Aggiemail offers students new features

By Tazya Williams

At the start of fall semester new features were available to Aggiemail users including increased storage space, complete integration, easy Web site creation, Google talk and mobile phone.

Aaron Wells, web developer for the programming and design team within the department of information technology, said Aggiemail users now have seven gigabytes of storage compared to the 2.5 gigabytes they had when it began in 2007.

The POP/IMAP client has been requested for about a year, Wells said. It allows users to connect to the Aggiemail account through Outlook, Apple Mail, etc., he said.

Wells said the Google Talk client can now be downloaded to run on the desktop. Google Desktop Search also works with Aggiemail, he said.

Melanie Klein, junior majoring in public relations said, “I like the Google Documents because it allows us as student to interact with others that are in our classes. When we are assigned group assignments it is hard to balance everyone’s schedules, but with the features such as Google Documents and chat, we can work as a group anytime.”

Because it is a Gmail system, a vast amount of the people already know how to work it, Wells said.

One of the most frequently asked questions the Information Technology desk receives is how to use the POP/IMAP client, said Steve Funk, manager of the IT service desk. If users have questions about the POP/IMAP client they can go to www.it.usu.edu and go into the Aggimail section in the FAQ section.

“For the most part, Aggiemail has lowered the number of issues compared to the old cc accounts,” Funk said.

“At the year mark, it was running like it was supposed to be 99.9 percent of the time,” Wells said.

Aggiemail has been up and runnning since May of 2007. It currently has 26,000 accounts with around 10,500 of them being used in the last 90 days. Wells said once a person sets up an Aggiemail account, it never expires. No matter how long the user goes without any account activity, Wells said the account will always be there.

If a student has not yet set up a Aggiemail account, they can do so by going through access.

If users have any questions they can contact the IT Service Desk at 797-HELP (797-4357), or servicedesk@usu.edu.

–tazya.williams@aggiemail.usu.edu