The new email system (and a simple hack around the 50 addresses thing)

We’re about three weeks into Zimbra at EMU, and I have to say that I am on the whole pretty impressed. The conversion (at least on the user end) seems to have gone pretty smoothly, the system seems pretty robust, and it seems to “just work” quite well. I’ve been playing around with the set-up and I find new little goodies every day that make me like it more. So, on the whole, a thumbs up from me; I’d be curious to read others’ reactions to this too.

It is, of course, not perfect.

I suspect the biggest complaint/problem people have is the limit on sending an email to more than 50 people. The reason why we can’t send messages to more than 50 people is because of the spam software. This strikes me as evidence that the spam software that’s being used here is not very good. The “solution” that’s been offered so far is to send multiple copies of the same email and limit the number of addresses to 50. Well, if someone is teaching a class with 250 people or if you are someone who needs to send an email to hundreds and hundreds of people on campus (for example, the presidents of the union or faculty council), this is a pain in the butt.

And besides that, it probably isn’t in reality the only solution. Pam Young and Susan Martin are able to email everyone on campus with one message; why are they immune to this 50 email address limit?

Well, in the unsolicited advice department of things, it seems to me there are at least two ways to deal with this. The best solution is probably to set up some sort of mailing list (aka “a listserv”), which means you can send a bunch of subscribers a message by sending one email message. I’m not going to explain that here, but that is something that can be done by ICT.

The other less elegant solution is a lot easier and involves Google’s gmail. (Other freebie email services like Yahoo might do the same thing, but I gmail is what I know.) Here’s what to do:

• Set up a Google account.
• Under settings for gmail, click on “accounts.” You’ll find a link that says “Add Another Email Address.” Follow the instructions.
• After you set this up, you should have the option from gmail to send an email with a “from” address that is the account you specified– in this case, emich.edu. Email-away; as far as I know, gmail does not limit the number of recipients of an email. Remember though: if you want a copy of the message in your emich account, you’ll need to send yourself a message too.

Besides this 50 email thing (which isn’t much of a problem for me personally), I do have a few other minor complaints that I’ll toss out there because maybe there are some solutions.

• I think the web interface is kind of ugly. I mean, the font, the colors, the size of text, the layout, etc. Blech. Is there any way I can customize this?
• When I try to compose a message, I have too often hit the “To:” button instead of the “Send” button because the “To:” button is much bigger and the “Send” button isn’t as prominently placed. I’ll get over it, but just a little problem.
• I wish that tags would show up as folders in my Apple Mail software, which is how it works on Google. Again, no biggie, but still….

That’s about it. I was going to complain about my inability to import a calendar into the system, but I figured out I was wrong on that one. And the good news about the new system (at least what I’ve heard) is that more improvements are coming.