The University of Mauritius is now using Google Apps to provide enhanced services to all 6000 students. They will get:
- GMail = a web-based mail client with chat facilities with 2Gb of storage,
- Calendar = with collaborative features i.e. perfect for organizing meetings,
- Docs = collaborative online word-processor compatible with Word and the OpenDocument Format,
- Spreadsheet = collaborative online spreadsheet compatible with Excel and the OpenDocument Format.
Let’s hope that the bandwidth the students have at university will be sufficient for them to use these apps!
The students will also have the possibility to read and write emails from their mobile phones using either a customized web interface to Gmail or a nifty Gmail Java application which Google offers for free. (Crap! The application only works with Blackberry devices!)
What is cool is that everything is powered by Linux and Open Source Software.
I am happy :-)
Had it not been powered by Linux and Open Source Software, following your logic, it wouldn’t be cool, would it???
:lol:
Exactly :-)
Exactly :-)
:p hmmm… which means following that logic, means that a MAC isn’t cool? Hmm you should stop using that (give it to me, i’ll download linux CDs for you ever 2 days :))
Why do i feel that google want to be the owner of the world?
What will happen if… this ‘giving’ univ email to univ student is just a well planned step by google (who just happens to like innovative ideas) to have some sort of ‘project echelon’ type of system inside so as it can have an ear in whatever is happenning in universities? (since i believe universities come up with great ideas…), so google might just wanna be the first one to hear things?
[well i do agree that anyone can get access to anybody’s actual email contents at uom right now… but in a perfect world it is not supposed to be this way, so moving to google this would give google more power]
Okay you might wanna say its against the law and blahblah… but the business of google is to know everything and get everything first.
Well, probably things will always go the google’s way, but i still believe trusting something that much is bad, met tou dizef dans 1 sel panier… :p danzerE sa
google is almost as if imposing on ppl now!
not, i myself use gmail, but this offering universities email is a major step in owning the world… then it’ll move to colleges, primary schools and down.. until finally when someone is born, google gives him/her a gmail account, and his birth certificate stamped “google”.
And what about security considerations? knowing that every person on earth will have to own a gmail account, it would be much more easier to get information about ppl or track down ppl… plus it is starting monopoly..without fairness. [never used a hotmail email though, and i still do agree that gmail is one of the best email i have used], but my worries are not about its quality… but about the possible risks and implications. ok tell me am parano if you want, but this smells world domination …
+S3|v3n
Yeah, right?! I’m a pessimist. It harvests your data. Welcome to the UOM ‘google-cached guys and gals’.
If you wanted collaboration etc, you’d have set up your own system – won’t be that costly. Have fun if you trust google. i don’t, and i won’t have my data mined!
just because a web based application uses linux and oss does not make it cool. it’s all comes down to needs, features, extensibility, malleability, platforms and security features.
Google Apps works great… at least for me :-)
What I know is that UoM evaluated both Microsoft and Google’s solution before choosing the latter.
Previously, they were using their own mail server but they had so many issues that they felt that using something like Google Apps was extremely beneficial.
As for Google attempting world domination, I have my doubts. Don’t forget their motto is “don’t act evil” :-)
More seriously, I think that we are moving towards collaborative online applications and I rather trust Google to keep the infrastructure running than someone else. And they use Linux and Open Source Software :-)
To Deana:
This choice was made by the IT department (CITS) after a lot of thoughts. The Dept. of Computer Science (where I am) only marginally participated in this choice. That is, it’s not because of me that Google was chosen :-)
[…]until finally when someone is born, google gives him/her a gmail account, and his birth certificate stamped “google”.
Selven, that imagination of urs got no limits!!! lolz…
CITS has never been able to manage that mail server properly, and i can shout it loud enough, coz the number of security holes i have found since i got in that univ is just embarrassing! i wonder how they can be said CITS! One can even get execution privilege on that server.. thankfully at least that one bug report they fixed.
So their decision doesn’t really make me at ease.
Though i do trust google’s security and applications.. sinon mo pa ti pou servi gmail, what i fear is google’s apparently hunger for power.
the “Don’t Be Evil” thing is just words.. :p, i don’t claim that google will be naughty… but logically, giving all powers in only one hand is always bad.. history has proved that lots of time :p
“And they use Linux and Open Source Software :-)” there use of opensource doesn’t mean they are leet :p probably because they have a great team and always aim perfection is what make em solid and trustworthy. If my lil brother tells me he has installed apache on linux on his box and is giving me free hosting, i will never host myself there, coz he’s crazy. While i might host my files there if you or ajay, pascal, or csyke or myself or someone who knows his stuffs did it.
google is great and makes great solution, but still… too much power on one entity… is evil.
+selven
i wonder if people do use their these mail accounts..
with such a “nice” bandwith am sure it will work great :)
lol (as if pe donne dimoune ki pena ledents manze roti poule)
i’m not implying that you’re the one cause of the implementation.
i don’t mind using live. it worked for me, for a while.
the whole “don’t be evil” thingy is false. google is evil, just less evil than most companies.
i’m irked (limit pissed off) that you’ve chosen not to promote open source by using your own web based application and have gone for google. it shows lack of professionalism when it comes to open source (why not let everybody @ uom participate in the creation of a web based application). or are you too lazy? yeah yeah, much thoughts were given in picking google. hee hee
google is evil. i hereby nominate all of you (*cough* what? i’m deana, the great lol), “google-cached folks” who are easily tracked.
W007 @ google going through the messages of UOM, displaying adverts (tired of blocking) amongst other things.
it’s a sad news – you guys just killed a chance for you all to work on a project. try save the day and provide a better alternative.
sorry – but you just ruined by tuesday. i’m glad i’m no longer part of the uom madness. (sorry, still irked a little)
lol
i don’t really use that account, with the previous mx we couldn’t send attachments
anyway i think its a bad choice coz our connection speed at uom is too slow and our server being remote doesn’t make it an easy option.
login into my gmail account at uom sometimes takes about 15 mins.
could implement an IM system running locally, this would be really nice i think
You’re right. I’ve been using Google apps too for about 6 months now. Because it works. I wouldn’t go as far “it works great”. but I least I have proper webmail for my websites without too much of a hassle.
But I don’t have blind faith in google either… the’re like a cult…. and they make avinash sound like a zealot when he talks about them…
Have a look at this -> http://www.libellules.ch/phpBB2/gmail-touche-par-une-tres-inquietante-faille-0-day-t25552.html
One big issue when running a webmail system is disk space. The UoM has 6000 students. Multiply this by 2Gb (which is what GMail is giving) and you’ll realise that we are talking about massive disk space.
I don’t think anyone in Mauritius has this kind of money.
So that’s why, I guess, CITS has decided to move to GMail.
And, once again, Deana, you must realise that we are not talking about a toy web application here but rather something that might be used by up to 6000 users concurrently. I don’t know how to build such a beast. And I guess you don’t know either. Do a little bit of research before talking of something that you don’t know.
Ouch!!! :P
I think that CITS has took a good decision to reject Micro$oft’s offer.
Am having problem with adding this new mail add. with my existing gmail. The error is as follows:
There was a problem connecting to mail.umail.uom.ac.mu. Error details: Server returned error: “Connection timed out”
as far as for POP access on this account with Outlook, I’m having prbm with this too.
Pop Server:????????
smtp server:???????????
What I like with this scheme is that we enjoy a personalised start page
http://partnerpage.google.com/umail.uom.ac.mu
and many more Google products as described in:
http://www.google.com/a/edu/
Congrats for using Google but does it make any significant leap or difference for us?
Hardly I guess. What’s UOM mail anyway?, you’ll hear all the time, even from your CSE students! You have to agree most of us STILL use Hotmail and Yahoo heavily, even for sharing project work or any academic-related document. What can you do to change that? I remember student mailing lists (for my CS class at least) hardly bearing any address with the very distinguishing @mx.uom.ac.mu (It’s still accessible here at http://mx.uom.ac.mu/src/login.php and guess what’s to become of it).
And what about the speed? MX servers were surely very fast since they were hosted locally. Do you think our labs are sufficiently well equipped with ‘decent'(don’t mention ‘high-speed’ because of the lamentable state of our network infrastructure. CITS have a good look at that!)connection.
As Selven pointed out, newer (or read ‘open source’) is not always better and when it comes to Google, it’s like using it and kicking oneself in the rear after each Google mail login. And if Google’s not evil, then what do you make of their recent ‘strategic’ move in acquiring Double Click for $3.1 bn? Come on… :)
I too wonder how you are going to use Gmail with the kind of crap bandwidth you have in labs..
One nice consequence of using Google Apps is that we’ll be able to work collaboratively on documents and spreadsheets. I’ll have to think of ways to leverage that.
(And, yes, Google is a commercial company…)
btw..
does CITS have access to these accounts?
Hmm, btw :) i have a bright suggestion :p
Since the mx.uom.ac.mu is supposed to be killed now… :p there should be a server and lots of space available now, less bandwidth usage at night, can’t we make use of that so that it can be used to download e.g latest GNU/Linux distro, *BSDs or big opensource projects that would be difficult to download for the average students. This way, if let’s say i want to have FreeBSD 7, instead of having to wait a weeks for the download to complete, I place a request let’s say somewhere on the server, someone moderates it and decides that it can be queued there, so it gets downloaded there at night, the next morning, i come to the univ, copy the file off the network, since it would be local, it would be just a matter of some minutes, and i guess it will be a good project to allow the spread of open source projects :):):):)
Since I guess the bandwidth is unused at night (i suppose the allocation for the mail server which is now unused), can be used for the downloads at night, hence would be unnoticed :)
We will also be able to get major linux distros to redirect mauritian users to queue a download here instead of everyone downloading it..
:p The only problem could be disk space? I can sponsor a 250GB disk, in return for an ads in the local page, i suppose there’ll be lot of other companies locally who would wanna do some publicity in that… so in return we can get necessary hardware from them :p
:p feasible? Besides, it could be an interesting class project for all the CSE department.. atleast we can go out of the univ with the happy feeling that, “hell we contributed something”!
btw, gmail’s html view loads quick in labs. (i wonder if we could..since google is being genenrous.. :p ask for sponsoring bandwidth …anou batt google so bis :D:D:D:D)
+Selven
btw, i tried the gmail university account from the mcid labs, load pretty easily
To Roopa:
As far as I know (and I know a little bit about Google Apps as I use it with noulakaz.net), CITS creates accounts and assign passwords to them. Students are free to change their password but CITS can forcibly change the password again. So, theoretically, yes. CITS can change your password to 123, login to your account and read your secret emails. But, frankly speaking, I can’t see them do that.
To Selven:
It’s nice to know that Gmail is working correctly in the labs. By the way, this idea of having a Linux and FreeBSD mirror was first suggested to me by Dominique Derrier of LinkByNet. He wants you to know more about Linux. I am currently working on this. I’ll let you all know in a few weeks if we are going to have an Ubuntu mirror (that’s what I am working on) on the 2Mbit/s network which exists in the island. Stay posted.
just a short note…
i tried the java app for gmail on my phone… it works great… even though i aint got a blackberry..
as for uom changing to gmail, i guess its better than the old mail server they are using…
but i do agree with selven on some points, basically too much knowledge in the hands of any one entity is dangerous… just think of the data mining possibilities of gmail… and be scared… be very scared…
but then again, since i do believe most of us got gmail accounts, its a wager we are willing to take, even unknowingly.
@selven
are being sarcastic? i have lots of problems to get into that mail account.. takes lot of time
@avinash
lol.. they have lots of time and i always try to think whats their “role” at uom :)
@ Selven
@ Avinash
@ Dominique
Great idea for the local caches of linux distros! I’m impatient to use my phone line to download some stuff :P
@ Selven
Google would want to rule the world. Microsoft wanted this too. Google has learned some of its mistakes at monopolising all and is doing the same things another way…
@ UoM
Going to Google is just fantastic! I love Google! I use GMail, Google Reader, Google Notepad, Google Bookmarks, Google Docs and Spreadsheet, Blogspot…
But wait: are we not a university?? Then we should develop something for us to use! Why always rely on the guys from the US? Sure, we don’t re-invent the wheel…
But I think this too is important at times: take India: it didn’t ask the US about how to make nuclear bombs and fuel: it developed its own. Now it has gone really far. It’s a giant. I think we should do things here in Mauritius! Else, we’ll always lag behind…
roopa:
@selven
are being sarcastic? i have lots of problems to get into that mail account.. takes lot of time
weirdly nope, it works quick, though loading the real gmail.google.com page takes lots of time.
probably i was lucky
avinash:
(that’s what I am working on) on the 2Mbit/s network which exists in the island. Stay posted.
Hmm, seems interesting, can i join in that project?
+selven
mx.uom.ac.mu was far better than that gmail.. we don’t even get access to it from home now.. but i think its available on the intranet connection at the campus..
Pff… really boring.. i don’t even get “notice emails” from the faculty / or student union etc on the gmail either..
and the student union is praising themselves for that “achievement”.. I personally dont need 2gb space email for a university email account.. there’s yahoo, msn, gmail for that..
What do you mean you can’t access your email from home? Surely http://www.google.com/a/umail.uom.ac.mu/ works!
In case you have not realized, umail.uom.ac.mu is powered by Gmail…
i mean that we don’t get access to mx.uom.ac.mu from home nowadays.. its only on the intranet connection at the campus
Hi, I’m a uom student and I reached your blog by searching “mx.uom.ac.mu” on google….
What I want to know is “Is that Google Appsed-mail already available to be used by uom students?” (It’s only now that I’ve read about this and that too, only on your blog..)
And if yes, is there a link or something to start using that mail?
(1) Yes. All Google apps (like Gmail, Docs, Calendar, etc) can be used.
(2) http://www.google.com/a/umail.uom.ac.mu/
Have fun!
Hi! Avinash , came to meet u some times back looking for ur help to start msc ict final project! U remember! we’ll , need some reasearch material on blackberry , me embarking on a project on blacberry simulation .Plx help !
Thks Vik!!!
Hello, I tried to log in on my mail using this google thing, but each time it says password and username do not match. Why is it so?