The Post Office is the area of the Rio Grande Free-Net set aside for sending and receiving electronic mail (Email). Every user with a Rio Grande Free-Net User ID and password has a personal electronic mailbox on the freenet; any registered user on Rio Grande Free-Net may send and receive email with any other user on RGFN and via the Internet and Bitnet networks to other computers. Visitors to the system who do not yet have User ID's may neither send nor receive email.
The mail function uses a great deal of space on the RGFN system. Consequently, your mailbox space is restricted to 200k in size. What is 200k? About 140 screens of information or 50 to 70 short messages. This means that it is very important that you check your mail often and delete, capture or move email to your work area. To efficiently handle the demands of the mail function, the RGFN system deletes any mail more than 15 days old. Please note, I said delete. We lack the resources to help you recover mail.
If you have a home Internet address other than at Rio Grande Free-Net, use the forward option to have your mail sent there. If you subscribe to lists, be sure to send a "set nomail" message to the listserv prior to going on vacation. Use the log functions in your communications software to capture messages you want to save and then delete the message in your mailbox. Use the > command to move messages to your work area for downloading later. Use the MAILBOX REPAIR option to move your mail to your work directory.
When messages arrive in your mailbox, a "You have new mail" note will display on your screen. If you are already in the post office, the message will appear when you either leave the post office or use the "w" command to write a fresh version of your mail list. If you are not currently logged on, you will receive this note immediately upon logging on. NOTE: An odd side effect of this function is that any user receives "You have new mail " upon his or her first login -- whether or not there is really mail there. It does not recur.
To check your mail, you may take either of two routes:
1. choose Post Office from RGFN's main menu, then choose Open Your
Mailbox from the post office menu; or
2. use the shortcut command 'mail' at any arrow prompt.
Either will show you a list of messages waiting to be read in your mailbox.When you check your mail for the first time, you will see a list of one or more numbered messages. One of them will have an asterisk next to its number; this is the current message, and any actions you take from the menu at the bottom of the screen will act on this current message. Messages are selected for reading by typing the message number. As you read messages they will acquire the letter R to the left of their numbers. You may also see an A (Answered) or an F (Forwarded) on that message line. If you choose to delete a message, it will show the letter D to the left of its number. As long as a message displays D, it may be undeleted (with a U) and restored to its full glory. Both the D and the message will disappear forever as soon as you exit the post office or use the w command to write out a fresh mail list.
Your signature file is a convenient way of signing every Email message automatically like using a rubber stamp. A signature file is a standard message of up to four lines in length which will be appended to every message or posting you send on the RGFN. It may contain anything you wish provided it's not offensive, but bear in mind that items such as jokes go stale quickly. If you have not chosen an editor your signature file must be completely re-typed in order to change it. If you have chosen an editor you may edit the signature file as though it were a message. The best way to confirm the correct functioning of your signature file is to send Email to yourself; when you receive and read it you will see your signature file.
A Personal aliases file is a means to store the addresses of those people
that you correspond with frequently and shortens the way you must address
the message. For instance, it is much easier to type "Don" than
aa100@rgfn.epcc.edu . Creating a personal aliases file is done in the
Post Office Menu. The entries for each person is made on a separate line
for individual addresses, with the identifier you want to use separated
from the address by a colon. For example, don:aa100@rgfn.epcc.edu followed
by ENTER. You can create a mailing list, by separating the addresses on
the same line by a comma. You can have as many aliases as you want, just
be sure to start each new alias on a new line. For example,
Experts:aa100, ab135
followed by ENTER.
NOTE: If you are using the default editor, you must re-enter all aliases each time that you edit the file.
You may send electronic mail to any RGFN user for whom you know their User ID. You can look them up by name in the post office if you have forgotten their User ID.
Choosing "send mail" produces a prompt asking for the addressee. Type in the RGFN User ID (not the name) of the person to whom you wish to send mail (unless you have set-up an alias file for them). You may specify multiple addresses if you separate them with commas. You will be prompted for a subject which describes the message in brief; this subject will be the title that they see in the numbered list of messages when they go to check their own mail.
After you have specified a User ID and subject and confirmed the accuracy of both, you will be taken to a screen with simple instructions for typing in a message. Among other things it will tell you that every line of a message can be no more than 65 characters (a sample line of 65 dashes is provided) and must end with a carriage return. It will also suggest that you end messages by typing three pound signs (###) on a line of their own. Messages are typed in here; mistakes noticed on a given line after one has already hit ENTER may be corrected only by starting the message over. If this is unacceptable, see the next paragraph, - an editor is what you need.
If you have chosen another editor (see Using Environment Parameters) you will see an editing screen from your chosen editor instead of the 65 dashes and the ### suggestion. This will allow you full power to edit any and all portions of your message until you are satisfied with the whole thing, at which point you issue the exit command expected by your editor ( :wq for ex, esc shift-ZZ for Vi, esc-Z for Chet's editor, and ctrl-x for PICO).
Another option to prepare a message is to compose the text of the message (body) off-line, upload the file to your work area, and then after you have started the message and just prior to 'sending' the message, you can append a file to the message. This would place the text of the file that you uploaded to your work area into the body of the message. Regardless of whether you exited with three pound signs or an editor exit, the final screen in sending a message allows you to choose send a message (among other things). This is the choice which will cause your message to be delivered.
If you have a text file that you uploaded into your work area (See Manipulating Files section in this guide), that you want to include in the body of the message, simply select option #8 (Append a file) to the message, giving the name of the file that you wish to include. To check before you send the message that the file was include, select the option to re-read (type) the message.
Two of the choices deserve a caution: Edit the message and Check spelling. Edit the message should not be chosen unless you have selected an editor, and Check spelling should not be chosen unless you have read the online documentation for the spell checker first--, unlike the rest of FreePort, the spell checker is neither menu-driven nor user-friendly unless you're using PICO.
You may send mail using the Internet and Bitnet computer networks to anyone in the world who has an Internet or Bitnet address. You must determine this address on your own; neither on Rio Grande Free-Net nor anywhere else is there a central directory in which you could look up, say, "Jane P. Doe at Texas Tech" and determine what her Internet address is (or even whether she has one). The usual method to determine someone's Email address is a phone call or letter. Still this Email capability gives you access to well over 100,000 sites around the world including almost all North American colleges and at least one site in almost every country in the world.
To send outgoing mail on the Internet, you simply substitute the recipient's Internet address for the more common RGFN address at the To: YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS: userid@rgfn.epcc.edu
Example: aa100@rgfn.epcc.edu
Note: Your email address is included on each message you send.
SENDING MAIL TO AN RGFN USER: TO: userid
Example: TO: aa100
Note: It is not necessary to include the system address on local mail.
SENDING MAIL TO ANOTHER SYSTEM: TO: userid@system.organization.domain
Example: TO: aa100@rgfn.epcc.edu
Note: Usually there are no characters in an email address other than the at (@) symbol or periods. BITNET locations are slightly different.
MULTIPLE ADDRESSEES AND COPIES: TO: ralphs@heaven.irs.gov,aa100
Example: TO: aa100,ab200,userid (use commas)
Note: This is a good way to keep a record of what you sent.
To send outgoing mail on Bitnet, follow the same procedure and add one additional step: append ".bitnet" after the address (that's "dot bitnet", without quotes).
Examples: To: macpherson@oregon.bitnet
To: r1328@csuohio.bitnet
In the case of outgoing Internet and Bitnet mail, the system will check
for a well-formed address, but will not confirm that such an address
actually does exist. Should your mail be undeliverable you will find
it returned to your box after a while, marked undeliverable by one of
the daemons lurking in the background.
You can also send E-mail to BBS mail systems, as long as you know the address of the person and the net address.
Examples: To: Tom.Jones@p20.f18.n395.z1.fidonet.org
RGFN User's Guide Copyright 1995: You may copy this guide and distribute it for educational purposes only and not for any other purpose.
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