Lab 1
Part 5

Using Email with pine and Netscape Mail

Using pine to read email

Every student has an email address username@phoenix.princeton.edu, where username is the name you used to log into Windows and Unix. Using pine, you can read all of the mail sent to that address (as well as username@princeton.edu) and send mail to others across the world.

If you opened pine correctly, you should now see a menu with options to compose messages, view messages in current folder and view a list of folders.

If pine does not seem to fit on one screen, make your window larger and continue.

In the top right corner, you should see the name of the currently open folder and how many messages it holds. At first, this should be INBOX, which lets you check all of your new mail. Later, you can make your own folders to organize old messages from different senders.

Because we are still in Unix, you will need to use arrow keys and keyboard commands to navigate Pine. Do not try to use the mouse.

Using the arrow keys, select "Folder Index" and press Enter (or just press "I") to see an index of current email messages.

Even if you have never used email before, there should be at least one message in your INBOX. Using the arrow keys, select the message you would like to read and hit Enter to read it. Notice that many of the available commands are listed at the bottom of the screen. We've explained a few below:

M - Returns you to the main menu
I - Returns you to the message index
S - Saves the message in the specified folder and deletes it from your inbox. (Note: You can create a new folder by saving a message to one that doesn't exist.)
D - Deletes a message without saving it
C - Composes a new message to anyone
R - Composes a reply to the sender of the currently selected message
N - Moves to the next message
P - Moves to the previous message

There are many other useful options, but you can probably discover them on your own with questions and experimentation.

Sending mail with pine

Now you will send a message to a classmate with pine. The process is pretty self-explanatory, but we'll help you through it this first time.

1. Press C to compose a new message
   
2. Next to "To:" type in the email address of a classmate and then hit Enter.
3. Press Enter twice to scroll past "Cc:" and "Attchmnt".
4. Next to "Subject:" type in a phrase describing the subject of your message and then press Enter again.
5. Underneath "Message Text", type in your message.
6. When you are finished, hold down Ctrl and press X (this is called Ctrl-X).
7. Confirm that you want to send the message by pressing Y.

   While you were composing, you may have noticed that the commands at the bottom of the screen looked like this:

   
   
   

   The carat (^) is another way of saying Ctrl. Thus, ^X is equivalent to Ctrl-X. All of these commands use Ctrl because you need letters like "x" and "c" for your message text.

   IMPORTANT: Keep your telnet window open (minimized if you prefer) until the end of the lab when we will ask you to submit one of your messages. When you DO close the window, be sure to exit pine first by typing "Q". If you do not do this, the pine program will crash and create a large useless file in your directory. After you've exited pine you should also log out of unix by typing "logout", though this is not as crucial.

   Now leave your telnet window open, but switch back to Netscape for a moment.

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   Sending mail with Netscape Mail

   Netscape also has a mail reader which you can access directly on your computer. Most students do not use it to read and save email because it stores messages on the computer you are using rather than on your Unix account. This means that you must use the same computer again if you wish to reread those messages. Pine, on the other hand, uses the same files no matter where you run it, so you can use it to check your email from anywhere on campus.

   Yet, while this makes pine more suitable for reading and saving mail, it also takes more time to start, so it may not be the best option for short, quick messages. For this, we can use the "New | Message" option in Netscape.

   First, you must tell Netscape who you are so that it knows who to send the email from. It may also be necessary to make sure that the mail server is setup correctly.

   
   1. In the "Edit" menu at the top of your Netscape window, choose "Preferences..."
   2. A window should appear entitled "Preferences". Within this window, there should be a box on the left with several categories. Click on the "+" next to "Mail and Groups" and then click on "Identity"
   3. Next to "Your Name", type your own name as you would like it to appear in email messages
   4. Next to "Email Address", type in your email address
   5. Now click on "Mail Server". Make sure that the incoming and outgoing servers are set to "mail.princeton.edu" in lowercase.
   6. Click on "OK"

   It is true that you may fool Netscape by typing in a false identity, but be aware that because you are logged in to Windows NT, your messages are still traceable. It may seem fun to forge a funny email from another student, but it will get back to you eventually.

   Now that your identity is set, you are ready to send a message.

   1. Select "New | Message" from the "File" menu.
   2. Type in your email address next to "To:" (to send a message to yourself) and a subject next to "Subject:"
   3. Compose the rest of the message in the large white text box.
   4. When you are finished, press the send button to deliver the message.

   Later in this lab, you should notice that your email message has shown up in your pine mailbox. If you leave pine open, the computer will usually beep when this happens. For now, let's go on to learn how to send more than mail over the network.

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