Information Technology Services is urging students and faculty to transfer information from their Outblaze inboxes before the University’s contract with Outblaze expires in June, deleting all stored information.This semester, the University switched e-mail services from Outblaze to Google’s free e-mail service, Gmail.Sheri Thompson, IT communications and planning officer, said ITS is sending e-mails and purchasing advertisements to notify students and faculty of the June 1 deadline for transferring old information.Thompson said the transition from Outblaze to TigerMail ran smoothly, free from bugs or problems during the transfer.”TigerMail seems to be a better experience,” Thompson said. “We haven’t been having any problems with it, and it does not cost the University money.”Jessie McCumsey, English literature senior, said she likes TigerMail because it’s easier to access on her cell phone.”I had trouble when I was first transferred to TigerMail because I didn’t know how to get it,” she said. “I like TigerMail better because I had trouble setting PAWS e-mail on my phone.”But not all students — such as mass communication junior Ashley Lopez — agree with the transfer.Lopez said her speech and debate team was planning a tournament during the transfers and had trouble communicating.”I felt like changing in the middle of the semester is beyond ridiculous,” she said. “It seems like college bureaucracy, like ‘We’re going to do this now, and it’s not going to affect the people who are changing.'”Katie Wilson, general studies junior, said she prefers Outblaze to TigerMail because Outblaze was more straightforward and didn’t have the features of TigerMail.”When I first switched, I didn’t have any of my old contacts,” she said. “I had to write them on my hand. I like the old one [Outblaze] better because it doesn’t have chat, or ads.”The transition began Jan. 28. It broke students, faculty and staff into groups, and moved in alphabetical order.Thompson said more than 38,000 TigerMail accounts were activated by the transition team, which activated 3,000 accounts daily.Thompson said ITS knew how to avoid potential transfer problems because they underwent a mass switch of e-mail accounts when the University moved to Outblaze.Thompson said any messages or ties to the old account, @lsu.edu, will forward to the new account, @tigers.lsu.edu, giving students an option. However, she said tigers.lsu.edu is faster, bypassing the LSU system and sending straight to a student’s inbox.”You don’t need to re-distribute your e-mail to people who already have the old one,” she said. “But when you reply, it will specify in the details that it was sent from your tigers.lsu.edu address, giving them your new e-mail.”—-Contact Steven Powell at [email protected]
ITS urging users to clear out Outblaze information
May 2, 2009