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If you have an account on bama.ua.edu, then you have an e-mail address of account@bama.ua.edu, where "account" is your account name. When you were given your account on bama, you were also given a mail name and an alias for your e-mail address, which is something like: Your.Mailname@mail.ua.edu. Now, you have the option of dropping the word "mail" from your alias address. You may use an alias e-mail address Your.Mailname@ua.edu.
Why would you use an alias e-mail address? One reason is that it is often easier for other people to remember, when you give out your address. It is also fairly standard: many Universities and some companies use a similar form of e-mail alias, so it might be easier for people to find you. And it is fixed. If you change departments or mail servers for your actual e-mail address, you keep the same alias and point it to your new actual address without having to tell everyone who uses your alias that you have a new or different address.
Note that, while you can use the e-mail alias Your.Mailname@ua.edu, that does not mean that ua.edu or mail.ua.edu is an alias for bama.ua.edu. You cannot use mail.ua.edu or ua.edu instead of bama.ua.edu in a web page address. You cannot mix parts of your actual and alias addresses. For example, you cannot use the e-mail address Your.Mailname@bama.ua.edu nor account@mail.ua.edu.
For now, in order to use this e-mail alias, you must have an account on the bama.ua.edu server. To get a bama.ua.edu account, just take your valid ACT card to the Helpdesk at A203 Gordon Palmer. If you use a local network address as your actual e-mail address, you can forward your account on bama.ua.edu to your network address. You don't have to log on to bama to check your mail. Look on the web page at http://bama.ua.edu/~unixinfo for help in setting up mail forwarding from a bama.ua.edu account. In the future, the mail alias table will synchronize with the faculty/staff directory, and you may be able to have an e-mail alias which points to your local network account without having to maintain an account on bama.ua.edu.
Are there situations where you should not use your alias address? Some listservers have trouble handling alias e-mail addresses. You may want to use your actual e-mail address when signing up to a list on a listserver. Occasionally, some mail systems will have trouble with alias e-mail addresses. If a particular correspondent is having trouble sending you mail, ask that person to try your actual address instead of your alias address. However, this problem should be rare. In general, you should have no problem using your e-mail alias, if you choose to.
Question: With PROFS now gone, what do you provide for calendar service?
Answer: The University now has a calendar server that runs on bama.ua.edu, from a company called Corporate Software and Technologies (CS&T). This calendar server allows individuals to manage their own personal calendar, to determine who has what access rights to view or change their calendar, and to view other calendars. Designated persons can manage calendars for others, such as department or administrator calendars. If you were using PROFS for calendar access, you might want to move to the CS&T calendar server. As you noted, PROFS is no longer available.
If faculty or staff in your department need accounts on the CS&T calendar server, first select one person in the department to be the contact person for calendar accounts. (This could be the network administrator, a PC support person, or a member of the department.) Then determine everyone in the department who wants/needs access to the calendar server. The contact person should send e-mail to Help.Desk@ua.edu requesting the calendar accounts. In the e-mail, include the name and e-mail address of everyone who needs a calendar account, in the form: lastname;firstname;e-mailaddress (items separated by semi-colons, no spaces, one name per line). Also include the name of the contact person, the name of the department, and the division of the University to which the department belongs. If any student employees need calendar accounts, they should be listed separately, with the same information, with an indication that they are students.
Once you have a calendar account, you can access your personal calendar and other calendars on the CS&T server using a web browser (go to http://bama.ua.edu and click on the button for CS&T), or using the Netscape Calendar client (free for educators from the Netscape web site, and soon to be available on the Computer Center software site.)
NOTE: For more information about any question featured here, or to ask about something which might be answered here, send e-mail to Help.Desk@ua.edu
The Computer Center Helpdesk is open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday. During these hours, the Helpdesk provides service by phone, by e-mail, and in person (walk-in). The hours for telephone service have now been extended to 8:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. You may call the Helpdesk at 348-2435 (UAHELP on campus). If all consultants are busy when you call, your call may roll over to the voice mail system. Leave a message, and a consultant will return your call.
The new extended hours are for assistance by telephone only. The Helpdesk counter for in-person service will close at 4:45 p.m. as usual. Note that all requests for assistance with accounts, including new accounts and account and password changes, must be done in person during the hours the Helpdesk counter is open. No requests for account changes or new accounts will be accepted during the evening telephone assistance hours.
Effective immediately, the Computer Center will no longer provide assistance for dialup setup for computers running Windows 3.1. If you are currently using a Win3.1 computer to access the University's dialup lines, you may continue to do so. However no new requests for dialup setup will be accepted for Win3.1 computers, and Win3.1 dialup software support will be dropped from the software download site.
If you are still using a computer running Windows 3.1, you might want to consider some of your alternatives. There are many inexpensive Windows and Macintosh choices now available for home use, all of which are superior to most Win3.1 machines. Also note that if you are applying for or participating in a grant or contract which requires Y2K compliance, you cannot use Win3.1 applications to satisfy that grant or contract.
Tuesday January 26 will be the last day for regular access to UA1VM. After that, the VM system will still be available for a few months, but with different access, and diminishing software and support. Call the Helpdesk at 348-2435 for more information if you expect to use the VM system after 1/26.
Beginning Wednesday January 27, the name UA1VM will become an 'alias' for the bama.ua.edu server. (This change was earlier announced for 1/13.) As explained last semester in this newsletter and elsewhere, this means that mail sent to an address on UA1VM will be delivered to that address on bama.ua.edu (if it exists) or returned to sender (if the address does not exist.) Web browsers, telnet software and other applications that point to UA1VM will resolve to bama.ua.edu. In particular, if you expect to continue to use the VM system after 1/26, you need to be sure that your connection software (QWS_3270, Extra, Passport, etc.) does NOT point to the name UA1VM.UA.EDU, but points to the VM system by another name. Call the Helpdesk for more information.
After a year or so, the name UA1VM.UA.EDU will cease to be an alias for bama.ua.edu. At that time, steps will be taken to handle mail delivery, but all other references to UA1VM (such as web and telnet references) will fail. Further information about this change will be announced at that time.
[Editor's note: the change announced for January 27 has been postponed until February or March, and will take place after the upgrade to the Student Information System. For more information, see the Migration web page. (Editor's note: The migration web site was removed during the fall 1999 semester.)]