HowToConfigureEvolutionForBlitzmail

UPDATE: Head over to http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/software/email-clients/ for a much better description, written by Thomas R. Shemanske.

Evolution is an "award-winning personal and workgroup information management solution"... Basically all this means is it is a nice email client with a built in calender and to do list. Evolution can be download for free at: http://www.ximian.org/products/evolution/

Setting up Evolution to use the Blitz server's using IMAP is simple.

(This is written for someone with no experience setting up a mail client... Anyone with experience should find it self explanatory...)

If you have never set up Evolution, it begins with a Setup Assistant, or if you create a new account you will be given the Assistant. Click next and fill in the Required info and Optional fields if desired, so in my case:

Full Name: Adam Riggall
Email Address: Adam.C.Riggall@dartmouthNOSPAM.edu
Organization: Dartmouth College

Click next to move to Recieving Email. Select IMAP from Server Type. What you need to insert into Host will take some research. Use NetBlitz http://netblitz2.dartmouth.edu and look at the verbose heading for a message which you have recieved. Up near the top there should be a Recieved by: and then a server. This is your host. I happen to be on newdancer, so I have:

Host: newdancer.dartmouth.edu
Username: adam.c.riggall

Be sure to select 'Use secure connection (SSL)'. Dartmouth is only allowing IMAP connection over SSL. Keep Password selected and decide if you want to have Evolution keep your password. Next takes you to some setup options. I like to automatically check for new messages every minute (At least until we have a notify written), and make sure to leave Only Show Subcribed Folders unchecked.

Click next to get to the Sending mail section. Leave it on SMTP and set your host to mailhub.dartmouth.edu. Leave the two checkboxes blank.

Clicking next you get to name the account, I simply call it 'Blitz'...

Next you Select your timezone and you are done.

When you finish it will throw up an error saying that it could not create a shortcut to the inbox because you did not provide a password... I don't think there is a way around this, but if anyone knows any better fix this.

Next it is easiest if you simply close Evolution and then reopen it. It will prompt you with a certificate warning because you are trying to connect to a secure server?, accept the certificate, type your password and you should be good to go. If it doesn't automatically do this, click on the inbox on the right and the click Send/Recivece. It should download all of your folders (If you can't see the folders, select View->FolderBar), click on INBOX and you should be ready to go. I find it extremely helpful to create a shortcut in the Shortcut Bar by right-clicking the inbox and selection 'Add to Shortcut Bar'.

Finally I would suggest sending a message to yourself to make sure that everything is working. Also remember that you are no longer on Dartmouth software, so you must type out full e-mail addresses, no more Adam.C.Riggall's. They have to be full Adam.C.Riggall@dartmouthNOSPAM.edu's. A minor inconvinience outweighed by the other feature's of Evolution.

Hope this helps... If you have any problems feel free to Blitz...

AdamRiggall - 27 Feb 2003