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ObieID * OCMail * Desktop E-Mail Client Applications * Quota Information * Spam

ObieID:

ObieID computer accounts are provided to all faculty, staff, and students. This account provides access to many computer/network resources and services: one's e-mail (known at Oberlin as OCMail), oncampus.oberlin.edu (Blackboard) account, network authentication, file server space (personal storage space on a central server), web account (if requested), VPN (secure access application), software downloads, Windows computers on campus (office and lab computers), and Macintosh lab computers.

It is very important that you safeguard your ObieID password, since it provides access to many College resources. Upon first receiving your ObieID, you should establish your password-recovery questions, so you can regain access to your account should you ever forget your password or if your password expires before you have had a chance to change it. Complete details about your ObieID can be found online.

OCMail:

OCMail is the College's e-mail system, powered by Google Apps for Education. Oberlin College partnered with Google to acquire complete e-mail services from Google (e-mail processing, spam filtering, storage, etc.), while still using an Oberlin domain. Thus, everyone's e-mail address follows the form: first.last@oberlin.edu

Logins follow the form ObieID@oberlin.edu. OCMail can be accessed via a web browser, such as Firefox, or can be accessed from Desktop Client Applications, such as Mac Mail or Thunderbird (see next section). To access your e-mail from a web browser, go: http://ocmail.oberlin.edu and login in with your ObieID account username and password.

Complete details on OCMail can be found on the CIT Wiki.

Desktop E-Mail Client Applications:

CIT recommends the following desktop client e-mail applications: Macintosh Mail or Thunderbird for Macs, and Thunderbird for Windows. Any other standard IMAP or POP mail client should function, but we may not be able to assist with problems. We also recommend using IMAP over POP.

Standard setup documentation for Mac Mail and Thunderbird (Mac or Windows) is available for download. Documentation on setting up one's client program for use with OCMail is available on the CIT Wiki.

Note: We strongly discourage the use of Outlook and Outlook Express due to frequent security and virus issues and difficulties in restoring data if hardware problems arise.

Quota Information: All personnel using the OCMail system receive gigabytes of quota, provided by Google. This quota level continues to rise. Once logged into OCMail, your quota level will be provided on the screen.

• Thunderbird users can click on a folder (for example, inbox), select Properties, then click on the Quota tab. The amount of quota used will be displayed by percentage used. Since every user just has one quota (inbox and other folders all combine in one user directory), any folder can be selected to see the total quota used.

• Mac Mail users can scroll down past all their folders in the left navigation pane and click on the Shortcuts for commonly used actions button, then select Get Info and click on the Quota Limits tab. This displays total quota info and usage info for each folder.

Spam:

Google provides excellent service with respect to limiting spam. It is, however, incumbent upon the account user to check his/her Spam folder regularly for any desired messages. Users should also report spam to Google if spam messages have made their way to the user's inbox. To do so, once in your inbox, just highlight (click once) the spam message or check the checkbox before the message and selectthe tab "Report as Spam". You may also open the message and select the "Report As Spam" tab from there.