Electronic Communication

A discussion of the underpinnings of electronic communication, focusing primarily on email at RIT. We'll look at your various email options, the RIT LDAP directory, and the IT department FirstClass conferencing system.

We'll also have a brief discussion about other kinds of what's being called "social software," including weblogs, wikis, and other interactive environments.

Readings on Electronic Communication

• Pages 1-6 of the Unix book
• How Email Works - General introduction to e-mail mechanics.
• What is Social Software - An overview of various "social software" tools, from mailing lists to weblogs to wikis.
• Matt Webb's "Slices of the Ongoing Conversation on Social Software" and "More Ramblings on Social Software"

In-Class Exercise: FirstClass

All IT students get accounts on the InfoTech FirstClass server, but not everyone knows how to use it effectively. This exercise will take you through some of the key features of the system.

1. Open the FirstClass client software, and make sure that the server field shows “firstclass.it.rit.edu”. Enter your FirstClass user ID and password to login.

2. From the FC Edit menu, select Preferences, and then the Content tab. Change your default font to something a little more readable [I like Verdana 10 pt, myself]. Try creating a new message and typing a few words in the text area. Don’t send it yet, but do close the window using the close box in the top left corner.

3. Now open your Mailbox—you should see the message you just created, and it should have a small white flag next to it. Once you’ve started a message, even if you haven’t entered any information, it does not go away unless you explicitly delete it, and it doesn’t get sent until you click either the send button or the send-and-close button. The white flag shows it’s unsent. See if you can figure out how to delete the message.

4. Open up Conferences, then Course Conferences, then 320 Intro to Multimedia and then the directory specific to this class. Read the message(s) you find there. Reply to the first (oldest) message in the conference (provide content comparable to the original message).

5. Now find the message with files to download. Retrieve those files (either by dragging them to the Mac desktop, or by choosing File-->Save Attachment), then upload them to your FirstClass desktop (by dragging them from the computer's desktop to the FC Desktop window).

6. Ctrl-click (hold down the control key while you click -- this would be a "right click" on a PC) on the welcome message in the conference, and choose History from the pop-up menu. You should see your name in the list of people who’ve read the message. This is useful if you want to see if your instructor or another student has read a message you’ve sent via FC.

7. Find the 320 Intro to Multimedia conference again (the one that has all the sections listed). Ctrl-click (or click-and-hold) on the icon for our section, and select Add to Desktop from the menu. Then close all windows except for your FirstClass desktop—you should now see the conference there. This will make it easier to get to the files for class quickly after logging in.

8. Now, send a message to our class course conference with a tidbit of interesting information about the person you researched last week. (It would be a good idea to mention that person’s name in the message title

In-Class Exercise: RIT Email

Overview

There are a lot of e-mail options at RIT, and even more outside of RIT! Making a decision as to which client to use, and which account to receive your mail through, is no small task. During today’s exercises, you’ll get some hands-on experience with a variety of e-mail environments, so that you can make an informed decision about the systems that you use.

PINE on Unix

1. Use a telnet or secure shell (SSH) program to connect to grace.rit.edu (Terminal on Mac OS X, PuTTY on the IT Lab PCs, or Start->Run->telnet grace.rit.edu on other PCs), and log in with your DCE ID and password.

2. Using pine, create a new message and enter your DCE user ID at the To: prompt. Press enter or tab. What happens? (Cancel the unsent message before continuing.)

3. Create an entry in your Pine address book for our class conference in FirstClass. (03-Lawley-041-TR10a@firstclass.it.rit.edu); give it a nickname like “320”. Then compose a new message with the subject “Grace to FC Test,” and send it to the nickname that you just created.

4. Quit Pine, and logout from Grace.

RIT LDAP Server

1. Go to start.rit.edu.

2. Select "manage your mail preferences" to see where your official RIT mail is sent. If you would prefer to receive your RIT correspondence at another address, you can change that here. BE CAREFUL! Official correspondence from your instructors, the registrar and other RIT offices will be sent to this address, so if you change it to a non-RIT address be sure it's one that stays functional.

3. You can create a "personalized" email address by selecting a user id for the mail.rit.edu redirect system. (This does not create a new email account; any mail sent to this new mail.rit.edu address will be automatically redirected to the address you specified in the “email address” field.) For example, my "official" RIT address is ellics@rit.edu, but my "personalized" address, which I use on all correspondence, is ell@mail.rit.edu. Mail sent to the personalized address goes to wherever my RIT address is forwarded to.

4. Return to the start page, and choose "Manage your identity preferences." Make sure your first, middle, and last name are displayed the way you'd like.

5. From the start page, choose "Manage your contact information preferences." Add whatever information you'd like to have publicly available on the RIT directory server.

Exchange Webmail

1. Use a browser to go to http://mymail.rit.edu/exchange, and login with your DCE user name and password.

2. Create a new message and send it to the FirstClass conference for this class (03-Lawley-041-TR10a@firstclass.it.rit.edu), with the subject “Webmail to FC Test”.

3. Create another new message, and type in only your last name in the "to" field. Select "check names" from the top of the window (the icon is a face with a red checkmark). If there's more than one person at RIT with that last name, it should now appear as a red link. Click that link, and find your name. What happens?

Related Readings: Communication

• Michael Fraase claims that "RSS will replace email as Internet publishing medium."
• Adam Curry also argues that RSS should replace current SMTP-based email, in "Email is Dead, Long Live Email."
• Jon Udell of InfoWorld refutes some of these arguments in "E-mail's special power."
• Clay Shirky's follow-up to Udell's column.