You'll want to configure Evolution Email so you'll get all your email in Ubuntu and disable any email account in your 'other' "operating" system, so as to avoid getting viruses in your 'other' "operating" system. Ubuntu and other Linux Systems don't seem to be vulnerable to viruses.
This will vary between ISPs and according to what country you live in.
In case it helps anyone, here's what I do, I'm in Australia and I'm a Bigpond customer.
Evolution E-Mail Setup
Evolution's Home page: Evolution.
Evolution gives you more than just email, it includes your addressbook, calendar, appiontments, memos and tasks as well. The best way to learn how to use Evolution to it's full potential is to open the help menu that comes in Evolution and look up whatever you want to know in that.
However, you need to set up Evolution first before you'll have access to the help menu. This web page will get you started.
It's not too complicated to set up evolution email in Ubuntu. It's all done by the evolution setup wizard. This how-to will walk you through using the wizard in ten easy steps, with illustrations.
(So you really can't go wrong).
Index
| Running the Evolution Setup Wizard_________________________________________________GO Sending Yourself Test Emails________________________________________________________GO Evolution Video How To's____________________________________________________________GO Backing up and Restoring___________________________________________________________GO Editing Your Account______(you don't need to run the wizard again to change it)____GO Sharing the same server____(one email address for more than one computer________GO Memos, Tasks and Calendar Appointments_________________________________________GO |
Running the Evolution Setup Wizard
- You'll need to have your internet account set up already and remember your password.
- You'll need to know the exact name for your ISP's sending server and the receiving server.
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This is the welcome screen you get when you click the evolution email icon for the first time. This is the start for the evolution setup wizard.
Just press 'Forward'.
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This one's a new innovation, I haven't tested this yet. It looks like a good idea.
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Joe Bloggs is a very famous Australian identity, I'm priveledged with the honor of setting up Ubuntu in his computer for him.
This already had his name in the first field, so all I had to do was type the correct email address in the Email Address field. That's easy.
I normally just leave the other two fields blank.
Press 'Forward'.
004
On this one I set the 'Server Type' spin box to 'POP' since my ISP tells me it's a POP3 type of server. That's the most common type, so if you're not sure just choose that.
All these other fields weren't showing until I selected 'POP', then they all appear.
There are only two fields I need to type into here.
One is the server field, where I need to type in the exact, correct name of my ISP's mail server.
Here it is in case anyone wants to copy and paste it, (that's easier and saves errors),
| pop-server.bigpond.net.au |
Then there's the username field, which is the first half of the email address, the part before the @ sign.
I always just skip the rest of it, and click 'Forward'.
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I just leave this one blank too, I only want to receive my email when I'm ready, I don't like it looking for email every ten minutes. But that's just me, if you like, just tick the box for having it search for mail every ten minutes and set the number of minutes to anything you like.
The other fields are probably there for if you are sharing the same mail server with a partner, family or any kind of group on an LAN. You can select to leave the mail on the server. I have tried that and it works great! It just takes a copy of the new mail, and leaves the original on the server. That way the others get to also receive their copy of the same mail. (This way you're not pinching all everyone's mail). Clever eh?
Then if you do it that way, you might want to stop the mail from building up too much in your ISP's server, so you might tick to have it deleted every so often. I'd be a little careful with that one. I prefer to have one computer set to not leave the messages on the server, but have that one check the mail only when I tell it to.
See also Sharing the same server
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This part of the evolution set-up wizard is for the sending side of things.
An 'SMTP' type of sending server always seems to be what goes with a 'POP' type incoming server, for some reason. All I needed to know here was the server type again: mail-hub.bigpond.net.au
Just copy this and paste it,
| mail-hub.bigpond.net.au |
Important:
I found out by trial and error that I needed to untick the box for 'server requires authentication', or I can't send any email, it will keep asking for my password, and keep telling me my password is rejected. It took me a while to work that one out.
The rest of it is already filled out automatically, so just press 'Forward' again.
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This was here automatically, I could have made up a fancier name here for the mail box in the computer, but I just left it how it is and pressed 'Forward'.
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This is easy, we're in the Brisbane time zone, so just point your mouse at Brisbane and click there.
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That brings up a closer view in case people live in a densely populated part of the world and there might be a lot of cities close to a time zone border. Anyway just check it says Brisbane and click 'Forward'.
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Okay, congratulations from me too! Click 'Apply'.
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Now your evolution email should open automatically for the first time. As you can see it's empty at this stage.
You just need to enter your password now and you should be able to send and receive mail!
Then click 'send/receive' up in the top bar near the left.
Sending Yourself Test Emails
If you don't receive any email right away you can make up a few short test emails and send them to yourself to make sure your computer is sending and receiving okay.
Evolution Video How Tos
You can also watch a video of how to run the evolution setup wizard at http://ubuntuclips.org/videos/87
This one is an even better one, Ubuntu Introduction to Evolution Video it has a few more tips and tricks for how to use Evolution after it is set up.
Backing up and Restoring
One of the great features of evolution email is the simplicity of backing up and restoring your email. You can even transfer all your email from one computer to another.
If you had an old computer with Ubuntu in it or another Linux that also uses evolution email, you just open your home directory (folder), and click 'View', and tick 'Show Hidden Files'.
Then you should be able to see all the hidden directories inside your home folder.
Find the one called .evolution and inside that will be some files and folders. (What else?).
Well you can copy five of those folders, named addressbook, calendar, mail, memo and tasks.
Paste those somewhere like in to another storage media like a USB disk or a floppy disk or make a CD.
In the future when you want to restore, just close evolution and save the ones you have in there at the time first. Then paste these over the top of the existing ones and your email will be restored to had right now. For more details see my Backup Page, Back Up and Restore
Editing Your Account
If you have trouble sending and receiving your email, or if you just want to change your settings, you don't need to re-run the evolution set-up wizard again.
It's easier to just edit your account by clicking 'Edit'-->'Preferences', and select your email account on the top of the side bar if it isn't already selected.
Then in the 'Preferences' Window, you can select your account to edit (some people have more than one), and click the edit button.
This will give you an new window as shown in the screen cap below.
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Now all you need to do is click on whichever tabs you'd like to edit and change your settings as you like. Just click 'close' when finished, your settings will be saved.
Sharing the same server
If you are going to share your email address with other people like family members or with members of some other kind of special group, you would have ticked for all but one computer to leave the messages on the server, back in step 4 of the evolution setup wizard. (To Go Look)
Or you can edit your account any time as shown above if you want to.
Now that evolution is set up , there are a few extra tips and tricks about sharing the mail account.
You might not want to get anyone else's mail, it might fill up your inbox too much or just annoy you with too much clutter. You can set evolution to only download your own emails, or to only download emails from certain senders, or emails about certain subjects.
You can also reject spam.
There are all kinds of interesting settings you can use in 'Message'-->'Create Rule-->...
- 'Message'-->'Create Rule--> Filter on Subject...
- 'Message'-->'Create Rule--> Filter on Sender...
- 'Message'-->'Create Rule--> Filter on Recipients...
Ubuntu, like all Linux operating systems, was made for sharing. This is one of the great things about it. It can be set up so people can share things and be happy.
These filters have hundreds of combinations of ways you can set for your mail to be sorted out.
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Here's how to set up a filter, as you can see you can be as fussy as you like about what email you'll accept and what will be automatically rejected.
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Memos, Tasks and Calendar Appointments
Memos
To add a memo, click the Memo button to go into Memos and click 'File'-->'New'-->'Memo', (or 'Memo List'. Memos are good for organizing, (sorting) notes and lists of notes.
Tasks
To add a new Task, click the Tasks button to enter 'Tasks', and click 'File'-->'New'-->'Task', (or Task List'. Tasks are good for organizing big projects, that will take more than one day.
Tasks do not show up in the big evolution calendar, you have to click on the 'Tasks' button to display all your task lists. Then you can go and edit them.
Some cool things about tasks are:
- Tasks can be arranged in color coded lists.
- You can show all your tasks at once or only groups of tasks belonging to selected lists.
- Tasks show up as a list under the small calendar below our clocks in the upper left corner of our desktops.
- The percentage of time 'till completion is shown, so you can see if you're on schedule.
- Tasks can be marked as 'completed' and then they will show up with 'strikethrough' font.
- Tasks can be 'assigned' to a particular person (such as a group or team member).
- An email can be converted into a task
Appointments
To make a new Calendar appointment, click on the Calendars button in Evolution to show the calendar.
Right-click on a day and click 'New Appointment'.
An 'Appointment' window will open.
Fill in the fields with whatever information you like.
If the appointment will recur, click the 'recurrence' button and fill in the fields there as appropriate.
Your appointments can be organized into categories, if the 'categories' field isn't showing in your 'Appointment' window, look in the 'View' menu and make sure it's checked.
When you click the 'categories' button, there's a list of about 22 suggested categories to choose from. If that's not enough, you can create your own categories, just click 'New', and add your own custom one. When you have select a category, an icon will show up in your calendar after you hit 'save'.
The icons are 16x16 pixel .png images and they're located in /usr/share/pixmaps/evolution-data-server/
You can easily make your own icons with G.I.M.P (Gnu Image Manipulation Program).
The coolest things about appointments are,
- Appointments will be marked in our big evolution calendar
- We can set our Evolution to display a custom alarm to remind us about the appointment
A menu will show up allowing you to set an alarm to display fifteen minutes, one day or an hour or a custom amount of time before the event. The only option I found that was worthwhile using was the 'customize' option, the others were grayed out.
You can set more than one alarm, so if it's someone's birthday for example, you can set one alarm for a day before to give you time to buy a gift maybe, and another alarm an hour before time to go and visit whoever it is who's celebrating a birthday.
When you are editing your alarm, don't bother too much with the 'pop up an alert', or 'play a sound' options. The 'pop up an alert' and 'play a sound' options are quite unobtrusive and easy to overlook. You'll not likely notice either of them and you 'miss your appointment.
Go for the 'run a program' option, because that's the best way to make an effective alarm.
It's much better to run a program from your Evolution calendar. You can run a program to play a song, present a picture on the desktop, and open and close your CD/DVD drawer to get your attention, and even have your computer speak to you and remind you about your appointment. (More things are possible too, those are just a few examples).
How do you do all that?
Well, to get the computer to present a picture on your Desktop reminding you of your appointment,
I suggest installing gthumb picture viewer and openclipart.
| herman@bookpc:~$ sudo apt-get install gthumb openclipart |
Go take a look in there and browse to find an image file you like (to suit the occasion).
Then when you're setting up your alarm in Evolution, in the 'Edit Alarm' box's 'Program' field, you type the name of the program you'd like your image file to be opened with, (gthumb), followed by the file path and name of the image file to be displayed.
For example: gthumb /usr/share/openclipart/png/food/deserts/birthday_cake.png
TIP: Try running that as a command in your terminal first, to make sure it'll work and you have the file path and name perfectly correct.
WARNING: Make sure you do a test run with Evolution too, with any programs you might want to use in your alarms. Ubuntu will need to ask your permission for Evolution to run each of those programs for the first time. That will mean none of your alarms will work properly the first time they are used. You have to grant permission before anything will happen.
If you tick 'do not ask me about this program again', you'll be able to run those programs without a hitch from Evolution from then on.
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If you want, you can make your own pictures from scratch with GIMP, or use a digital camera picture. Any image file will do, it can be as large or as small as you like.
You can copy openclipart to your /home/username directory and change the file ownership with a chown command and modify the clipart you want to. Use it in any way you like. For example, you might want to add a text message to a picture, (someone's name on a birthday cake maybe).
We can set more than one alarm, and it's also possible to set alarms to go off simultaneously.
To get your computer to talk to you,
Program: espeak
Arguments: 'it is someones birthday today'
(Replace 'someone' with a person's name), (You can put that all in the 'Program' line if you want).
TIP: Set the espeak program to run at the same time as the other alarm shows the picture with gthumb.
To get your computer to play a music file or any sound file,
Program: totem
Arguments: /path_to_file/filename
The command to open and close your CD/DVD drawer is: eject ; eject -t
If it's an important appointment, you might need all three types of alarms, in case your monitor happens to be in power saving mode when the image is displayed, and/or your speaker volume is turned down. In that case the opening CD/DVD drawer might be the only way you'll know there is an alarm.
Hopefully, you'll never have to worry about missing any important appointments ever again! :)
For short-term reminders, you might enjoy reading the following Ubuntu Web Forums thread, [HOWTO] Poorman's Reminder.
