Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I arrange for a "Vacation Message" when I am going to be out of the office for several days, without email access?

A: If you have never used this feature before on our service, please call our main number several days in advance, for assistance. It is first necessary for us to ensure that your email account has been configured to allow shell access. We will also create a .forward.saved file for you at that time. This is a one-time setup we will perform for each email user, when needed. There is no charge for this service.

After this initial setup has been done, then whenever you expect to be away from email access, you can perform the following sequence of steps.
1. Use an SFTP or SCP client such as FUGU or Filezilla to connect to mindstorm.learningtech.org and upload your desired message to a file called .vacation.msg, replacing any existing file with that name. An example follows.
```
	From: Mark L. Miller, Ph.D. <mlmiller@learningtech.org>
	Subject: Your msg re. $SUBJECT
	Precedence: Bulk

	Hi, I am on travel for the next two weeks, and might not
	be able to respond to your email right away.  If your message
	is urgent, please call our main number for help: 650-598-0105.
```
  If you do not see any files beginning with a period or dot ("."), you may need to tell your SFTP/SCP client to "show hidden files." For example, in FUGU, the command to do this appears in the SFTP pulldown menu. It may also be necessary to tweak your operating system window preferences along the same lines.
  
  Notice the special string, $SUBJECT. It will be replaced by the actual subject line of the incoming message. This string can appear anywhere in your .vacation.msg file. You should use an ordinary text editor (such as Notepad on Windows or BBEdit on Mac) to create this file, not a word processing program (such as MS Word).
2. Launch an ssh client. (This is built into the terminal on Mac OS X. On Windows, there are many free ssh clients such as PuTTY.) Use your ssh client to login to mindstorm.learningtech.org and run the command,
  vacation -i
  from the shell prompt.
3. While still logged into the shell prompt, run the commands,
  mv .forward.saved .forward exit
  It is a good idea to have a friend send you a test message to ensure that everything is working as expected.
4. IMPORTANT: When you return from vacation, login to mindstorm again and run the commands,
  mv .forward .forward.saved exit
  to turn off the vacation feature. It is recommended to ask your friend to send you another test message, to ensure that normal service has in fact been restored.
We are here to help. If you are uncomfortable using an ssh client, and have only an occasional need for the vacation feature, please feel free to ask us to set things up for you. We do plan to offer a web-based interface, to make accessing this feature more user-friendly, eventually.
Q: How do I configure my email software (such as Outlook, Eudora, Netscape Messenger, or Apple Mail)?

A: Instructions are available here.
Q: Someone says I sent them an email containing a virus. However, I did not send any email to them, and, besides, my computer has anti-virus software installed. Also, I thought our/your email server is supposed to scan for viruses. What should I do?

A: It is always a good idea to double-check that your virus definitions are up-to-date, and run a complete scan (all files) of your computer. You should also ensure that all the latest updates and security patches have been applied to your operating system. When in doubt, check with your system administrator to confirm that your email server does, in fact, scan your email for viruses.

Assuming that you have verified that all of these best practices are in place, you can still receive email "bounces" (or outright accusations from remote email servers or their uninformed administrators) stating that you sent an email containing a virus. Usually this is because someone who has your name in their address book (or sometimes a spammer, who bought your email address on a list) is operating an unprotected computer. They have a virus or trojan horse program running on their computer, sending out infected emails. Spammers and virus writers attempt to disguise their identities and cover their tracks. One trick they use is to fill in the "FROM" field of their outgoing emails with names taken from the infected computer's address book. There is very little you can do to stop this, except to encourage everyone you know to practice "safe software" including using a firewall, hard-to-guess passwords, and up-to-date virus protection. We also recommend avoiding mailto: links on your web site and avoiding the use of deprecated protocols such as FTP.