Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pidgin?

Pidgin is a chat client that lets you log into multiple accounts at one time. The software is free,free of adware and advertising. This can be downloaded at www.pidgin.im.

Once it is downloaded and installed you can add any accounts you might have including Yahoo, MSN, Mac, AOL, and Google Talk, among others.

Here are the instructions on how to add a Google Apps account for google talk in Pidgin.

1. Select "Add/Edit" from the Accounts menu, then press the "Add" button.

2. Fill in fields on the basic tab.

• Protocol: XMPP
• Screen name: johndoe
• Server: example.com
• Resource: Home
• Password: ********
• Local alias: John

3. Fill in fields on the advanced tab.

• [x] Force old (port 5223) SSL
• [ ] Allow plaintext over unencrypted streams
• Connect port: 5223
• Connect server: talk.google.com
• Proxy type: Use Global Proxy Settings

4. Press "Save". Don't "Register", because your username should already be assigned.

Need help or more questions?: Send a ticket or give us a call.

READ RECEIPTS on Webmail?

By far the easiest and most reliable way to know if your recipient has read a message is to ask them in the message to send you a brief reply.
Gmail's web interface does not support automatic read receipts or message disposition notifications (MDNs). In fact, there are no webmail systems that support these receipts.

Why are Read Receipts something you can do with Outlook but not Gmail?

Some mail clients allow you to set a special header that requests an automatic receipt notification from the receiving mail client. While you can't do this in Gmail's web interface, you can use a desktop mail client that supports this feature (such as Mozilla Thunderbird or MS Outlook) to send your mail via Gmail's SMTP servers. However, we no longer support those desktop clients here at Region IX as the benefits of the online environment of Gmail outweigh the logistics and support needed to use these desktop clients. And as noted below, different clients deal with receipts in different ways as there is no standard for these or they ignore them, making the receipt system invalid.

There are also variety of web-based services that can be used with any email address to send tracked mails. You should think very carefully before using such services, because they often use shady techniques to track emails. For example, they frequently use techniques otherwise employed only by spammers. Your recipients may consider such techniques to be an attempt to violate their privacy.

I did find some of these options. However, at this time, I can not suggest one that could be used as they use techniques that might be questionable and/or flag your messages to other mail servers as spam or hacking mail. When a sender is flagged in this way, often times, the entire domain is flagged so all the senders to that server from our mail system would be potentially blocked.

What's the problem with read receipts?

There are essentially two problems with read receipts in general:

They are unreliable: For a read receipt to work, the receiving client must support it and be configured to use it. Many clients (including most webmail services) will simply ignore any read receipt request. For this reason, not receiving a read receipt doesn't mean that the mail was not read. In addition, some systems may reply to read receipts without the user having truly opened the message. So receiving a read receipt doesn't necessarily mean the mail was read. In other words, read receipts tell you almost nothing. Even the sneakier techniques used by mail tracking services are far-less than perfectly reliable.

They may be considered a violation of privacy: Your recipient may not want you to know exactly when they opened your email. For this reason, most modern email clients won't send a read receipts without the explicit confirmation of the recipient.

The easiest way to duplicate a file is to open the file and go to SAVE as… then give the file a new name. Your original file and the newly named file will now be in the same folder. If you want to send a file that has private data, the second file should not be named with any private information. If you have more questions about duplicating a file please contact the technology department.

To password protect a Word document in Mac:

1.    With the document open and visible, on the Word menu, click Preferences.
2.    Click the Save header on the left.
3.    To require a password to open the document, in the Password to open box, type a password, and then click OK. In the Reenter password to open box, type the password again, and then click OK.
4.    To test the password, close and reopen the document.

Please NOTE!
It is advised that you make a copy of the document that you want to protect. Then apply the password protection to that new file. This will do many things, but most importantly it will:
1. Allow you to still open the original file without protection. 
2. Have access to the information in file if you forget the password. 

if you are unsure how to do this look for the FAQ for duplicating a document.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you do not remember the password and it has been set to something other than what has been agreed upon, you will not be able to open the document. There is no way around the password protection. Please be sure to use the agreed password or one that you can remember.

To password protect a Word document in Windows:

1.    With the document open and visible, on the Tools menu, click Options.
2.    Click the Security tab (may be labeled as Save).
3.    To require a password to open the document, in the Password to open box, type a password, and then click OK. In the Reenter password to open box, type the password again, and then click OK.
4.    To test the password, close and reopen the document.

Please NOTE!
It is advised that you make a copy of the document that you want to protect. Then apply the password protection to that new file. This will do many things, but most importantly it will:
1. Allow you to still open the original file without protection. 
2. Have access to the information in file if you forget the password. 

if you are unsure how to do this look for the FAQ for duplicating a document.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you do not remember the password and it has been set to something other than what has been agreed upon, you will not be able to open the document. There is no way around the password protection. Please be sure to use the agreed password or one that you can remember.