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Hi Erica. You've asked about lots of different things so my
answers will be right below, mixed in with your questions.
On Tue, 6 Mar 2012, ebl7@chebucto.ns.ca wrote:
> To Whom It May Concern:
>
> First off, please know that I am computer illiterate. A lot of technical
> things go right over my head or make me want to pull my hair out. I am having
> some problems and have some complaints about the email service provided by
> Chebucto Community Net.
>
> Previous to this, I had (and still have) a gmail account. I had no problems
> with this. The icons were straightforward and clear as to what they meant.
> There were no redundant ones. Also, I had the ability to underline, bold,
> italic, change font and font size. Although I never made changes to the font,
> I did use the bold and italic. Am I blind and just not seeing it, or is there
> no way to do this in CNN email? As well, the font that I see when both
> composing email and reading my mail is, for lack of a better word, irritating
> to read. It is like some old style font like system or something. Why not
> Arial or something more smooth (again, for lack of a better word).
>
Okay, here you are asking about two different things, the
appearance of the webmail window and selecting how you compose email.
First off, changing the appearance of the webmail window.
Unfortunately there is not a lot to be done here - webmail is set by
default to use the computer's system default font. I could not find
anywhere this could be changed in the webmail settings.
Now about using different fonts and text effects in an email, this
is called HTML. Straight up, email is a text medium and the professionals
frown on HTML email. In any sort of professional contact, the preference
is simple plain text.
Now that being said, if you want to compose HTML mail in our
webmail you can - click on Options in the top webmail toolbar. Under
Message Options click on Message Composition. Put a checkmark on
[] Compose messages with an HTML GUI by default (if browser supports the
feature)?
and click the Save Options button. Now the HTML option will be the
default.
You can also change this preference on an email by email basis by
clicking on the option in the New Message window, right above the message
body. If you're on text composition, it will say:
Switch to HTML composition
and if you're on HTML composition it will say:
Switch to plain text composition
> Another beef I have is that it doesn't seem to like it when I spend a long
> time composing an email. I once spent nearly an hour on a very important
> email and this happened. I clicked on Check Spelling. The words Check
> Spelling turned red and then everything froze. I waited about ten minutes and
> then just clicked Send Message. That's when a bizarre message came up.
> Unfortunately, I was so flustered, I neglected to write it down. But it was
> something like: "Your email may be at risk for spyware/viral attack. Use must
> login again to verify your identity." Please keep in mind, that's a rough
> estimation of what the message said. I logged in again, clicked Send Message
> and suddenly found myself staring at my desktop image. It had completely
> exited my email. I wrote a quick email to the person I had been writing to,
> to ask if they got it and they never did. I could have screamed, I was so
> mad.
>
> This next problem has happened several times now. I click Send Message and I
> get a message saying (and this time I wrote it down): "This request cannot be
> completed because the link you followed or the form you submitted was only
> valid for 30 minutes. Please try again now." At least when I click Send
> Message a second time after this message appears, it does send my email.
> However, for the first time, this exact message appeared after I clicked on
> the icon, LOG OUT. I always log out of my email, instead of just closing the
> tab. I want to be sure I am logged out of my email when I go to do Google
> searches and visit websites.
>
> What is going on? This is very frustrating, especially no ability to use bold
> or italic.
>
What's going on with the error messages is that secure sessions in
a web browser have a built in expiry. If you keep a secure page open too
long, the session simply expires. It's a security precaution. From further
below in your email you have already found the answer - compose long
messages in a text editor then copy and paste the text into the New
Message window when you're ready to send the message.
> Also, and this is where my ignorance will shine through, what are these icons
> for? FOLDERS SEARCH FILE MANAGER NOTES TASKS OPEN FOLDER. What do I do
> with these? How do I utilize them? They seem redundant to me. I just read my
> email and compose and send email. Even gmail doesn't have any of these
> things. The weird thing is, the important icons (that gmail has clearly
> visible) are hidden in a drop down menu, such as JUNK MAIL SENT MAIL
> DRAFTS. When I first got CNN service I couldn't find these most important
> icons/words until I accidentally clicked on that drop down menu in the upper
> right corner. The first word visible is INBOX and since there is already an
> icon for that, I never bothered to click on it. Am I making any sense?
>
The best way to learn new things on computers is to just try them
and see what happens.
Folders shows a list of your mail folders. You can create new
folders, delete them, etc. There is a drop down menu with the folder
options in the Folder Navigator window marked "Choose Action" and all mail
folders have check boxes to select which folder an action will be applied
to.
File Manager shows you a list of non-mail files and folders in
your account. This would include your public webspace and any other
non-mail saved files in your account. As above, there is a dropdown menu
with available Actions and you can upload and download files to and from
your account.
Calendar is an online appointment book. You can put in
appointments, reminders of birthdays, etc.
Notes is an online notepad. Jot quick notes to yourself.
Tasks is a task manager. You can set schedule reminders for your
various tasks and their time limits. Similar to calendar but focussed on
tasks only.
Password changes your mailbox password.
Address Book is where you can save email addresses.
Options set webmail options. You can change many settings like
default colors and themes, how mail is displayed (though not unfortunately
any font settings I could find), and so on.
Open Folder (and its drop down menu) allow you to browse your mail
folders and look at their contents.
When you're in any of the other applications than mail, different
header row options pertaining to the specific application will also be
available. Adding dates to the calendar, that kind of thing. You can
always get back to your mailbox by clicking on the Mail icon.
> I feel like I'm in the email twilight zone here!
>
> At least I figured out a way around this 30 minute time limit and spell check
> freezes when composing long letters. I write the letter as a word document on
> Windows first, copy, open my CNN mail, and click past in the compose mail
> window (except you oddly call it NEW MESSAGE). Even that threw me the first
> time!
>
> Erica Lewis
>
>
I should also mention we're not CNN, we're CCN or as we more
commonly call ourselves, Chebucto.
The webmail offers a lot of different tools over a secure
interface accessible from anywhere with Internet access. It is not perfect
but the software is free. Also, we're not Google with unlimited finances
to put toward any new software development, we're running a pretty close
to the bone enterprise here with no budget for extras. We do what we can
to meet peoples' needs and provide everyone access.
At some point in the not distant future we will upgrade the
webmail software packages and I'll keep your comments about default fonts
in mind and see if there's anything we can do there. As to the rest of it,
feel free to explore. You may even find some of the features you thought
of as unnecessary are actually useful to you for something.
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