The University of Toronto institutionally supports three e-mail, packages; ExecMail Simeon, Netscape Messenger and Microsoft Outlook Express. This support is provided to individuals by the Information Commons (IC), and to departmental system or local area network (LAN) administrators by the Computing and Networking Services (CNS) department of University of Toronto Computing (UTC).

Any of these three e-mail packages is available to members of the University community without individual cost. All are available for download from the University's UTORdist software and documentation distribution Web site at www.utoronto.ca/~ic/utordist. Netscape Messenger and Microsoft Outlook Express are also available on the UTORdist software and documentation distribution CD-ROM sold at the Robarts Library. (Although Microsoft Outlook Express comes with Microsoft Windows98 and MacOS8, users are encouraged to use the versions on the UTORdist web site or CD-ROM because these are the specific versions supported by UofT, and they contain configuration information, specific to UofT.)

A user's choice of which e-mail package to use should be driven by matching requirements to features. A summary of the most common features used to differentiate among the three supported packages is located at www.utoronto.ca/ns/software/email.html. Individuals may contact the Information Commons Help Desk (978-4357) for additional advice. Departmental system or LAN administrators and help desks may obtain more in-depth technical advice on selecting an e-mail package from the Network Services group of CNS. Specific contacts are: Alex Nishri (Alex.Nishri@UToronto.CA ); 978-7109, and Cheryl Ziegler (Cheryl.Ziegler@UToronto.CA ); 978-6202.

One of the recommendations of the "Report of the Subcommittee to Recommend an Institutional E-Mail Package" (see www.utoronto.ca/ns/eval.fall98) was to permit the storage of message folders on the UTORmail post office boxes. This would allow their contents to be viewable from multiple locations, such as from more than one office, or from home as well. Such folders are also called remote folders. The ability to store folders at the post office has the added benefit of leaving the INBOX uncluttered and faster to access. Address books may also be stored at the post office, for access from various locations, or even sharing by a working group or department. Detailed instructions on how to make folders and address books remote are available at Instructions for remote folders . For more information or assistance, please contact either the IC or CNS staff, as identified above.