Vassar Technology Today | Evaluating new technologies: Zimbra, VPrint

Matthew Leung Columnist

Over the summer I sat in front of my computer far away from Vassar, reading the numerous e-mails about the Webmail upgrade process. I tried to keep abreast of the changes on campus, from the overnight migration from SquirrelMail to “Zimbra,” to the upgrade to the VPrint system. Both new systems are purportedly sleek and streamlined, but each has its own challenges that users must overcome.

I stared at the new layout of Zimbra and could not help but to feel a little confused when I saw the endless array of buttons, pop-up tips and extended menus. These changes were all highlights of the paid professional edition of Zimbra, which replaced the free open-source SquirrelMail in August. Seemingly an open-source non-profit, Zimbra Inc. is really a for-profit corporation backed by venture capitalists. It offers a high-maintenance feature-lacking free open-source version as well as a low-maintenance feature-packed paid version of the Webmail client. So I guess you get your money’s worth for every little button in Zimbra—hopefully.

Like many other complex applications, not all browsers can run Zimbra smoothly. That’s why Zimbra must offer a simple client for browsers such as Safari. Anyone who has tried to run Zimbra with Safari will notice several problems, such as the inability to scroll through your inbox message list. Ironically, Safari is essentially the official browser of Mac and Vassar is a self-proclaimed Mac campus. Zimbra is, however, working towards full compatibility with Safari.

Despite its visible and up-front features Zimbra lacks the handy directory of Vassar names and e-mail addresses. I had to use AskBanner to find my contacts and then copy and paste their addresses into Zimbra’s address book, which was a hassle. Also, the storage size indicator in the upper right hand corner of the window, which states that your quota is unlimited, is somewhat misleading. In reality, Computing and Information Services (CIS) will contact users who exceed the average storage size of about 250 MB, asking them to clean up—though your inbox won’t stop accepting messages at this predefined size limit.

Its more complex interface might take some getting used to, but all in all I found Zimbra to be a satisfactory replacement of desktop e-mail clients such as Eudora and Outlook. It offers both tags and folders to organize e-mails, in contrast to services such as Gmail, which offer only tags and encourage users to do away with traditional folders.

Zimbra’s shortcuts are also worth learning. By typing in one or two keys I sorted my e-mails into categories and opened windows to reply to them.

Perhaps the most notable improvement is the search option, which is more elaborate than most other e-mail services and returns results within a couple of seconds, unlike the lagging SquirrelMail. But with a complex system comes a complicated help section that seems too dense to yield instant solutions. There is also a frustrating “search” option in the help section that is not so much a search option as an elaborated index, since I couldn’t type anything into it. Luckily CIS offers its own simplified help pages on Zimbra on the CIS Web site at http://computing.vassar.edu/gethelp/VMAIL.html

While I had time to ease into Zimbra before classes began, I had to confront the changes to VPrint immediately upon my return to campus. I was surprised to find that the new VPrint machine in my dorm worked. CIS distributed the all-in-one copiers and printer machines throughout the campus over the summer, and also implemented an updated VPrint policy. When I first used VPrint, I had to first download the driver from CIS’s Web site. It was easy to install and a popup screen appeared on my laptop, asking that I type in my student I.D. number in order to send my document to a printing station. Easy enough. However, I could not imagine the hassle that would’ve followed in the event that I had entered the wrong number, erroneously sending a confidential file to someone else’s account.

The VPrint machines themselves are only semi-reliable, and their screens are somewhat slow. My advice is not to cancel a print job (or press any buttons at all) during printing because it can cause the machine to fall asleep for a few minutes. You wouldn’t want to get angry looks from other people waiting in line. The copy function, on the other hand, was almost flawless and is a boon for research at the library.

In comparison to the loose, more laborious do-it-yourself structure of Webmail and printing in the past, these new digital gizmos certainly provide luxuries. If future upgrades continue to follow this pattern, they too will most likely entail complex solutions with debatable details beneath the surface. It seems that technology at Vassar is aligning more frequently with mainstream commercial solutions—alas, another sign of debatable progress.