...and neither will the University IT Service. Here's a previous TechNews post on this topic

It appears that some people received the following email recently:

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Thank you for your patience!!
Help Desk
ITECH SERVICES
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

DO NOT respond to this email. If you have already responded. Change your password IMMEDIATELY. To change your password, press Ctrl-Alt-Del and select 'Change password.'

Remember:

...you will never receive an out-of-the-blue email from ISU Extension IT staff requesting your password. You should never respond to an email which does not identify a specific person or persons (but just says 'iastate.edu support team' or 'ISU Extension support team' or some other general label), particularly if they are requesting secure information like your password or Social Security Number. If you ever receive such a request, you can report it to eit@iastate.edu

Let's say you've already set up AutoArchive to archive your mail automatically every 6 months--that's all your email in all your online folders. Your Deleted Items folder is emptied regularly. And you've even set a couple of folders to AutoArchive more frequently.

You're feeling pretty good about your mailbox clutter control (and you should!)

Then one morning, you come to the office bright and early only to find that the mailbox you thought was under control is right back up to 1G and climbing.

What's going on?
One thing to consider is the number of attachments you're sending and receiving. Sometimes when you're working on a collaborative project, you may send a large attachment back and forth several times. Each time, you're sending and receiving a new copy of that attachment. For example, suppose you have a 10M attachment. You send it to 10 people who each send you revisions. Maybe you're trying to meet a deadline so over the course of three days you send the document out 10 times and receive back 50 revised copies. Remember that both the attachments you send and the ones you receive are stored on the server.

So, let's do the math:
Sent: 10M file, 10 times=100M
Received: 10M file, 50 times=600M

Over the course of two days, your mailbox size has increased 600M.

You might also be receiving presentations for a conference. if you get 10 Powerpoint presentations and they're each 50M apiece, that's 500M from those 10 emails alone.

What can you do about it?

• You can delete those emails when the conference or the revision process is over.
  
• You can set AutoArchive to archive more frequently than every 6 months.
  
• You can also remove or save attachments so that only the original email message remains in your inbox.

To remove (delete) an attachment from an email message

1. Right-click on the attachment
   
2. Select Remove

To save an attachment from an email message

1. Right-click on the attachment
   
2. Select Save As...

Be sure you're emptying your Deleted Items folder or the deleted attachments and emails will still add to your total storage on the server.

Most of you have likely seen the following from Iowa State's Chief Information Officer:

To the Iowa State campus community:

Over the weekend, the campus has seen an increasing amount of spam email, purportedly coming from the "IASTATE.EDU SUPPORT TEAM,"
asking recipients to confirm their email account by following a link and entering their password. These spam emails are not from any Iowa State entity, and should be deleted immediately.

We'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Iowa State University, IT Services, and the Solution Center will never ask for your password via email. Do not click on links in suspicious emails. If you have questions, the Solution Center is available to answer them at 515-294-4000.

More information can be found by following the Information Technology link on the Iowa State University home page.

Jim Davis
Chief Information Officer

The link he mentions for more information is here

If you responded to an email like this, you should change your password immediately (press Ctrl-Alt-Del and select 'Change Password')

As a point of reference, you will never receive an out-of-the-blue email from ISU Extension IT staff requesting your password. You should never respond to an email which does not identify a specific person or persons (but just says 'iastate.edu support team' or 'ISU Extension support team' or some other general label), particularly if they are requesting secure information like your password or Social Security Number. If you ever receive such a request, you can report it to eit@iastate.edu

Remember, any time you have a question about the legitimacy of a message of this or any other type, you can email EIT (eit@iastate.edu) or contact the hotline (515-294-1725)

Some of you may have probably encountered the following problem when transitioning from Outlook 2003 to 2007: when you enter names on an address line, Outlook is very, very, very slow.

Our solution to this problem has been to delete the .nk2 file, which is where Outlook stores your 'nicknames' or addresses that you have used in the past. This allows Outlook to operate normally but eliminates that list of email addresses and only temporarily solves the problem until the .nk2 file gets large again.

Last week, we found a new solution to the problem, namely making a change in VirusScan.

Because we roll VirusScan out through the EPO (which means it is installed and updated automatically on all machines in the domain). You should see this problem disappear or, never see it if you upgrade from 2003 to 2007 at a later date. If you're still experiencing slow Outlook response times, contact the hotline (515-294-1725) to troubleshoot.

Have you ever looked at the bottom of your Outlook screen and seen the words 'Offline' or 'Work Offline'?

You think--I didn't do anything, how did that happen? Why did it happen? What does it mean?

When Outlook is set to Work Offline, email you write will not send automatically and you won't receive any new email--even when you're connected to the network--unless you select Send/Receive in the Tools menu. Once set to 'Work Offline,' Outlook assumes that there is no network connection and, therefore, no automatic checking or sending of email. When you're actually in a location with no network connection, the Work Offline setting can be convenient because you can reply to emails but not send them until the next time you're on a network. 'Work Offline' ensures that you don't get error messsages or computer slowdowns from trying to send messages that can't be sent.

So why does it seem that sometimes your Outlook application gets set to 'Work Offline' with no intervention from you?
When you have a weak, intermittent or non-existent network conenction, Outlook will sometimes automatically switch over to 'Work Offline' and then not switch back when your network connection comes back up. So if you've had a network outage in your office, it can pay to check this when the network is back up.

How do I fix this?
Click on the File menu, then click on 'Work Offline.' This is a toggle so if it's checked, it will be unchecked when you click on it and vice versa.

I've talked about spam before in TechNews here, here, here, and here.

Mostly I don't hear much from people in Extension about spam because most people don't actually get much spam. Then, there'll be a brief influx of more spam than usual and people want to know what's up, where that spam came from, how it can be stopped.

Here are some things to keep in mind when occasionally thinking about spam:

First, when you see a sudden influx of spam in your mailbox, it's most likely not because someone's been giving out your address or selling mailing lists. Spammers have automatic name generators, some of them are only in business to verify legitimate email addresses and sell them to other spammers, they crawl websites, join mailing lists to harvests names and generally devote 100% of their time to finding all the email addresses they can.

Also, remember that:

--90% of all email is spam
--90 BILLION emails a day are spam
--If 90% of your email is NOT spam, then someone, somewhere is working to stop spam from getting to your mailbox
--ISU works very hard to make sure you get all of your legitimate email and as little spam as possible--this means that occasionally you see more spam than you'd like.
--If you're not filtering your mail on ISU's Perlmx ratings, why not?
--Spam vs spam fighters is a war--sometimes we win for a little while; sometimes the spammers do.

Things you can do:

--Don't reply to spam (ever)
--Filter your email
--Enable Outlook's Junk Folder (remember to check this folder occasionally for 'false positives'--messages reported as Junk that are not actually Junk)
--Delete spam messages unread

ISU has a Spam FAQ which describes in more detail Iowa State's spam fighting efforts.

Recently there's been a new spate of spam reaching ISU Extension mailboxes. Spam blocking and filtering is a battle with escalating tactics. We on the spam fighting side are nearly always on defense and each time spammers find a new strategy, some spam inevitably gets through.

I'm posting the message I sent in email here as well to provide another place with a roundup of links on the nature of spam and what you can do to keep as much of it as possible out of your mailbox.

The first, most important thing to know about spam is this:

--60 billion emails a day
--90% of all emails

That's how much spam is in the network every single day. What this means to you is that you will always get (some) spam. There is always someone looking for a new way to send it, for a new technique to get by spam filters, for a way to worm their way into your mailbox and make you look. If your mailbox on any given day contains less than 90% spam, someone, somewhere is helping you out.

The second important thing to know is that there are some things you can do so that you see less spam.

Here are some helpful documents:

• Setting up Rules and Filters in Outlook 2003
• Setting up Rules in Outlook 2007
• Why Rules will help you filter Spam (or, Things to Know About Spam)
• New Kinds of Spam (or, Spamming Malware)
• More New Kinds of Spam (or, Spamming Malware II)

Note: to turn on Outlook's Junk E-mail filtering as well, go to Actions--Junk E-mail--Junk E-Mail options.

Remember, if you turn on the Junk mail filter in Outlook, you'll want to remember to check for 'false positives,' email that isn't spam, but has been filtered into your Junk mail box.

Several of you may have received email that looked something like this:

Dear Customer,

Our robot has detected an abnormal activity from your IP adress
on sending e-mails. Probably it is connected with the last epidemic
of a worm which does not have official patches at the moment.

We recommend you to install this patch to remove worm files
and stop email sending, otherwise your account will be blocked.

Administrator

...with a link in the body of the message to a purported security 'patch'.

DO NOT click on this link.

Like the 'Someone sent you an e-card' emails many of you may have received in the last week or two, this is an attempt to get you to install malicious software on your computer.

Link to previous entry on this subject: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/technews/archives/002235.html

Remember, if it's not from us (Extension Information Technology) or ISU ITS (Information Technology Services), it's extremely likely that it's not legitimate. Anytime you're not sure if a message is legitimate or not (even if it looks like it's from EIT or ITS, contact us at eit@iastate.edu or the Computer Support Hotline (515-294-1725). We're always ready to check it out for you.

You may have recently received an email with a subject header that resembled:

You've received an ecard from a class-mate!

In the body of the message will be at least one and possibly two links which will lead you to a webpage that will try to load malware on your computer.

Some things to keep in mind when considering whether an email of this type is legitimate or not:

• The email of a legitimate egreeting should be from the egreeting site, not a yahoo (or other free) address
• The links should go to the e-card site (and particularly, should resolve to an actual domain name, not a series of numbers like--xx.xxx.xxx.xxx)
• The e-card should be from someone (not 'a friend' or 'a classmate' or 'a family member')

• If you have doubts about an email of this type, don't click on any of the links. You can always forward the message to eit@iastate.edu and ask us whether it's legitimate or not.

You can find more information about this particular bit of spam/malware at:

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=3063&rss

After installing Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 on Windows XP you may receive an informational dialog box when starting Outlook that says: "Windows Desktop Search is not currently installed or not up to date. Outlook will not be able to provide fast search results when using the new Instant Search functionality unless this Windows component is installed."

The Instant Search functionality of Outlook 2007 requires a component called Windows Desktop Search (WDS) to be installed. Without this you still have all the same search functionality, but results won't be returned as quickly. You can check the box that says not to show the message again--and have slower search results--or you can install WDS.

To install WDS version 3, download from the URL below, log on as administrator and install. It will take some time for the initial index to be built, but thereafter your search results should be noticably faster.
www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4982072F-7660-492F-B96C-E42B4F5AB4AA

Cheers.
dddugan

Things to Know:

• We all get it
  
• We all hate it
  
• We all wish it would go away

Additional Things:

• More than 55 billion emails a day are spam
  
• 90% of all email is spam

If three-fourths of the email in your inbox is not spam then thank your local mail handlers and your email program because they are stopping a huge number of useless junk emails from filling your mailbox to overflowing.

Because ISU is a research and academic institution, it is considered more important that all legitimate mail gets through than that all spam is stopped. ISU has opted to emphasize filtering over removal (if you've ever tried to reach someone whose ISP overzealously dumps spam before it gets to the user, you have some idea why ISU takes the approach it does). There are no ideal solutions merely solutions that fail in different ways.

Things done in your name to stop the torrent of spam to your mailbox:

• Greylisting
  
• Perlmx

Things you can do to stop what does make it through:

• Set up a rule to filter Perlmx ratings over 30 or 40%
• Enable Outlook's Junk folder

Additional information: http://www.it.iastate.edu/spam/faq.html

Remember--
Both Outlook's Junk folder and the Perlmx rating system may label email that isn't spam as spam so you need to check your Junk folder periodically to make sure that a legitimate email isn't getting caught. If you're expecting email from someone or if a message does get caught in the Junk folder, you can add that address to your address book to prevent it getting caught again.

Spam filtering is a war with escalating tactics and our side is primarily battling defensively. That means everything we do will eventually be countered. It also means that you may go several months and see no spam whatsoever then--boom!--ten pieces of spam show up in your mailbox in one day.

Why Outlook/Exchange? Reason three says that Outlook/Exchange will give you simpler and more flexible access to your email whether you're at work, at home, or on the road.

Today: You most likely use a combination of Eudora on your work computer, ISU Webmail and/or Eudora on your home computer. And possibly ISU Webmail when you borrow someone else's computer. Because most of your email is stored on your main computer, you need to check settings (if you use Eudora on your home computer too) to make sure that you are leaving mail on the server so that it's also available when you're back in your office, or, if you use ISU Webmail, you need to remember to periodically go in and clean up the extra copies of email that Webmail generates.

With Outlook/Exchange: In Outlook/Exchange, your most current email is stored on a central server; you see the same email whether you're accessing Exchange via Outlook on your primary work computer, through Outlook and VPN from your home computer, or through the Exchange web interface when you're on the road. In addition, the web interface for Exchange also gives you access to your calendar, your tasks, and your meeting schedule.

A few weeks ago, I posted Reason one for switching to Outlook/Exchange. You can see that post here.

Reason two for why Outlook/Exchange might be a good application for you is the ability to share calendars.

Currently, staff need to coordinate calendars for meetings, travel, educational programs and many other events. Coordination and planning can involve staff in many different locations. Some of this coordination is currently done by sharing calendars via email, paper, and other individual means.

Outlook/Exchange allows users to give permission for others to view their calendars. Permission is under the control of individual users and can be set to several different levels of access, most commonly, 'review' status (people with permission can look at, but can not make changes to your calendar). Depending on how you use the calendar features of Outlook/Exchange, you can also enter events which are 'Private,' which means that other people can see that you are unavailable during that time, but they will not see any specific information you enter for that time period.

Why Outlook/Exchange?

Frankly, switching to a new email system is a lot of work. Everyone will need a new account, old mail will have to be imported or archived, Outlook/Exchange requires some important cultural changes in the way we store our email and maintain our calendars. We're making the transition because there are significant advantages to individual users (you) and (we hope) to the organization in moving from Eudora to Outlook/Exchange.

Over the next few days I'll be posting five reasons you might want to use Outlook/Exchange.

Reason One: Outlook/Exchange has integrated email, meeting planning, and calendar scheduling

Currently, you need different applications for handling email, your calendar, and scheduling meetings. Many people in Extension are using a combination of email and phone calls for setting up meetings (often the meeting organizer sends out a list of possible dates and tabulates the feedback).

With Outlook/Exchange, email, calendar scheduling and meeting planning can all be done within the same program. A meeting organizer can check schedules, pick the best meeting time, and send an email announcing the details. People attending the meeting can accept or decline the meeting time or suggest an alternate time. Meeting notices and updates appear in users' mailboxes, but once acted upon (accepted, declined or alternatives offered) the details about the meeting, including the date and time are automatically added to the user's calendar.

--
Remember: you can't switch to Outlook/Exchange yet. Specific details about the changeover will be coming soon.

There's already been some talk around Extension about one of our IT projects for this year--moving from Eudora for email to Outlook/Exchange for email and schedule sharing.

A series of official announcements will be coming in the next few weeks to discuss what we're doing, why we think it will be a good thing for you, what the specific changes will be and what you'll need to do, as well as training opportunities.

In addition, we're going to be putting posts up here on TechNews at least once a week from now until, well, we don't have anything more to say. Coming soon will be posts that will talk about:

Why switch to Outlook/Exchange
Five reasons you might want to use Outlook/Exchange
Outlook and security
How does Outlook/Exchange differ from Eudora?
What will I have to do?
What's in it for me?

...and others.

Note: We are switching to Outlook/Exchange, which is different than Outlook alone (the application that's currently on your computer). Switching to Outlook today won't speed the transition to Outlook/Exchange later. Hold tight for now. More information is coming your way.

ISU's Academic Information Technologies (AIT) has released a new set of documentation on coping with spam. The main page can be found here.

Documentation includes online videos as well as instructions for filtering spam on several different e-mail applications including Eudora and Webmail.

You may also want to check out the Frequently Asked Questions:

How Much Spam Does Iowa State Receive?

It is difficult to quantify the amount of spam Iowa State receives daily, partly due to the different number of ways in which people define spam. It is estimated that about 40 to 60 percent of the total volume of email that Iowa State receives each day qualifies as spam, using the broader definition of the term.

UPDATE: (4/19/04): Eudora 6.1 is now in the Current section of the Scout kit. In the instructions below, skip steps 4 & 5.

Eudora 6.1 is now available. To upgrade to Eudora 6.1:

1. Back up your current Eudora folder (this is a precautionary measure only; you shouldn't have to copy it back).
2. Log in as Administrator (be sure to change 'log onto' to (your computer))
3. Go to the Start menu, select Scout (you will be downloading Eudora 6.1 off the network; do not use the Scout CD)
4. At the bottom of the Scout Window, select 'Configure'.
5. Select 'Advanced'. Select 'Done'
6. Select Eudora 6.1 email
7. Once Eudora 6.1 is installed, reboot your computer and log back in as yourself.

NOTE: when you go back into Scout the next time, you may still be set to the Advanced kit. Click 'Configure'. Select 'Current'. Click 'Done'.

We are recommending this update because Eudora 6.1 appears to fix the recent problem some people have been having with mail messages that contain or did contain at one time the Exploit.MIME virus. Because this virus is prevalent, even people who have not yet encountered this problem should take steps to update.

The symptoms of this problem (via AIT):

1. Eudora is launched and email is checked. During the download process, VirusScan reports that it has found an infected file with a name like “RCV6B.tmp” or “xxxxxx.RCV”. These are temporarily used by Eudora as it is processing new email.
2. If VirusScan successfully deletes the file, a series of prompts are presented by Eudora saying that if can't find a particular temp file (like rcv6b.tmp). The user gets to click OK many times.
3. If you close Eudora and restart it, all of the remaining messages that were waiting to be processed are flushed from the Eudora spool directory resulting in a loss of those messages.

If you have questions, contact the computer support hotline at 515/294-1725.

UPDATE: Eudora 6.1 is now available in the Advanced Scout Kit. See instructions above.

NOTE: Soon Eudora 6.1 will be available through the Advanced version of Scout (on the network). We’ll announce its availability here and you can then more easily upgrade to 6.1 using the Scout program

WHY do it before it's available via Scout?
Eudora version 6.1 appears to fix the problem some people are currently having with lost email from a specific VirusScan/Eudora interaction when certain detected virus messages are encountered. IF you are having this problem, you may want to upgrade now.

Before you upgrade:

1. Backup your Eudora folder
2. Make sure VirusScan is uptodate (you should be running VirusScan Enterprise 7 and have it set to update regularly)

If you have Eudora 5.2 or older:

1. Log in as Administrator
2. Using the Scout CD that was sent in the March 5, 2004 transmittal packet, install Eudora 6.0 on your computer
3. Reboot your computer
4. Remove the Scout CD from your CD drive
5. Proceed to follow the instructions for upgrading Eudora 6.0 below

If you have Eudora 6.0

1. While still logged in as yourself, open Eudora. Click on the ‘Help’ menu. Select ‘About Eudora’. Write down the ‘Reg#’
2. Close all the programs you’re currently running. Log out and log back into your computer as Adminsitrator
3. Open Internet Explorer
4. Go to http://www.eudora.com
5. Click on the button labeled “Download Eudora 6.1”
6. Under ‘Eudora for Windows’ click “Download Eudora 6.1”. When it asks, click “Save”. Click “Save” again. Note where your computer says it’s saving the downloaded file. You’ll need to know this for the next step
7. When you’ve finished downloading Eudora, find the downloaded file (file name: Eudora_6.1.exe). Double click on Eudora_6.1.exe. Follow the on-screen instructions provided.
8. Once installation is completed, Restart your computer and log in as yourself (use your email address without ‘@iastate.edu’ and be sure to change ‘Log onto’ to IASTATE).
9. Run Eudora. If it tells you that you must pay, go to the ‘Help’ menu. Click on ‘Payment and registration’. For First Name, type: Iowa State University. For Last Name, type: Site License. For Code, type the ‘Reg#’ you wrote down in step number 1 (under ‘If you have Eudora 6.0’)

Follow these instructions to ensure your email continues to work after January 6, 2004.

On January 6, 2004, the ISU Office of Academic Information Technologies (AIT) will begin requiring updated network applications. This change is in response to security concerns and will provide a higher level of security for the ISU Extension network. Affected applications for Extension, in particular, are Scout and Eudora. You will need to update these applications on your computer now.

Please print these instructions before beginning.

• Do NOT attempt to open your mail while logged on with the local administrator account.
• Do NOT use your Scout CD for this update.

To update your computer:

1. Log on with the local administrator account (remember to change 'log onto' so that it contains the name of your computer (which will be identified on a drop down list by (this computer)).
2. Open Scout (Start, Programs, Scout) **If Scout DOES NOT allow you to login, proceed to the "Update Scout" instructions below**
3. In Scout, select the Eudora Pro Updater button and follow the instructions.
4. Exit Scout, reboot your computer, and log back in with your regular username. Be sure to change 'log onto' back to IASTATE.

Update Scout: (only if you're prompted to do so)

1. When prompted to update Scout, click No.
2. When prompted to update Scout's components, click No.
3. Click Exit to close Scout.
4. Connect to your shared drive:
   1. Right-click on My Computer
   2. Select Map Network Drive
   3. Select S: and enter "\\ext-county\shared" (no quotes, substitute the name of your county; for example "\\ext-story\shared")
   4. Uncheck Reconnect at Logon
   5. Click on "Connect using a different username"
   6. Type IASTATE\username (for example, IASTATE\jdoe) and then your password
   7. Click Finish
5. From the S: drive, open the EIT folder and double-click on Scout32-6.0.exe, follow the on-screen instructions.
6. Run Scout (Start, Programs, Scout)
7. Click OK to install Kerberos, follow the on-screen instructions. When it tells you to make sure that no programs are running, right-click on the gold key at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen and select 'Exit.'
8. Reboot when prompted.
9. Continue with the above instructions (step 3 in the above instructions).

   Note: If you use Host Explorer, you will also need to update this program. You can do so by logging in as administrator, running Scout and updating Host Explorer.

   If at any point you need further assistance, please contact the Extension IT Support Hotline at 515-294-1725.

   Posted by dcoates at 02:27 PM

Follow these instructions to ensure your email continues to work after January 6, 2004.

Note: If you have departmental IT staff, you may wish to contact them before following these instructions.

On January 6, 2004, the ISU Office of Academic Information Technologies (AIT) will begin requiring updated network applications. This change is in response to security concerns and will provide a higher level of security for the ISU network. Affected applications for Extension, in particular, are Scout and Eudora. You will need to update these applications on your computer now.

Please print these instructions before beginning.

Do NOT attempt to open your mail while logged on with the local administrator account.

To update your computer:

1. Log on with the local administrator account (remember to change 'log onto' so that it contains the name of your computer (which will be identified on a drop down list by (this computer)).
2. Open Scout (Start, Programs, Scout)

   If Scout alerts you that a new version is available, follow these steps:

   • Select 'yes' when prompted to update Scout.
   • Follow the on screen instructions
   • Select 'Yes' if prompted to remove shared files.
   • When finished updating, open Scout (Start, Programs, Scout).
   • When prompted to install Kerberos, select 'OK' and follow the on screen instructions. When it tells you to make sure that no programs are running, right-click on the gold key at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen and select 'Exit.'
   • Reboot when finished and be sure to log in again as administrator, not with your regular username)

3. In Scout (or after running Scout again if you've just done the 'update Scout' part of these instructions), select the Eudora Pro Updater button and follow the instructions
   
4. Exit Scout, reboot your computer, and log back in with your regular username. Be sure to change 'log onto' to IASTATE when logging in.

Note: If you use Host Explorer, you will also need to update this program. You can do so by logging in as administrator, running Scout and updating Host Explorer.

If at any point you need further assistance, please contact the Extension IT Support Hotline at 515-294-1725.

On many Windows 2000 computers, if you open Eudora while you're logged in as Administrator, the permissions will be reset on your email folders and when you log back in as yourself, you'll get 'permission denied' errors.

To prevent this from happening, don't open Eudora when you're logged in as Administrator.

To fix the problem once it's occurred:

1. Log into your computer as Administrator
2. Double-click on 'My Computer'
3. Double-click on the C: drive
4. Double-click on the 'Program Files' folder
5. Right-click on the 'Qualcomm' folder. Select 'Properties'. Click on the 'Security' tab
6. In the 'Qualcomm Properties' window, select Power Users under 'Group or User name' (If Power Users is not a choice, click 'Add' to add it).
7. Under 'Permissions for Power Users' Click on the checkbox to Allow Full Control. Click 'Apply'
8. Click on the 'Advanced' button. At the bottom of the window, click on the check box to 'Reset permissions on all child objects...' or 'Inherit from parents...'
9. Click OK. Click 'Yes' when asked for confirmation.
10. Click OK to close the 'Qualcomm Properties' window
11. Log off administrator. Log in as yourself and run Eudora.

If you have problems, contact the Computer support hotline at 515/294-1725

Occasionally we get calls on the Computer Support line from people who can only see some of their mailboxes listed in the Mailboxes menu in Eudora. The remaining mailboxes appear to have 'fallen off the screen.'

Eudora has suggested a couple of ways to fix the problem:

1. Organize your mailboxes into folders.

To create folders, go to the Mailbox menu and click on New. After entering a name, click on the checkbox underneath that says: 'Make it a folder'. To move mailboxes into your new folder, use the mailboxes window on the left side of your Eudora window. Click on the mailbox you want to move and drag it to the folder. When the folder is highlighted, release the mailbox and it will be moved into the folder (if you have filters associated with the moved mailbox, Eudora will prompt you to update them).

2. If you're running Windows 98, 2000, or XP, copy and paste the following text into a new message in Eudora (go to the Message menu and select New Message):

<x-eudora-option:Wrapmenus=0>

This text should be highlighted in blue after you paste it, like a URL.

Once you've copied the text, hold down the ALT key and click on the link. A window will appear, click OK to close the window. Exit Eudora. Restart Eudora. Your mailbox window will now hav a scroll arrow at the top and bottom, allowing you to scroll through the menu.

Source: Eudora.com

E-mail attachments can be an easy way to send documents to another user. They can cause problems, however, when used to send a file (particularly a large file) to lots and lots of people. A copy of the file is made for every person the message is sent to, bogging down the e-mail server, and recipients can't choose when they receive the attachment, which can be a problem if it's a large file and they have a slow connection. In addition, many e-mail servers restrict the size of attachments sent to multiple recipients.

Extension IT has developed a service called Filescatter that allows you to upload the file you want to distribute and notify the recipients that the file is available. You can access Filescatter here. There is also now a pointer to Filescatter under the 'Links' listing to the right.

Instructions for using Filescatter are also available online.

Email service at ISU (affecting all ISUE field offices as well) was interrupted after routine service last night. The official explanation for the interruption is:

Incoming mail gets stored on a POP mail server. Since servers can go down it is necessary to be able to point users at different mail servers quickly. This is done by maintaining a 'virtual mail server' for each individual that points at the person's real mail server. Each Net-ID has a DNS entry of the form net-id.mail.iastate.edu which resolves to the correct pop server. During some necessary maintenance over night these entries did not regenerate[meaning the system was not able to log you in or deliver your mail]. They have now been restored and mail service has returned to normal.

Full email service was restored at approximately 8:30 this morning. If you're experiencing any ongoing network problems, let us know at the computer support hotline (515/294-1725).

As we noted in a previous Technews article, on October 1st, AIT (Academic Information Technology) activated spam detection software to scan all incoming email for spam. Most noticeably to e-mail recipients, mail with a high probability of being spam had information inserted in the subject header that looked like: [SPAM? ##..]

Because there is no foolproof system for separating spam from non-spam, the system, although extensively tested before release, also requires tweaking once it's up and running.

On October 28th, some additional changes will be made to the way the system operates. These include:

--Stop adding [SPAM? ##..] to the subject of suspect messages
--Use an additional header (X-PerlMx-Spam) to indicate the probability that a given message is spam

Sample X-PerlMx-Spam header:
X-Perlmx-Spam: Gauge=XXXXXXXXXIIIIIII, Probabiliy=87%, Report ="BIG_FONT"....

It will still be possible to filter potential SPAM messages as they come in. Instructions for doing so as well as additional information on the spam detection software and the changes being implemented can be found on AIT's web pages.

Spam is junk e-mail that you don't want, didn't ask for and can't get rid of. Current estimates are that spam constitutes over one-third of the email that passes through the Internet every day.

On October 1st, a new spam detection system will be implemented at ISU for email sent to an 'iastate.edu' address. This includes all mail received by Extension staff.

Currently ISU Extension staff receive very little spam. However, spam is a growing issue and a spam detection system can help you control your email so that important messages aren't missed.

Spam detection is more art than science. It works by comparing the header and contents of an incoming email message to a set of rules to detect messages that might be spam. In addition, it ranks messages by the number of matches it gets. The more rules matched in an email message, the higher the probability the message is spam. If an email message contains enough characteristics to be flagged the message subject is modified so that it includes:

[SPAM? #]

The number of ## characters indicates how many of the 'rules' apply to that particular message. If [SPAM? #####] appears in the header then it is extremely likely that the message is spam. If [SPAM? #] appears in a header, it's still likely that it's spam, but you may want to check the message to be sure.

If a message sent to you does not have [SPAM? #] in the header, this means that it didn't trigger enough spam 'rules' to be flagged.

More information about how spam detection is being implemented at ISU can be found at:

Spam Detection Being Implemented

on the AIT (Academic Information Technologies) website.