Internet Explorer and WebMail

Internet Explorer

To begin with the simple vocabulary part of explaining a program like Internet Explorer, or IE, it is important to say that it is from a class of applications called browsers. Browsers are programs that are used to view pages on the World Wide Web. This class does not inspire to teach everything there is about IE or browsers or even the Web; instead it hopes to increase your comfort with the changes to the newest version of this Microsoft cornerstone product.

One of the first things people notice about the newest version of IE is what is missing. For many of us, looking at the open browser window without a list of menus at that the top is disconcerting, to say the least. In its place, we have a tiny little toolbar, which is supposed to serve all of our needs. There are a few buttons available to us. Notice the button with two green arrows, this will allow us to refresh the page. The red X cancels the page from fully loading. Notice also that you have a shortcut window to launch a search from your favorite search engine. The option shown is for Google.

On a second toolbar, there is a house, a square and a printer. The house we know has come to mean Home Page and the printer is pretty straightforward. The odd square is for RSS feeds, which are syndicated web content feeds. The next two buttons on the toolbar are not as much buttons as they are menus. The Page Menu gives you many of the options you might be used to seeing under the File Menu in former versions of the program, such as emailing links and save options. The Tools Menu will allow you to customize your environment, including, if you wish, returning the look of IE to a standard you are more comfortable with.

Tabs

A new feature to IE 7 is tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing offers you the opportunity to open multiple websites all in one Internet Explorer window. This way, you can move between multiple sites that you might need open. You can even organize multiple tabs into one group and save it as a favorite for easy opening.

To begin, notice that you have a series of tabs located just above the open webpage. There is a blank box to the right of title of the site you are currently viewing. Clicking on that box opens a new tab. The new tab will give you a new work space to navigate out to a new site. The address bar appears at the top of the window, and you will notice that it currently says “about:Tabs.” By replacing that text with the address you wish to visit, you will have two sites open simultaneously. Clicking between the two tabs allows you to work with both websites.

Once you have multiple tabs open, you can use the QuickTabs feature to view all of the web pages as thumbnails to take the guesswork out of tab selection. Simply clicking on the QuickTabs button shows you all of the open sites, and you can choose where you would like to go from there.

If you find that you are opening and working with the same sites on a regular basis, IE 7 also gives you the opportunity to save those tabs as a group for easy opening. Simply open all of the tabs that you wish to keep as a part of the group, and then click on the button which looks like a star with a green plus sign. That will open a menu for you that allows you to Add the Tab Group to Favorites. When you select this option, you will be prompted to give it a name. Once you do this and click the Add button, it will appear in your favorites folder.

To access this Tab Group, click on the button that looks like a single gold star. This will open a side panel with all of your favorites listed. When you scan through the list, the Tab Group you created will be available. When you move your mouse over the Group Name, you will see a blue arrow appear at the end of the line of typed text. Clicking on the blue arrow opens all of the websites that were a part of this group, each on their own tab for easy access.

WebMail

WebMail is the University of Hartford’s web access for email. It is designed to offer convenient access to University email from any machine connected to the internet. The service is not intended to be the only method of mail use. It is expected that you will have an email client, such as Outlook Express, configured and working on your office computer. When you cannot get to that computer, and just need to check your messages, WebMail is the perfect option. The web address is

Which and how many messages that you see in WebMail will depend upon how your office computer is set up, or configured. There are two styles of message retrieval; when your office computer is configured, it determines your style of use for WebMail as well. Email programs such as Outlook Express are configured to be either POP3 or IMAP.

Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is a client/server protocol in which e-mail is received and held for you by your Internet server. You can view just the heading and the sender of the letter and then decide whether to download the mail. You can also create and manipulate folders or mailboxes on the server, delete messages, or search for certain parts or an entire note. IMAP requires continual access to the server during the time that you are working with your mail.

A less sophisticated protocol is Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3). With POP3, your mail is saved for you in your mailbox on the server. When you read your mail, all of it is immediately downloaded to your computer and no longer maintained on the server.

What this means is that if your office machine is configured to be retrieving email via IMAP, you will see all of your messages in WebMail. If your office machine is configured to be POP3, you will only see whatever new messages are available for you since you last checked your mail on the office machine.

Logging On

First, you will need to log into the University of Hartford’s WebMail system with the information you normally use to access your account. Please notice that these instructions were created using a layout labeled “Surge” from the dropdown list below the password area. Select the same option before logging in to follow these directions. Each layout offers a completely different approach to reading, writing and maintaining mail. Using Surge will make your screens look like the ones in this instruction set.

Attachments

When you have logged in, there will be a button on the upper left hand corner of the page for a new message. Click that button, and the window will look like the one below. Make sure you type in the address of the person who will get the message, and then, on the right, click the link to attach a file. It is circled on the picture below.

In the next window, click the “Browse button.”

Navigate to the location on your computer where you will find the file you would like to attach to this message, and then click the Open button. This will put the file in the list of items to attach. You will need to repeat this for each file you would like to attach. Once the files are in the list, click the button labeled “Attach File(s)”

You can go back to typing the message by clicking on the “return to message” button at the top of the window. Type whatever additional information that might be required in the body of the email, and hit the send button when finished.

Logging Off

Whenever you use WebMail, it is important to click the “Log off” button before navigating away from the site. This simple act closes your connection to the mail server and is the most secure way to end the session. For additional security, you should also consider closing the browser window.