We'd like to welcome our new, incoming class of Penn Live users! We want to let you know about a couple of ways that you can learn more about Penn Live and get help, should you need it:

- this blog - whenever we encounter a topic of general interest relating to Penn Live, we post it to the blog. Checking back frequently or - even better - subscribing to the RSS feed is a good way to learn more about Penn Live.

- our FAQ - we maintain both a general and technical FAQ for Penn Live, located here:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/help/pennlive/

whenever we see multiple help requests on a common topic, we usually write an article for the FAQ. If you'd like to learn about configuring a mail client or mobile device for use with Penn Live, you should find what you need in the FAQ.

- our help form - if you can't find what you need on the blog or in the FAQ, just fill out our help form and we will get back to you right away with an answer to your question:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/forms/student_email_help.html

So, welcome, and please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

It has recently come to our attention that the there are some incompatibilities between Firefox 3 and Penn Live (Hotmail). When you go to check your mail using Firefox 3, it will work, but you will be in "Classic Mode," a version of Penn Live that does not provide the full user interface experience - e.g. you can't drag and drop messages.

You will get this message when you log into Penn Live using Firefox 3:

"You are temporarily on the classic version of Windows Live due to an error encountered during login. Before trying again, please clear your cache and cookies."

Please note that clearing your cache and cookies will not actually resolve the problem.

Microsoft and Mozilla are aware of the problem and are working to resolve it. In the meantime, if you encounter this situation, you can either use Penn Live in Classic Mode or downgrade your browser to Firefox 2. If you'd like to discuss other alternatives, just send us a note using our email help form and we'd be happy to discuss it with you:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/forms/student_email_help.html

We're excited to announce that we now have 4000 students and alumni actively using Penn Live!

We've seen a couple of cases recently where Penn Live accounts have been locked due to students sending out mailings to a large number of recipients on behalf of their employers. We highly recommend that you do not send out bulk mailings from your Penn Live account. If you send an email to several hundred recipients, you run the risk of your account getting automatically locked. Your account can also get locked if you send out a large mailing and several of the recipients mark the message as SPAM.

If you do find that your account has been locked, please let us know and we can help you get it unlocked:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/forms/student_email_help.html

We're excited to announce that we now have 3000 SAS students actively using Penn Live to manage their email!

If you haven't tried out Penn Live yet, we highly recommend that you check it out.

One of the coolest new additions to the Penn Live suite of applications is Office Live Workspaces. OLW allows you to create and store Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) online. You can then edit those files either through your web browser or through the copy of Office that you have installed on your computer.

For example, you can open a Word document that you have stored online from Microsoft Word. Whenever you click the "Save" button, your changes will be saved back up to the copy of the document that is stored online, seamlessly.

You can also share your files with other Penn Live users to facilitate collaboration. You can share entire workspaces or on a per-file basis.

OLW is a great to tool to avoid having to email copies of your paper to yourself in order to transport it around - and all of the versioning problems that come along with that! Speaking of versioning, OLW also keeps track of all of the changes you make to your documents and allows you to "roll back" to a previous version.

If you haven't tried it yet, you should definitely check out Office Live Workspaces:

http://workspace.officelive.com/

We're excited to announce that Windows Live SkyDrive now offers 5GB of storage space for you to use! If you haven't seen it yet, SkyDrive is a Windows Live service that offers you space to store your files online. You can even share individual files and folders with your friends quickly and easily. And, now, with 5GB of storage space, you should have plenty of space to store everything you need in your SkyDrive.

We highly recommend that you check it out:

http://skydrive.live.com

We're excited to announce that the Penn Live email service will become available to all SAS graduate and professional students in early January! If you are a SAS graduate or professional student, look for your invitation to sign up for Penn Live shortly after the winter break!

Do you already have a commercial Hotmail account - an account that ends in @hotmail.com, @msn.com, or @live.com? Do you want to be able to quickly switch between your commercial Hotmail account and your Penn Live account, all while keeping your school email separate from your personal email? You can do this by using Windows Live's Linked-ID feature.

You can find more info on setting up Linked-ID's here:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/help/pennlive/hotmail.html

Please note that when you delete a message in Penn Live it will only sit in your deleted items folder for 3-5 days before being removed from the server. If you're unsure about whether you want to delete a message, you should think about filing such messages in a folder before moving them to the deleted items folder.

If you'd like to be notified whenever some event occurs -- e.g. when some one comments on your Space, when there is breaking news, etc. -- Windows Live Alerts is the program for you. The best part about it is that you choose the medium by which you want to be contacted. You can choose from email, Windows Live Messenger, or text message (SMS).

You can find a listing of available alerts here:

http://alerts.live.com/Alerts/SignUpAlerts.aspx

If you're sending an important message to another Penn Live user and you don't want that message to get lost in his or her inbox, you should consider marking it as important. There is a button with a little red exclamation point on it in the toolbar on the message composition screen. Just click that button anytime before you send your message.

When your message is received, other Penn Live users will be able to see the exclamation point on the message, causing it to stand out from other messages.

You could also send yourself messages marked as important that contain pressing reminders or to-do items.

One of Windows Live Messenger's cool features is that it will alert you whenever you receive mail to your Penn Live account. If you like to be notified as soon as you receive new mail, you will probably like this feature a lot!

You can also get one-click access to your mail and spaces from Windows Live Messenger without having to sign in again.

Check it out here:

http://get.live.com/messenger/

Did you know that clicking on the Penn Arts & Sciences logo or the Windows Live logo in the top left corner of your Penn Live screen gives you a menu with helpful links? There are links to Penn- and SAS-specific resources (like the Penn Live FAQ and the Penn Directory), as well as links to Windows Live services.

One of the nice things about the Penn Live web interface is that you can right-click or command-click (Mac OS) on objects to get a context menu with more options, similar to right-clicking on a file in Windows or Command-clicking in Mac OS. This feature is supported in both FireFox and Internet Explorer.

An example of something you can do through right-clicking is marking messages as read or unread. You can also right-click on your "Deleted" folder to empty your trash.

So, try right-clicking (in Windows)  or Command-clicking (in Mac OS) on your messages to see all of your options!

More results from the survey.  You can file this one under, "Well, duh!"

We asked, "How important were each of the following factors in your decision to use Penn Live?"

It comes as no surprise that the most important reasons (by a landslide) were the increased storage space offered by Penn Live and that it's better than the old webmail.sas  system.

Click the graph to see details.

On Thursday 9/27/2007 we activated a survey for approximately 1800 College students using Penn Live.  As of this morning, we've gotten 245 surveys returned.  Thanks to all of you for taking the time to tell us what you think.  The survey is still available at
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/auth_forms/pennlive_survey.html and it's not too late to respond.

The most important question on this survey is, "Overall, how well does Penn Live meet your needs?"

The results look pretty good; of the 240 students who answered this question so far, ~68% indicated "very well" or "completely."
Click on the graph below for details.

BTW.... We've also got a similar survey for College of General Studies students coming online today at
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/auth_forms/pennlive_cgs_survey.html
CGS students, let us know about how you're using Penn Live!

Vacation replies are now available! Now, when you go on vacation, or are away from email for any other reason, you can set your vacation reply to automatically reply to all messages that you receive with a message of your choosing. For example, if you will be away for the week, you could have your vacation reply let people know when you will be returning or an alternate means to reach you while you are away.

You can set up your vacation reply by going to Options, More Options, and selecting "Send Automated Vacation Replies."

If you have any questions about Penn Live or need any help with any of its features, we've got several ways to help you out. You can see all of them here:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/help/pennlive/support.html

The newest addition to our support offerings is that we have walk-in help available Monday - Thursday, 1pm - 9pm, during the Fall semester. Check out the link above for more information about walk-in hours.

We have made changes to Junk mail settings for Penn Live and are now seeing that mail sent from Penn servers is being properly delivered.  We'll continue to test and monitor performance to assure that things continue to work as they should.