You can read and send e-mail using only a web browser by accessing the CIS Unix WebMail server at the URL https://webmail.unh.edu/. It should work with any recent GUI web browser (Firefox or Internet Explorer, for example) on any platform; just log in with your CIS Unix username and password when the page comes up. “Use is self-explanatory.” The product is based on IMP from the `Horde Project'; more information is available from the Horde Project web page.

You can also access WebMail indirectly via UNH's BlackBoard service at the URL http://blackboard.unh.edu/.

WebMail requires no configuration, and you don't need to learn to use any other software than your web browser, so it's ideal for people who “just want to get it going.” It has a limited number of optional configurations, an integrated address book, and a “to do” calendar. It makes hyperlinks in mail messages clickable, and (at least in some cases) does useful things with attachments. Attachments are also easy to send (although uploading them to the WebMail server is a separate step and can take time). All traffic between the WebMail server and your computer is encrypted, so you shouldn't need to worry about network eavesdroppers.

The software does quite a bit of work “behind the scenes” to plaster a web interface onto e-mail functions. So it's probably the slowest method of e-mail access; it can get slower during peak usage times and if you have a large Inbox (or a large number of folders) it can get slower still. WebMail does little automatic management on your Inbox and other mail folders; you will probably need to periodically remove old mail, tranferring it to your computer if desired.

WebMail is extremely well-suited for use as a “backup” method of CIS Unix mail access since it can be run just about anywhere there's a web browser. Underneath everything, it's a standard IMAP server, so it should “interoperate seamlessly” with your current primary mail-handling software. (I.e., it won't delete or move messages from your Inbox unless you tell it to.) You should be able to “see” your other mail folders too; by default it looks in your Alpine folder directory.

Tips and problem workarounds can be found on our WebMail Tips page.

There are a number of decent mail client programs that run on your computer. Examples of such programs include Microsoft Outlook (for Windows), Apple's Mail program (for MacOS X), and Mozilla Thunderbird (for Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux); there are many others.

Mail client programs are (generally) easy to use, although they require more configuration than alternatives. Attachment-handling and hyperlink-handling is generally straightforward. Often they have built-in spam filters.

Such clients make it easy to download mail to your computer. This is good in that (generally) you'll have a lot more free space on your computer to store mail than on the CIS Unix servers; however, mail on your computer would not be readable from other machines.

Further guidelines on configuration of your mail client software is here.

The alpine program can be used to read and send e-mail in a terminal sessions. (See “Logging On” for directions on setting up a terminal session.) You can choose the “alpine” option from the menu interface (see “The CIS Unix Menu”) or if you're using the shell (“The Shell”), simply give the command:

% alpine

Alpine probably has the steepest “learning curve” of all the supported mail programs. In return, however, you get to use a very powerful and configurable program that lets you handle large amounts of mail efficiently and flexibly. By default, Alpine automatically organizes your sent and received mail into monthly folders. An integrated addressbook is provided.

Attachments you send out in Alpine must be uploaded to the Unix server before you send them. Conversely, attachments you receive in incoming mail often must be downloaded from the Unix server to your computer in order to look at them. It's not hard to do such transfers with an SFTP/FTP client program; see this document for more information.

Extensive on-screen help is provided in Alpine. Helpful documentation is available at the Alpine Information Center

Hyperlinks in Alpine are handled (sort of) by the lynx text browser. You can also cut-and-paste them from your terminal window into a GUI browser running on your local computer, which is probably a better idea.

If you don't like Alpine, but you do like terminal sessions, you might be interested in Mutt. Mutt is a full-featured mail system that allows extensive customization of mail processing; it's especially noted for efficient handling of large volumes of messages. One possible drawback is that it uses the vi editor to compose messages, since that is the default for most users. Also, it's not supported by CIS. To try it out:

% mutt