Gmail and TCD

I switched over a couple of days ago..

I never really like gmail but the interface is better then then mymail and the 2gig storage is pretty cool. I use Outlook for email so it doesn't really have a major effect for me.

JackKelly

eh...anyone know what the POP settings are? pop.googlemail.com doesn't seem to work.

Time Magazine

Try mail.google.com and mail.tcd.ie?

pop works fine for me...

though you have to play about with the settings - the explanation in gmail explains it all though

Something from the bbc...

BBC News 11/06.2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6741797.stm


Google's e-mail for universities



Google is expanding its empire into universities - with entire campus e-mail networks switching over to using Google's e-mail service.

This will give the internet company a "relationship for life" with students - who can carry on using these e-mail addresses after graduating.

Trinity College Dublin has switched to Google's e-mail - with other universities considering such a switch.

Google is also offering students online tools to use in their coursework.

Global ambition

With its search engine already integrated into many internet browsers, Google is reaching out to integrate its services into university life.

In Trinity College Dublin, the existing university e-mail network, providing addresses for staff and students, is being replaced by a Google system.

The addresses and domain name still remain the same - but underneath the bonnet, it's a service provided by Google.

These e-mail addresses, which can be accessed from any online computer, can be kept by students when they leave universities.

And universities, with a population of tomorrow's young professionals, represent a highly attractive market for such technology companies.

Apart from targeting advertising at affluent former students, there will also be valuable data from the e-mail traffic.

In the United States, Arizona State University, with 65,000 students, has also moved to this "Google Apps for Education". Linköpings university, with 26,000 students, in Sweden is also switching to Google.

A number of other universities in the United States and Europe are believed to be considering moving to such a customised service, built on the Google platform.

'Democratising'

In Africa, Google says universities in Egypt, Rwanda and Kenya are using its education package, which a company spokesperson says shows the "democratising nature of the online world in terms of access to information".

The offer to higher education also includes free online tools, hosted by Google, which allow students to work on files from any internet-connected computer, on campus, at home or anywhere else.

They allow for collaborative work - with students able to work together in real-time on the same document.

Online timetables and calendars, which can be accessed from university or at home, are also being promoted for use in university.

Michael Nowlan, director of information systems services at Trinity College Dublin, says there have been debates within the university about privacy and loss of control to Google.

But on balance, he said that this "groundbreaking" partnership was to the university's advantage - outsourcing the need to maintain an e-mail system, without any cost.

Privacy

Mr Nowlan says that Google is making a serious effort to enter the international higher education sector.

And he predicts that the idea of shared online documents, which can be edited from any online computer, will be adapted by students to their own purposes.

"The digital natives will find their own way, make their own discoveries."

But there have been concerns about warnings about the way that internet companies use personal data - with Google singled out for criticism as being "hostile" to privacy in a survey published on Monday by Privacy International.

pensi

I have the same problem: It seems that the TCD proxy servers don't let us connect from within college / student halls to the gmail pop server. Has anybody succeeded in retrieving tcd gmail from within the college network yet?

scengi

anyone know what happens to our old mymail inboxes when we change over? Does it come with us or get deleted?? the fear of losing it has prevented me from changing over as of yet!!:)

Time Magazine

If you fail to change and do the necessary transferring (there's a guide on the IS Services website) you will lose those!

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

another thing - if you are a postgrad and have a long-form email address (e.g. firstname.lastname@tcd.ie) then this follows you, so you have a long-form TCD email address for life!

scengi

Ibid wrote:

If you fail to change and do the necessary transferring (there's a guide on the IS Services website) you will lose those!

Thanks!!:D

The Black Oil

Playing around with the myZone thing now, not sure how this works whether I've a Trinity Google email thing and if I should foward any existing stuff from mymail.:o

Google Mail is different. Here is what you need to know.

I'll keep playing around with it anyway.

Pet

The Black Oil wrote:

Playing around with the myZone thing now, not sure how this works whether I've a Trinity Google email thing and if I should foward any existing stuff from mymail.:o

Google Mail is different. Here is what you need to know.

I'll keep playing around with it anyway.

I think that once you make the switch, all future email arrives to your Gmail, and Mymail becomes a vestigial relic.

The Black Oil

Well I've gotten a few mails from TCD addresses and they came through on mymail, sent an email to my TCD account from my Yahoo address and it didn't get picked up in the MyZone thing just went into mymail. I've probably done something wrong.

paperclip

The Black Oil wrote:

Well I've gotten a few mails from TCD addresses and they came through on mymail, sent an email to my TCD account from my Yahoo address and it didn't get picked up in the MyZone thing just went into mymail. I've probably done something wrong.

Ditto.

Nietzschean

that sounds more like a serverside bug than something you could actually screw up yourself

The Black Oil

Hmm, maybe I'll email the ISS helpdesk...

The Black Oil

Got this back

Hello,

We can see from our records that you have not completed the migration fully. Please browse to teh below URL -

https://tmailuser.tcd.ie - user your college username & password to get to this page

1 . Click on the switch to myzone link
2. Again on the next screen click on the switch to myzone icon
3. You must receive the below screen -

Myzone account Options - results
SUCCESS: User: (name) will now receive e-mail at Myzone


For security reasons your request has been logged by IS Services


Now go and set your Myzone password at: Set my TCD Myzone password


- Once you see this any new mail will now hit your myzone account.

If you are lookig to move mail from myzone to mymail please see -

http://isservices.tcd.ie/email/myzone_switch.php

If you have any problems please contact us again at the helpdesk using the above log number

fiveone

I thought I would dig this thread up for petty "i told you so" purposes:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6740075.stm

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-553961

edit for good measure:

http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/internet/gmail-complaint.pdf

shay_562

lydonst wrote:

I thought I would dig this thread up for petty "i told you so" purposes:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6740075.stm

http://www.privacyinternational.org/...]=x-347-553961

edit for good measure:

http://www.privacyinternational.org/...-complaint.pdf

...and yet, all the old arguments of "If you don't want something to be accessible to Google, don't send it via g-mail" still applies. All TCD does is make sure that your college-related e-mails go through a G-mail account. You're free to set up your own, non-G-mail account for private purposes. Or better yet, to stay really private, to not use e-mail at all.

Also, random rights group that I've never heard of before saying "Google is teh badness!11!one!" isn't necessarily convincing. What about the whole Viacom thing at the moment where Google are actually trying to protect people's data from a big media conglomerate:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7488009.stm

Surely there's a case to be made for Viacom as the worst infringers on privacy there? Something about this smells agenda-ish to me, and that's bad.

fiveone

Not everyone was/is aware that this is incorporated in the supposedly "free" college email service, and since the entire academic community was not given a choice in the matter people could have at least been informed about it. Lisbonesque privatisation of college facilities is what it is, soon we'll be just like the US uni's Hegarty loves so much. But then the SU didn't even bat an eyelid, so I guess you can't win.

shay_562

lydonst wrote:

Not everyone was/is aware that this is incorporated in the supposedly "free" college email service

...dude, it's Google. To be honest, at this point if people don't know that Google keep incredibly detailed caches and all that crap (and there's times when those are incredibly useful, so woohoo for them) then my sympathy for them is limited.

lydonst wrote:

Lisbonesque privatisation of college facilities is what it is, soon we'll be just like the US uni's Hegarty loves so much.

'Lisbonesque'? Yeesh. But to address the main point: there's nothing inherently wrong with privatisation when it offers a better service. I for one have found G-Mail infinitely more stable than MyMail, and with oodles more storage to boot. Add in the useful features like g-chat and the calendar yokey, not to mention my address for life, and I'm actually pretty happy about the switch, all things considered.

manicmonoliths

lydonst wrote: »

Lisbonesque privatisation of college facilities is what it is, soon we'll be just like the US uni's Hegarty loves so much.

shay_562 wrote:

'Lisbonesque'? Yeesh. But to address the main point: there's nothing inherently wrong with privatisation when it offers a better service. I for one have found G-Mail infinitely more stable than MyMail, and with oodles more storage to boot. Add in the useful features like g-chat and the calendar yokey, not to mention my address for life, and I'm actually pretty happy about the switch, all things considered.

I'd agree with Shay here, there's nothing wrong with a bit of privatisation if it gets us a better service over all. We're always complaining that the college does a terrible job providing facilities, so why get someone else to do it better?

The college's main job is research, so they may not be the best people to organise an email sevice. Giving the job to a company who know what they're doing seems to me like a much better idea.

I've just finished first year so I've never used the old Mymail system, but Myzone seems ok to me, I've never had any problems with it that I can remember.

Jonathan

I'd happily give google access to my browsing habits in exchange for features such as pop3 and imap4 access, excellent antispam, and integration with my other pop3 accounts.

fiveone

The point you all seem to be missing is that some people aren't in fact willing to sell their info for nerd-**** fodder. Privatisation of services are nothing but quick fix solutions - if you really want to get into that, by all means.

Jonathan

lydonst wrote: »

The point you all seem to be missing is that some people aren't in fact willing to sell their info for nerd-**** fodder.

Hardly **** fodder.. I use all of those features daily, as do many others

shay_562

jmccrohan wrote:

Hardly **** fodder.. I use all of those features daily, as do many others

Word.

lydonst wrote:

The point you all seem to be missing is that some people aren't in fact willing to sell their info for nerd-**** fodder.

Then, for the umpteenth time, don't use your free g-mail account for private e-mails. I don't know how I can make it any more simple. All your course-related info will go there, yes, but if you made the conscious decision to opt out of college G-mail, you could still have a situation where Google knew nothing about you beyond your immediate exchanges with lecturers and the fact that gate into college is closed on a particular day. The fact is that people, by and large, are willing to accept a better service in exchange for some loss of privacy.

lydonst wrote:

Privatisation of services are nothing but quick fix solutions - if you really want to get into that, by all means.

Quick fix how? If anything, this seems like a long-term fix - Google aren't going to go away overnight. And if they do, then it's hardly impossible for the college to find another e-mail provider to negotiate a similar contract with. I'm not saying that we should accept all instances of privatisation with no questions asked and no investigation of whether or not it's the best way forward, but in this instance, there are multiple benefits clearly apparent, and the only disadvantages you can point to only apply to people too stupid to know the slightest thing about Google. To decry privatisation automatically just for the sake of it makes you just as naive and short-sighted as you seem to think people who are happy with the new G-mail system are, with an added bonus of "ignorant" as a tasty side-dish.

Jonathan

shay_562 wrote: »

Word.

Ya what now?

shay_562

jmccrohan wrote: »

Ya what now?

From here: "Word: expression of wholehearted agreement, '80s-style"

So much more interesting that "+1".

Jonathan

shay_562 wrote: »

From here: "Word: expression of wholehearted agreement, '80s-style"

So much more interesting that "+1".

Hahaha.. Right so. Gotta learn to get with the times :pac:

fiveone

By all means stop repeating yourself then, your point isn't getting any better. If I was just worried about my personal data being taken it wouldn't be a problem, it's precisely older lecturers and unaware users that would be most susceptible to this type of thing. Assuming people are stupid because they're not aware of Google's advertising methods (they're not exactly publicised) is ridiculous, and introducing this on a college-wide scale where a significant majority are unaware of this is a violation of the trust the college community places in its administration.

In itself advertising on this scale isn't such a major issue at present, but it certainly has the potential to be. I'm not getting into a privatisation argument, all I'll say is that there are in fact many negative consequences of privatising services, especially when it comes to education.