.

After you've successfully logged in to Alpha Mail for the first time, you'll see a request to set your initial preferences (your addressing preference, how you wish to handle sent mail and deleted mail, and the mail folders you wish to have displayed). You can change any of these choices later by simply opening the Settings menu at the top of the page and selecting new preferences.

After you've established your initial preferences, subsequent Alpha Mail logins will take you directly to a list of messages in your Inbox. By using the Settings menu, you may choose the number of messages to display per page. Unread messages appear in green. Once you've replied to a message, a green letter R will appear to the left of it. If you flag a message, it's displayed in red for quick reference. (To flag a message, select it by clicking the checkbox, open the More Actions menu--which is directly above/below the mailbox index--and choose Flag.)

At the top of the Alpha Mail page is a row of frequently used menu items, such as Compose, Logout, Settings, and Address Book. In the left margin of the page, you'll see the list of mail folders you've chosen to display. These features are fairly standard and are probably already familiar to you from other mail programs you've used.

Special Features

In addition to the more familiar features described above, you'll find some welcome additions that can make your email correspondence and message management extremely convenient:

1. Sharing Large Files. Alpha Mail can send files up to 200MB. To set the parameters for this service and send the file, open the Share a Large File link in the left menu and fill in the blanks.
   
2. Foreign Language Capability. Alpha Mail is 100% Unicode compliant and can handle all your foreign correspondence needs, whether you're sending email in Polish, Pushto, Thai, or Gujarati. You can also create folder names in any language you wish.
   
3. Quick View of Disk Quota Usage. No need to get caught short on disk space! You can easily monitor your disk space usage by clicking the Space Usage link at the top of your Alpha Mail page. Disk use information is updated every five minutes.
   
4. Easy Spam Reporting. You can quickly and easily report spam in two steps:

   • Open the mailbox index list and check the box(es) next to the offending message(s)
   • Click the More Actions... button at the top/bottom of the message list, select Report Spam, and hit Return.

                    Alpha Mail window showing More Actions menu open and Report Spam selected.
   
   You'll see a confirmation that your spam was reported, highlighted in yellow at the top of the page. That's all there is to it!
   
5. Optional Trash Can. If you prefer to delete and purge your messages directly from the mailbox index page instead of storing deleted messages in the Trash Can, you can set that option under Settings -> Folders. Under Utility Folders->Trash Folder, simply choose "None (delete messages on purge)."Thereafter, the messages you choose to delete will be displayed with a line through them in the mailbox index. To delete them permanently, hit the Purge Deleted button at the top/bottom of the mailbox index page.
   
6. Message Filtering. Type keywords in the Filter box in the upper right corner of your mailbox index to display only those messages that match. Filtering instructions and examples appear when you hover over the Filter box with your mouse.
   
7. Address Book Importing. You can easily import your address book from UO "Green" WebMail and many other email clients by going to Address Book-> Import and following the instructions.

These are only some of the handy features of Alpha Mail, and more refinements are still being added. Give Alpha Mail a try and find out why it's becoming the email client of choice for many UO users.