A non-profit publication of the Office of the University Relations of Virginia Tech,
including The Conductor, a special section of the Spectrum printed 4 times a year

Improving e-mail service with Campuswide Mail

Virginia Tech Spectrum, September 14, 1995

Heavy demand continues to tax Campuswide Mail service despite ongoing system improvements and expanded communications capacities. The service is particularly sensitive during weekday peak loads which begin around noon (sometimes earlier) and continue through the evening hours.

You may not know that you can streamline your own use of Campuswide Mail, thereby saving yourself some time while you help improve service for all.

Here are a few tips that can help everyone:

1. PLEASE REMOVE YOUR MAIL FROM THE SERVER (MAIL.VT.EDU). The mail server must check the headers on all your messages before taking any other action, and the more messages you leave on the server, the longer this processing takes, the slower your mail retrieval, and the less satisfactory the overall service. Therefore, be sure your mail client (Eudora, NUPop, etc.) is configured to remove the mail from the server once copies are delivered to your system.

In Eudora 1.5.1, from the SPECIAL menu, select SETTINGS, then select CHECKING MAIL (or in older versions of Eudora, from the SPECIAL MENU, select SWITCHES). The "Leave Mail On Server" box should NOT have an "X" in it.

In NUPop, from the OPTIONS menu, select PREFERENCES, then MESSAGES. The "Leave incoming mail on server" option should NOT have an "X" next to it.

Of course, if you are checking mail from somewhere other than your primary system, you may need to leave the mail on the server until you can get back to your primary system to download the mail for permanent storage. Just make sure that your primary mail system is not set to leave mail on the server.

2. PLEASE DISABLE THE AUTOMATIC MAIL CHECK FEATURE IN YOUR CLIENT SOFTWARE. Automatic mail checks, particularly those performed at frequent intervals, generally acquire little or no mail, but their collective impact dramatically degrades overall system performance when widely used. You are being considerate of others when you check your mail manually and only when you are actually ready to work with it.

3. REMOVE YOURSELF FROM (OR DISABLE THE `SEND' FEATURE ON) AUTOMATIC MAILING LISTS when you do not plan to receive mail for any extended period of time.

LISTSERV lists allow you to disable/enable mail (without removing yourself from the list) by sending a mail message with a blank subject line to: listserv@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu.

To stop mail from a listserv list, the first and only line of the message should be: SET listname NOMAIL where `listname' is the name of the list. To restart mail, the first and only line should be: SET listname MAIL. To disable mail from non-LISTSERV sources, you should contact the person or organization in charge of the mailing list.