Changing email address...
Erick Engelke
Felix Cho <FMT...@ELECTRICAL.watstar.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>I understand that we are not allowed to "fake" our return address. However,
>I would like to start changing my watstar address to engmail, which should
>be okay (I guess). The mail and news system automatically update the config
>files to my watstar one...
>
>Is there a way to change this legitimately?
That's an excellent question, I'm glad you asked.
Legal Email Addresses
Polaris, Engmail and much of campus supports UWuserids. So you are
fmtcho@electical, or @sunee, @e&ce, or @novice, and even
fmt...@uwaterloo.ca ! All of these are perfectly fine.
In the case of your particular question, engmail happens to handle
all mail for the *@electrical population anyways, so this would
not even be a change as far as we are concerned.
You may legitimately change your email address to
fmt...@anything-legal.uwaterloo.ca
(where you replace anything-legal with a real system name).
You may *not* change your Email address to fmtcho@xxx where xxx is
not a .uwaterloo.ca address. Instead, set your reply-to field
to the off-campus address or set a .forward field on your Email
server. (Engmail, ahsmail, scimail and artsmail all support
.forward fields).
You may *not* change your Email address to anything which does not
begin with your uwuserid. For example (and I don't mean to pick on
you, but your userid is handy right now), if fmtcho pretended to be
jmsellens@electrical, fmtcho would live to regret it.
You may, however, set your Reply-To: field (in netscape, pine or eudora)
to go to any Email address you want.
Why?
There are lots of reasons why you cannot change your Email address
to something off-campus, or to another person's userid. I don't
want to go into detail at this time, but all of the illegal stuff
creates a lot of unnecessary work for us, it creates huge mail disasters
at times (mail loops, for example) and it's not necessary since
.forwards and reply-to's can accomplish the same thing legally.
Things work smoothly if everyone just sticks with these rules.
If these rules are broken, expect your Email and other computer
access to be cut off, academic probation, and possible legal
action or severe
Hmmm, I guess that's a lot more detail than you probably needed.
Hopefully I managed to answer a few other people's questions at
the same time.
Erick
--
Erick Engelke Engineering Computing
University of Waterloo
Network Systems Manager er...@uwaterloo.ca
Felix Cho
Erick,
Thank you for all the useful information first...
> You may, however, set your Reply-To: field (in netscape, pine or eudora)
> to go to any Email address you want.
How do I change the Reply-To field? Can I set this up in the PINERC file?
And I realize that the PINERC file is updated every time I run PINE, so is
there a way to prevent the file from being updated? Now I am just changing
the "domain name" field in the PINERC file everytime.... :)
Erick Engelke
Felix Cho <FMT...@ELECTRICAL.watstar.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>> You may, however, set your Reply-To: field (in netscape, pine or eudora)
>> to go to any Email address you want.
>
>How do I change the Reply-To field? Can I set this up in the PINERC file?
Boy we have a lot of mailers...
Pine is only on Watstar + DOS. I don't have that in my office, so
I don't know the answer or if there is one.
If there is no way with pine, then just set a forward field on your
engmail account.
Srikant Cheruvu
FMT...@ELECTRICAL.watstar.uwaterloo.ca (Felix Cho) wrote:
>How do I change the Reply-To field? Can I set this up in the PINERC file?
>And I realize that the PINERC file is updated every time I run PINE, so is
>there a way to prevent the file from being updated?
The PINERC file is not updated every time you start Pine, atleast not on
novice, so you can change whatever you want to in there.
~srikant
Erick Engelke
Matt Corks <mvc...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>Erick wrote:
>>> You may, however, set your Reply-To: field (in netscape, pine or eudora)
>>> to go to any Email address you want.
>
>>How do I change the Reply-To field? Can I set this up in the PINERC file?
>
>
> # Add these customized headers (and possible default values) when composing
> customized-hdrs=
>
>Change the second line to this:
>
> customized-hdrs=Reply-To: fmt...@uwaterloo.ca
>
>>And I realize that the PINERC file is updated every time I run PINE, so is
>>the "domain name" field in the PINERC file everytime.... :)
>
>Polaris.
Let's correct some of your statements.
You are in math, but several hundred mathies currently have Polaris and
Watstar accounts. Most of them had to request these accounts. In January
that will increase as Math gets a Polaris lab of its own. So being
in Math does not mean not using Polaris, nor does it mean not wanting
a Polaris account.
The Pine configuration stuff is only on Watstar, not on Polaris.
If that seems hard to understand, imagine a comment said from one pet
owner to another: "Your hamster likes peanuts? Odd, my dog doesn't."
Watstar and Polaris are both warm and fuzzy, but they are different
beasts.
With Polaris, you can read your mail using a variety of standard PC
applications, or directly from Unix using TELNET, X term sessions,
xmail, or whatever. Polaris doesn't stop you from doing anything
reasonable. Too bad we don't limit accounts to just reasonable people,
but that's an entirely different topic.
Chris Buchanan
In article <EK4Br...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>,
Erick Engelke <er...@epoch.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>You are in math, but several hundred mathies currently have Polaris and
>Watstar accounts. Most of them had to request these accounts. In January
>that will increase as Math gets a Polaris lab of its own. So being
>in Math does not mean not using Polaris, nor does it mean not wanting
>a Polaris account.
Sigh... I think that Matt's point was that his default environment is
a UNIX one because he's in Math, and that a Math student can generally
avoid Polaris/Watstar/Evil Incarnate.
BTW, those hundreds of mathies have those accounts only because they are
in a course which allows/requires it. Same with the two new labs appearing
on the third floor of MC.
--
Chris Buchanan 4N Computer Science & Pure Math
http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~csbuchan
Erick Engelke
Chris Buchanan <csbu...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Erick Engelke <er...@epoch.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>You are in math, but several hundred mathies currently have Polaris and
>>Watstar accounts. Most of them had to request these accounts. In January
>>that will increase as Math gets a Polaris lab of its own. So being
>>in Math does not mean not using Polaris, nor does it mean not wanting
>>a Polaris account.
>
>Sigh... I think that Matt's point was that his default environment is
>a UNIX one because he's in Math, and that a Math student can generally
>avoid Polaris/Watstar/Evil Incarnate.
just a second... c..s..buchan... okay, now that I've recorded your
name for future reference, I'll comment :-)
I'm surprised that you know the full history, but that you report it
in reverse order, it must be due to your reverse polish notation exposure.
First was evil, then Watstar, then Polaris.
Yes, the default faculty provided environment for Math students is
Unix. That has been true for a few years now. Of course, that only
means the environment provided, not necessarily what people use as
their default.
Many students have PCs at home and I expect most run a combination
of Microsoft and Linux on them. To some people, that would be
their default. Others use Polaris or MacJanet extensively, and
obviously many use Unix exclusively.
In some faculties (like Science and Engineering), students are
automatically offerred generic accounts on Unix (Solaris and Digital Unix)
and Win32 (Polaris) systems. This allows people to become proficient
in both environments, and lets the user pick the right tool for the job.
Trying to make Windows act like a well oiled OS is silly, and trying to
coerce unix into running GUI applications is often futile. So I think
the composite approach is the most educational for students, and the
most productive way to operate.
>BTW, those hundreds of mathies have those accounts only because they are
>in a course which allows/requires it. Same with the two new labs appearing
>on the third floor of MC.
'allow/require' those are separate things.
Yes, some courses require Polaris because of some application it offers
that cannot be found elsewhere.
But other courses are the 'allow' variety. Since some professors
list only Excel or Word as the required application, the distinction
between allowed and required becomes more clear.
By virtue of how accounts are created, these users had to request the
account. It doesn't just appear if your prof allows it, you actually have
to ask for it. That is true today, it may be different for math students
next term, I don't know yet.
Matt Corks
>>Erick Engelke <er...@epoch.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>>So being in Math does not mean not using Polaris, nor does it mean not
>>>wanting a Polaris account.
I assure you that it does in my case.
Quoth Erick Engelke <er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca>:
>I'm surprised that you know the full history, but that you report it in
>reverse order, it must be due to your reverse polish notation exposure.
>First was evil, then Watstar, then Polaris.
So you're saying that Watstar is the physical incarnation of evil, and that
Polaris is it's progeny. That seems about right to me.
>Trying to make Windows act like a well oiled OS is silly, and trying to
>coerce unix into running GUI applications is often futile.
My immediate reaction to that is to point out that running GUI applications is
often futile, but that's already been covered in uw.general.
--
Matt Corks, congenital pessimist; 2B Co-Op Math, Comp. Sci., U. Waterloo
PGP key: <mvc...@uwaterloo.ca>, <http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/mvcorks/>
Laziness: check. Impatience: check. Hubris: check.
Walter C. McCutchan (Duke of URL)
Gee, I love to quibble...
In article <EK5zB...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>,
Erick Engelke <er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Chris Buchanan <csbu...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>Erick Engelke <er...@epoch.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>>You are in math, but several hundred mathies currently have Polaris and
>>>Watstar accounts. Most of them had to request these accounts. In January
>>>that will increase as Math gets a Polaris lab of its own. So being
>>>in Math does not mean not using Polaris, nor does it mean not wanting
>>>a Polaris account.
>>
>>Sigh... I think that Matt's point was that his default environment is
>>a UNIX one because he's in Math, and that a Math student can generally
>>avoid Polaris/Watstar/Evil Incarnate.
>
>just a second... c..s..buchan... okay, now that I've recorded your
>name for future reference, I'll comment :-)
>
>I'm surprised that you know the full history, but that you report it
>in reverse order, it must be due to your reverse polish notation exposure.
>First was evil, then Watstar, then Polaris.
>
The above seems to cast "evil" in the past-perfect. I think that we
should say "First, there is evil...."
Evil will continue as long as software manufactures (OK, hardware
manufactures too) do not build to standards. Oh, and creating your
own "standard" still qualifies as evil -- extra evil if you then don't
build your own software to your own standard.
mho
..regards
..walter
--
walter mccutchan (Duke of URL[tm]) fill what is empty
pc & mac group, dcs (ist) empty what is full
univ. of waterloo w...@dcs1.UWaterloo.CA scratch where it itches
abeo, abeo, abeo, actum est, comites!
Erick Engelke
Matt Corks <mvc...@uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>>Erick Engelke <er...@epoch.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>>>So being in Math does not mean not using Polaris, nor does it mean not
>>>>wanting a Polaris account.
>
Then it's very odd that you read this newsgroup.
Chris Buchanan
>>Erick Engelke <er...@epoch.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>>Watstar accounts. Most of them had to request these accounts. In January
>>>in Math does not mean not using Polaris, nor does it mean not wanting
>>>a Polaris account.
>>
>>a UNIX one because he's in Math, and that a Math student can generally
>>avoid Polaris/Watstar/Evil Incarnate.
>
>just a second... c..s..buchan... okay, now that I've recorded your
>name for future reference, I'll comment :-)
Woohoo! Another list. (:
>I'm surprised that you know the full history, but that you report it
>in reverse order, it must be due to your reverse polish notation exposure.
>First was evil, then Watstar, then Polaris.
Over the years, I've noticed a tendency for people to list
the most recent first. For example, if you ever look at one of my
minutes-binders, you'd see that the minutes from the most recent meeting
are first, followed by the second most recent, usw.
>Yes, the default faculty provided environment for Math students is
>Unix. That has been true for a few years now. Of course, that only
>means the environment provided, not necessarily what people use as
>their default.
Excluding home use, it is (which, btw, I believe was Matt's point).
>Many students have PCs at home and I expect most run a combination
>of Microsoft and Linux on them. To some people, that would be
>their default. Others use Polaris or MacJanet extensively, and
>obviously many use Unix exclusively.
>
>In some faculties (like Science and Engineering), students are
>automatically offerred generic accounts on Unix (Solaris and Digital Unix)
>and Win32 (Polaris) systems. This allows people to become proficient
>in both environments, and lets the user pick the right tool for the job.
True.
>Trying to make Windows act like a well oiled OS is silly, and trying to
>coerce unix into running GUI applications is often futile. So I think
>the composite approach is the most educational for students, and the
>most productive way to operate.
Humm... now maybe my memory is going (old age and all, you understand),
but doesn't that first statement support the original comment?
BTW, I'm not convinced that it is the most educational approach (see
the thread entitled "Why Windows is Evil" on a.s.r.).
>>BTW, those hundreds of mathies have those accounts only because they are
>>in a course which allows/requires it. Same with the two new labs appearing
>>on the third floor of MC.
>
>'allow/require' those are separate things.
Of course.
>Yes, some courses require Polaris because of some application it offers
>that cannot be found elsewhere.
Of course.
>But other courses are the 'allow' variety. Since some professors
>list only Excel or Word as the required application, the distinction
>between allowed and required becomes more clear.
>
>By virtue of how accounts are created, these users had to request the
>account. It doesn't just appear if your prof allows it, you actually have
>to ask for it. That is true today, it may be different for math students
>next term, I don't know yet.
They had to request it, sure. Just like I have to go out of my way to
pay tuition. It's part of the running around that we're forced to do.
It's the same situation in Math, re: unix accounts. In 1A, we all go
and request that our account be activated. We get some password, and
we're off. The difference is that we only have to do that once.
Erick Engelke
Chris Buchanan <csbu...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Erick Engelke <er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>Chris Buchanan <csbu...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>Sigh... I think that Matt's point was that his default environment is
>>>a UNIX one because he's in Math, and that a Math student can generally
>>>avoid Polaris/Watstar/Evil Incarnate.
>>I'm surprised that you know the full history, but that you report it
>>in reverse order, it must be due to your reverse polish notation exposure.
>>First was evil, then Watstar, then Polaris.
>Over the years, I've noticed a tendency for people to list
>the most recent first. For example, if you ever look at one of my
>minutes-binders, you'd see that the minutes from the most recent meeting
>are first, followed by the second most recent, usw.
I believe the general approach is to list the most relevant first. My
example fits that model, so does your minutes example.
That's why the last in the list is often "etc.", "whatever", or on the
Internet, something entirely ludicrous because the true or important
information is already given.
Also, people often just want to list a few items, there is some meter to
listing three. It sounds/reads/feels good.
>>Trying to make Windows act like a well oiled OS is silly, and trying to
>>coerce unix into running GUI applications is often futile. So I think
>>the composite approach is the most educational for students, and the
>>most productive way to operate.
>
>Humm... now maybe my memory is going (old age and all, you understand),
>but doesn't that first statement support the original comment?
How? The original comment was that math students generally aren't
lucky enough to have Waterloo Polaris accounts... or something like that :-)
>BTW, I'm not convinced that it is the most educational approach (see
>the thread entitled "Why Windows is Evil" on a.s.r.).
The original poster knew not about Waterloo Polaris, and yet he was
offerring opinions about it. Some call that prejudice. You mentioned
that mathies don't get a lot of Win32 exposure. Do you think that
is good? I believe diversity is a good thing.
>>But other courses are the 'allow' variety. Since some professors
>>list only Excel or Word as the required application, the distinction
>>between allowed and required becomes more clear.
>>
>They had to request it, sure. Just like I have to go out of my way to
>pay tuition. It's part of the running around that we're forced to do.
As I mentioned, there are quite a few math student accounts for which
the only explanation is that the users chose to use PC tools.
Since I spend my time split between multiple platforms and I base
my use of any product or platform simply on what works best for me
in the given situation, I know that fluency and proficiency in multiple
platforms is a good thing.
You can spend your time finding ways to do everything you want on
just Unix, or just Win32 or just the Mac, but I know you will spend
more effort doing that, I've seen it happen time and time again.
>It's the same situation in Math, re: unix accounts. In 1A, we all go
>and request that our account be activated. We get some password, and
>we're off. The difference is that we only have to do that once.
The Polaris accounts in math next term will be initiated essentially
the same way as unix accounts are.
Felix Cho
>It's reset every time? My god. I'm so glad I'm in math, and not using
>Polaris.
it is reset every time, since I changed something in the file and the change
is gone the next time I invoke the program...
Erick Engelke
That will soon be solved:
The days of Watstar availability are countable on your fingers and
toes (if you have enough friends helping you).
Most Electrical and Computer Engineering labs will be converted for next
term. The exceptions being machines which are not capable of running 95,
or which have a special purpose that is not compatible with 95.
The GAFF will be fully converted too. Well, not the x terminals, just
the PCs.
David Caldarelli
In article <EKB5y...@novice.uwaterloo.ca>,
Erick Engelke <er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
>>I don't use Polaris. I am still on the good old DOS/Win31 Watstar. And yes
>>it is reset every time, since I changed something in the file and the change
>>is gone the next time I invoke the program...
>
>That will soon be solved:
>
>The days of Watstar availability are countable on your fingers and
>toes (if you have enough friends helping you).
>
>Most Electrical and Computer Engineering labs will be converted for next
>term. The exceptions being machines which are not capable of running 95,
>or which have a special purpose that is not compatible with 95.
>
>The GAFF will be fully converted too. Well, not the x terminals, just
>the PCs.
>
>Erick
>
While the decision to switch to 95 is obviously quite final, is there any
chance at all that we could have one safe haven (eg. Gaff) where any
Generall Access person who doesn't want 95 can still hide in the corners of
DOS?
If not Gaff, then how about electrical or elecom2? While that would only
affect my class, I figured I'd ask anyway.
Unrelated comment: I think "Watstar Polaris" is a better name than
"Waterloo Polaris"
David
Erick Engelke
David Caldarelli <daca...@novice.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>Erick Engelke <er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>I don't use Polaris.
>While the decision to switch to 95 is obviously quite final, is there any
>chance at all that we could have one safe haven (eg. Gaff) where any
>Generall Access person who doesn't want 95 can still hide in the corners of
>DOS?
>
>If not Gaff, then how about electrical or elecom2? While that would only
>affect my class, I figured I'd ask anyway.
If I were a user, I'd probably ask too. So have many system administrators.
I'll try to give a relatively detailed answer.
Waterloo Polaris had an ambitious and successful goal of providing temporary
backwards compatibility with Watstar. Apparantly we did such a good job that
most users don't know how difficult it was to achieve this integration.
I guess it just appears obvious - you get whatever works in that room. Being
a senior engineering student, you can probably recognize that technology
doing the obvious-to-humans is usually much more sophisticated than it appears.
Anyways, this temporary ability to have both types of labs allowed us to
stagger the conversions to fit budgets (to buy the new equipment) and
technical staff time to install it. But the window of compatibility
is time limited.
Long term co-existance is not viable. We are short staffed for *one*
system, let alone two. That limits how well we can support either system
and is draining our resources.
Also, there were also numerous design decisions which were made to
favour compatibility bridging the two systems. Once freed from
needing Watstar compatibility, we will have a lot of new options
which will improve our Waterloo Polaris service.
I can tell you already, there will be things appearing next term which
will not be available to Watstar stations. We just have no way to do them
in DOS or Windows 3.11, it is older technology being phased out. Even
more will appear in May, though I guess a graduating student could
care less.
Come January, almost every student machine outside Arts will be... using
terminology I've heard in Science... polarized. The GAFF is included
in that list. The following term, Arts student labs will also be
completely converted - they're about half done right now.
I know that some people don't like 95. They don't like the colours,
the GUI, the excessive mouse movement, the slowness of 32 bit programs,
etc.
I won't insult you or deny that you prefer DOS. I too am more comfortable
in the much faster text based world of DOS (or Unix), but there are
a growing number of things which force us to use Win32 systems like
95. I cannot change that, I can only try to give us the best environment
possible under the circumstances. Unfortunately, that cannot include
the DOS/Win3.11 legacy systems as long as some people would like. They
contrast with others who wonder why we bother exerting effort on the
soon to be dismantled systems.
There is little I can suggest to you. You have Unix accounts which can be
reached from the GAFF's X terminals or the ECE (sunee) systems. If you
just use your account to read mail, this may be an option. Obviously I
don't know your exact needs so I cannot really list other resources available
to you.
I'm sorry that I cannot give you what you want. BTW, thanks for the other
input in your post.
Erick
Erick Engelke
Erick Engelke <er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>David Caldarelli <daca...@novice.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
>I know that some people don't like 95. They don't like the colours,
>the GUI, the excessive mouse movement, the slowness of 32 bit programs,
>etc.
>
>I won't insult you or deny that you prefer DOS.
Darn, I got interrupted and left out the words which would make sense
of that sentance.
I don't try to insult anyone. My thought was that I didn't want
to insult you by telling you what you should think or how you
should feel.