Incoming email

Attachments

Attachments are extremely useful when teaching, because they are a good way to have students send you assignments and other information. Here are some key issues surrounding email attachments, however:

Security

Attachments are a favorite means for virus writers to distribute their products. You need to be very careful about opening attachments, even ones that you are expecting from students. Virus checking and personal firewall software can both help here. I ask my students to send RTF files instead of DOC files, since they cannot contain macro viruses.

Programs and File Types

It can be very frustrating to both you and the student when you receive an attachment that you cannot read successfully. There are a seemingly endless number of file types and file formats out there. On Windows computers, these can be identified by the different file extensions (the three-digit codes after the dot in the file name). In order to read student attachments you need to have either the same software that they have (sometimes the same version) or other software that can read and convert that file type. Asking for RTF files helps with word processing documents. There are a few other generally available file types as well, such as GIF and JPG for images.

File Names

If you are receiving many assignments from members of your classes, the issue of the names that the files have is important. If everyone in a class sends you an attachment called assignment1.rtf, then you are going to be confused. Although you could change the names, why not have the students do it? I ask students to name their files things like ingramassign1.rft. This gives me enough information to identify the sender and the purpose.

Storage

Often your email program will store attachments in a specific folder that it finds convenient. Often this makes it more difficult for you to find specific ones that you need. I recommend moving attachments into folders based on your needs, such as a folder for all assignments from a particular class.

Attachments in Pegasus

Open the email message in Pegasus
Highlight the name of the attachment
Click Save
Choose a location (folder) and file name
(if necessary)
Click Save.

Attachments in Outlook

Open the email message.
The attachments should be listed at the bottom of the window, with icons.
Double click on the attachment icon.
If asked, choose to save the attachment
to disk, since this will let you choose a permanent location and file name for it.
If the attachment simply opens (in, say,
MS Word), then be sure to save it in a convenient place before you exit.

Folders

Folders in your email program operative very similarly to folders on your computer. They are simply directories where you can organize and save various files, programs, and messages. For most of us, the only way to avoid having an effectively infinite Inbox is to organize our messages into folders. Most programs allow you to have folders inside of folders (again, just like on your computer) so you can organize your message hierarchically. For example, I have a folder entitled Courses, within which is a folder for each course I teach. In turn, inside those folder may be more specific folders, such as Fall01.

Folders in Pegasus

To open your list of folders, go to the File menu... and choose Mail Folders. I recommend keeping this window open.
Pegasus makes a distinction between Message Folders and Filing Trays. Message folders hold the messages directly. Filing
Trays, which look like folders, hold one or more Message.Folders. Thus, you might want to create a new Filing Tray entitled Courses and put several Message Folders into it.
To put Message folders into a Filing Tray, click on the Plus sign next to the tray and then drag the Message Folders into it.
To create a new Message Folder or Filing tray, click the New button, choose the what you want to create, and give it a name. Click OK.
To move a message into a specific Message Folder, open the Message folder containing the message (e.g. the New Mail folder, the Main folder, and so on), point at the message you want to move, and drag it to the folder in the Folders menu

Folders in Outlook

I recommend keeping your folder list open at all times. If it is not open, open it with the View menu... Folder List.
To create a new folder, right-click on the list and choose New Folder from the resulting menu. Give it a name.
Move a folder into another one by dragging it.
The Plus signs at the left of folder names indicate that the folders contain other folders. Click on the Plus sign to see
the list of folders it contains.
To move a message from one folder to another drag the message into the correct folder. This is used most often to drag a message from the Inbox to a folder.

Filters

Filters are small scripts that can handle some email tasks for you automatically. A key question is whether there are characteristic of a set of emails that are unique to that set and that apply to all members of that set. For example, suppose you have set up a class listserv. One characteristic of all messages that you receive from that listserv is that they will have the listserv address in the message header somewhere. It is likely that no other messages that you received will have that address in the header.

The second question is what actions do you want to take on those messages? A simple action would be to simply store all those message into a single folder. More complex actions are possible as well. For example, you might have noticed that you are getting many messages (spam) from a single address. They are getting annoying, and you would like to delete them automatically. (I guess for some reason you have decided that you do not want to get rich by stuffing envelopes. Your loss!) A filter could move all messages from that address directly into your Trash can or "Deleted items" folder.

One use for these capabilities is a Bozo Filter, useful when you can identify messages from known clowns.

Characteristics you might filter on

Sending email address (good for listservs and some spam)

Subject

Key words in message

Person's name

Actions that a filter might take

Delete unwanted email without opening it.

File messages from a listserv into a specific folder to read later.

Send acknowledgement of the receipt of a message.

Spam and Filters

Spam (unwanted mass mailings via email) is of increasing concern to most of us. KSU is attempting to block some spam before it reaches you. One person's spam, however, is sometimes another person's interesting information, commercial or otherwise. Filters are one way of dealing with spam, although those sending bulk email change their addresses and other information frequently, so it can be difficult to find rules to filter on. Note that a single rule (e.g. one that deletes unwanted email as soon as it arrives) can have multiple conditions, so you can keep adding return addresses and other identifiers to that rule rather than creating new rules all the time. See the Software Page for some links to programs that might help you remove spam.

Setting up a filter with Pegasus

There are a number of things you can do with filtering rules in Pegasus. Rules in Pegasus generally operate on the contents of Message Folders.
Go to the Tools menu... and choose Mail Filtering Rules. Then choose Edit New Mail Filtering Rules. Then you have a choice of a rule that is applied when a folder is open or one that is applied when it is closed.
The resulting dialog box allows you to add, edit, and delete rules, among other things. If you choose to Add a rule, then you will need to enter the criteria or characteristics (i.e. the triggering text) and where it should appear. Finally, you get to choose from a variety of actions, including copying, deleting, forwarding, printing, and so forth.

Setting up a filter with Outlook

Go to the Tools... menu and choose Rules Wizard. This will step you through the process of creating a new filter.
Follow the directions to choose the type of rule, the criteria or characteristics it looks for, and the actions it takes.
Test the rule to be certain that it does what you want it to do.

Future of filters

Filtering capabilities are likely to get more complex as people require new ways to deal with email overload. For example, I have worked on (but not completed) a filter to automatically send an acknowledgement to students when I move an email message to a specific folder. There are now programs available to help you sort and organize your emails in various ways... essentially by having more robust filtering capabilities.