Email

To use the webmail program called 'SquirrelMail' you can login at the following address: http://mail.vcn.bc.ca

SquirrelMail offers an interface to your mail inbox that has lots of features and options, including:

1. a folder system
2. a filter system
3. spellchecking with several international dictionaries
4. several colour schemes
5. and the ability to translate your messages using one of several translation servers on the Internet

E-mail any problems, comments, or suggestions you have with SquirrelMail to help@vcn.bc.ca.

There are minor differences in the layout between the two applications, however the information and which step you put the information in should be very similar.

1. Start Outlook Express, and on the Tools menu, click Accounts.
   If the Internet Connection Wizard starts up automatically, skip ahead to step 3.
2. Click Add, and then click Mail to open the Internet Connection Wizard.
   Mail option from the Add button
3. On the Your Name page of the wizard, type your name as you want it to appear to everyone who gets e-mail from you, and then click Next.
   Most people use their full name, but you can use any name-even a nickname-that people will recognize.
4. On the Internet Explorer Address page, type your e-mail address, and then click Next.
5. On the E-mail Server Names page, you will be using a POP3 account, and the Incoming mail server and the Outgoing SMTP server will both be: mail.vcn.bc.ca Unless you are using Telus or Shaw as your internet provider.
6. On the Internet Mail Logon page, type your account name and password.

Note: If you're concerned about break-ins to your e-mail, clear the check in the Remember Password checkbox. You'll then be prompted for the password each time you send or retrieve mail.

7. Click Next, and then click Finish.

1. In Mozilla Thunderbird, from the Tools menu select Account Settings.
2. Select Email account, and then click Next.
3. Enter your name and e-mail address.
4. Select POP as the type of incoming server you are using. Your incoming server is mail.vcn.bc.ca. Click Next.
5. Enter your e-mail address for the Incoming User Name, and Outgoing User Name. Click Next.
6. Enter a name for your email account and click Next.
7. Verify your account information and click Finish.
8. In the Account Settings window, select Outgoing Server listed below your new account.
9. Select Use name and password and enter your e-mail address. Thunderbird will ask you for your password the first time you try to send mail. Click OK.

To enable POP3 in Gmail:

1. Sign in to Gmail.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
3. Click Accounts.
4. Choose Add another email address you own.

Enter in the address to be shown in your email, eg. yourname@gmail.com or yourname@vcn.bc.ca

Enter in the incoming (POP) server name as mail.vcn.bc.ca

For additional options/settings, please see the Gmail help page.

Users could also use our Telnet access to check and send emails

Or to open Telnet manually

1. Open the Start Menu and click Run
2. Type telnet and press ENTER
3. In the window that opens type open vcn.bc.ca and press ENTER
4. Login with your VCN username and password

Automatic Forwards using PINE or Telnet

• Log into Telnet using telnet://vcn.bc.ca/

• Go to "[5]E-mail - Send and receive electronic mail - Email options"
• Go to "* [8]Change your email forwarding options"
• Go to "[1]Forward Your E-mail Elsewhere"
• Beside "Where would you like to forward to:" enter the email address you want to forward to.
• Press ENTER.
• Press ENTER again.

Most commonly, this happens when received emails have one or more attachments that are too large to download with dial up, using Outlook/Thunderbird. The emails get "stuck" and when you try to get your messages again, the server starts sending you all the messages over again.

There are a couple quick fixes you can do, you can either login through our Webmail to delete/move the email from the inbox, or temporarily use a highspeed internet connection to quickly deal with the issue. If you do not have access to highspeed internet, we do have two public computers that are available at our office on 411 Dunsmuir.

This commonly occurs when you switch your internet service provider. You can receive VCN emails from any internet connection; however, you must send email through your service provider's servers. If you are sending mail through VCN Dial up, your SMTP server is mail.vcn.bc.ca

A couple things to remember: your username is not your whole email. If your email is yourname@vcn.bc.ca, your username would be yourname. Also, both your username and password are case sensitive. If you have forgotten your password, please phone our Help Desk and speak with a volunteer.

There could be many reasons a message was not sent or received, it could be the sending and/or receiving email applications, the sending and/or receiving internet connections, the sending and/or receiving servers, spam filters and blacklists, or someone mistyped an email address.

For problems during sending, most times whoever sent the email will get an error message. If you are having problems sending from a VCN account, please get an exact day and time the message was sent so we can check our servers for error messages. Also, you can look at our help section on Managing the SPAM filter, at the bottom of this page, to see if the email was accidentally blocked as Spam.

Delayed VCN Emails

If you have sent an email from your VCN account, and the intended recipient did not receive the email, and you have not received an error/bounced message, it could mean that VCN's email server is temporarily overloaded or the receiving server is experiencing temporary problems. VCN's servers do try to resend emails for approximately one day. If the email is still not sent after a day, you will receive an error message. You can check our Announcements on our main page for any VCN server problems, or contact our Help Desk for more information.

The main problems that can give you the Failed Permanently error while sending emails are: the email address is misspelled or doesn't exist, or ,after numerous attempts, the receiving email server is not accepting emails from VCN.

Often times, rechecking the spelling and resending is the quickest solution for this problem.

If you need more information or have questions about an email problem like this, please contact our Help Desk with the error message you received and the date and time the message was sent.

Please see our section below on how to View and Training the SPAM filter, and also the section on Reporting SPAM

I recently switched from VCN dial up to a high-speed connection. I would like to continue using my VCN email, but when I try to send emails I get an error that the SMTP cannot be found. My Operating System is Windows XP, and I am using Outlook Express for my emails.

Using VCN Webmail or Squirrel Mail
To use the webmail program called 'SquirrelMail' log on to the address http://mail.vcn.bc.ca

SquirrelMail offers an interface to your mail inbox that has lots of features and options, including:

1. Go to mail.vcn.bc.ca and login
2. Click on "Folders"
3. Under "Create Folder" type in "SPAM" for the folder name. Leave "as a subfolder of" as "[None]" and " Let this folder contain subfolders" unchecked. Click on "Create"
4. Click on "Options" then "Message Filters"
5. Click on "New"
6. In "Match:" select "Subject"
7. In "Contains:", type "[SPAM]"
8. In "Move To:", select the folder "SPAM" you just created
9. Click on "Submit"
10. You should now see "If Subject contains [SPAM] then move to SPAM"
11. Click on "Done" when you are finished

1. Open Outlook Express
2. Click on Tools, then Message Rules, then Mail
3. If "New Mail Rule" doesn't appear, press the "New" button
4. Under "1. Select the Conditions for your rule:" select "Where the Subject line contains specific words"
5. Under "2. Select the Actions for your rule" select "Move it to the specified folder"
6. Under "3. Rule Description" click on the link "contains specific words". Type in "[SPAM]" and click on "Add". Click on "OK"
7. Under "3. Rule Description" click on the link "specified" folder. Select a folder or create a new folder. To create a new folder click on "Local Folders" first and then "New Folder". In "Folder Name" type "SPAM" or a name of your choice. Click on "OK". Press "OK" once you have the folder selected
8. Enter "SPAM" as the name for the rule in "4) Name of the rule" then click on "OK". You can repeat steps 3-7 to add more filters/rules

For more information on Rules, press F1 to access help, then go to "Index" and Search for "Rules"

1. Go to "Tools"
2. Click on "Rules Wizard"
3. Under "Apply change to this folder:" select your VCN email
4. Click on "New..."
5. Select "Start from blank rule"
6. Select "Check message when they arrive"
7. Press "Next"
8. Check off "with specific words in the subject"
9. At the bottom click on "specific words" that's underlined
10. Under "Specify words or phrases to search for in the subject:" type "[SPAM]" without quotes
11. Click "Add"
12. Click "Ok"
13. Click "Next"
14. To move SPAM to a SPAM folder

    • Check off "move it to the specified folder"
    • At the bottom click on "specified"
    • Select the folder you want to move the SPAM to. If you don't have a SPAM folder, click on "New..."
    • Under "Name:" type "SPAM" without quotes.
    • Click "OK"
    • Make sure the current folder is selected and click "OK" again

15. Optional: To delete SPAM

    • Check off "delete it"

16. Click "Next"
17. Click "Next" again if you don't want exceptions
18. Under "Please specify a name for this rule:" type "SPAM" without quotes
19. If you already have SPAM in your inbox, check "Run this rule now on messages already in "Inbox"
20. Make sure "Turn on this rule" is checked
21. Review the rule and click "Finish" when you're done
22. Click "OK"

To set up filters:

1. Select Tools/Filters (Windows) or Special/Filters (Macintosh)
2. Click New.
3. Under Match, do this:

   • Select Incoming.
   • Select which header item you wish the filter to find. Fill it in like the example above.
   • If you wish to filter on a second header, select and, otherwise select ignore. Fill in the details of the second header item you wish to filter on.

4. Under Action, do this:

   • Choose what you want to do. If you choose Transfer To, you must then select an appropriate box to transfer the matching messages to.

When you've set up the filter, close the window. You'll be asked to save the filter.

Here are the steps to View and Retrain the VCN Spam Filter (Dspam)

1. Log into http://dspam.vcn.bc.ca with your VCN username and password
2. Click on "History" at the top
3. Good message are in green and SPAM is in red
4. To retrain SPAM that have not been labeled as SPAM, click on "As Spam"
5. To retrain good messages that have been incorrectly labeled as SPAM, click on "As Innocent"
6. To undo any mistakes, click on "Undo"

Spamcop can be used with any email system, however VCN squirrel mail is set up to report spam to them as described below

1. Click on "sign up page" or go to http://spamcop.net/anonsignup.shtml to register for a SpamCop account.

2. Read the rules for using SpamCop. Abusing SpamCop will permanently block you from their service.

3. Wait for an email titled "SpamCop authorization" to find your SpamCop username and password.

4. Login at http://www.spamcop.net/mcgi?action=loginform

5. Look for the line "Forward your spam to: submit.AUTHORIZATION_CODE@spam.spamcop.net or".

6. Copy or write down the AUTHORIZATION_CODE that is between "submit." and "@spam.spamcop.net". AUTHORIZATION_CODE is filler. It will be a letter and number combination that is unique to your account.

   

7. Go to "Options" at the top on Squirrelmail/webmail.

8. Click on "SpamCop - Spam Reporting".

9. Change "Spam Reporting Method" to "Thorough email-based reporting".

10. Click on the "Save Method" button.

11. Enter your authorization code from step 5

12. Click on the "Save ID" button.

13. It should now say "SpamCop link is: Enabled" at the top. If it is Disabled click on "Enable it".

14. If you want reported emails to be deleted click on "Enable it" for "Delete spam when reported".

    

15. When you read an email there should now be a link named "Report as Spam to SpamCop". Click on this link to report SPAM.

16. Click on "Send Spam Report" to send the report.

17. The "SpamCop AutoResponder" will email you back once it analyzes the email

18. The email will have the subject "[SpamCop] has accepted N email for processing".

19. Click on the link after "Use links to finish spam reporting (members use cookie-login please!):"

20. Click on "Preview Reports" to see what will SpamCop send out.

21. Click on "Send Spam Report(s) Now" to send the reports.

• Q: I can't login or I receive the error "500 Internal Server Error".

  A: Your user name or password is incorrect. You will need to close the browser and try logging in again.
  
  Make sure you don't put "@vcn.bc.ca" with the user name. For example, if your email is "name@vcn.bc.ca" you would enter "name".
  
  If you are unsure about your password, you can login at VCN's home page or at VCN's webmail service.
  
  To reset your password please look at this page.

• Q: Why does my email bounce back when I try and forward it to "spam@vcn.bc.ca"? I received the error -----

  A: That normally means the SPAM is down. Please try again later.
  
  You may contact the help desk at help@vcn.bc.ca for more information.

• Q: How do I identify false-positives or emails that have been incorrectly filtered as SPAM?

  A: 1. Go to http://dspam.vcn.bc.ca/. 2. Check the emails you want to be delivered on the left-hand side. 3. Press the button "Deliver Checked".

• Q: How do I identify SPAM that passes through the filter?

  A: You can forward SPAM to "spam@vcn.bc.ca".

• Q: How can I opt-out of the SPAM filter?

  A: 1. Go to http://dspam.vcn.bc.ca/. 2. Go to "Preferences" at the top. 3. Check "Opt out of SPAM filtering". 4. Press "Submit Changes".

• Q: How can I allow all emails go to my inbox and tag SPAM with "[SPAM]"? How can I use the old SPAM filtering method?

  A: 1. Go to http://dspam.vcn.bc.ca/. 2. Go to "Preferences" at the top. 3. Select "Tag the Subject header with". 4. Type in "[SPAM]" in the box on the right side. 5. It should now say "Tag the Subject header with [SPAM]". 6. Press "Submit Changes".

• Q: How do I remove the DSPAM text from my emails? How can I bounce SPAM emails instead of forwarding them?

  A: 1. Go to http://dspam.vcn.bc.ca/. 2. Go to "Preferences" at the top. 3. Under "When I train DSPAM, I prefer:" select "To bounce my spams (signature appears in message headers)". 4. Press "Submit Changes".

  NOTE: You can no longer forward SPAM emails.

• Q: I made a mistake in identifying SPAM or emails that aren't SPAM. How do I fix this?

  A: 1. Go to http://dspam.vcn.bc.ca/. 2. Go to "History" at the top. 3. Press the "Undo" link to undo any mistakes.

• Q: How do I white-list or stop the filter from filtering certain emails?

  A: Once you received 10 or more emails from an address that you have specified as not SPAM, the filter will white-list that email address.

• Q: How do I enable the quarantine feature?

  A: 1. Go to http://dspam.vcn.bc.ca/. 2. Press on the "Login" button and enter your VCN user name and password. 3. Click on "Preferences" at the top. 4. Under the section "Message Handling - Configure how SPAM is handled" select "Quarantine the message". 5. Click on "Submit Changes".