<p>I know, completely random, but I was hoping I could use it for some sweet student discounts from Microsoft.</p>
<p>Microsoft</a> Office Discount for US Students -The Ultimate Steal- Office 2007 Software for $59.95</p>
<p>Wait and buy Office from the NSIT on campus. It's cheaper and more up to date.</p>
<p>If you're an enrolled incoming freshman at Chicago, you can request a @uchicago.edu email address from the cNet</a> site. If you're an American citizen or permanent resident, you can make the email address using just your birthday and social security number. After you make your @uchicago.edu email address, you can do stuff like join the UChicago network on Facebook (if you so wish). One problem I notice though is that while it allows you to make the email address, it doesn't let you check the email on the [url=<a href="https://webmail.uchicago.edu/%5DcMail">https://webmail.uchicago.edu/]cMail</a> site<a href="at%20least%20not%20yet%20that%20is">/url</a>. I think it's just a technical issue, and should be resolved by the time you enter the university. A way to sidestep that would be to link another email address to your @uchicago.edu email address, so that all of your @uchicago.edu mail is forwarded to the other email address. They allow you to set that up in the process of making the @uchicago.edu email address. Regarding the issue of using the email address for discounts from Microsoft, I think you'd best follow phuriku's advice and wait to buy Office on campus.</p>
<p>
[quote]
One problem I notice though is that while it allows you to make the email address, it doesn't let you check the email on the cMail site (at least not yet that is). I think it's just a technical issue, and should be resolved by the time you enter the university.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It will not be resolved. Starting this year with all incoming students, you must forward all of your email to a third-party email client like gmail, hotmail, or yahoo mail. All of the current students will have until 2011 to do so.</p>
<p>Soon you will no longer check your email using NSIT (or IT Service as it is called now) mail server.</p>
<p>Microsoft Office costs about $25 if you purchase through IT Service (third floor of the book store).</p>
<p>Please refer to the following excerpt:</p>
<p>
[quote]
New undergraduate students, beginning in the fall of 2010, will be prompted to supply a forwarding address when they create their UChicago email address; student emails are no longer being stored on University servers. Students will still be able to send and receive emails from their official University email addresses, but they will do so from a commercial email provider of their choice, such as Gmail or Yahoo.</p>
<p>All other students continue to have access to cMail, the University’s email storage service and Webmail interface, until July 2011.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ah, thanks for the clarification -- that makes a lot of sense.</p>
<p>wow - 52K a year and no server space!</p>
<p>It's not that IT Service doesn't have the space. It's just that currently only 49% of the students use IT Service's own server to check email. Money can be spent more efficiently.</p>
<p>Trust me, you don't want to use cmail anyway. I'm one of the few people who use cmail and gmail separately, and the problems associated with the former are just ridiculous. I can only log onto cmail about 80% of the time that I want to, and even then it is ridiculously slow, along with anything associated with the university (cmore, chalk, etc).</p>
<p>In fact, I would say that the university's technology in general is WAY behind its peers. It gets beat by state schools easily. Literally half the time I try to print something from one of the computers in the reg, I get error messages saying that the printer isn't hooked up (and which computers are hooked up vary on a day-to-day basis; I have no idea what's going on). And in the middle of the day, I hardly get any wireless internet in Broadview. Not to mention that there are places in Crerar that get no internet at all... seriously, the University needs to get its **** together with regard to technology. I spent 2 years at Ball State and I had none of these problems.</p>
<p>But yeah, if they put the money they save from trashing cmail to improving some of its services, I'll be happy.</p>
<p>^ Is the internet connection itself fast at least? I'm used to T1 speeds and am a heavy internet user.</p>
<p>It depends on the location, time of day, and a lot of other factors. Generally, if you want to use one of the campus computers or use wireless internet in the Reg in the middle of the day, you're going to have a decent, but not fast, internet connection. It also depends on where you live. I presume that if you live in one of the newer dorms, you're going to have a more dependable connection and faster speeds, whereas if you want to live in one of the older ones, you might have more problems. When it's not the middle of the day and if you're in a location that's not crowded like the Reg, the internet is usually fairly fast, although not always.</p>
<p>If you want a fast connection, though, use ethernet. You'll be given an ethernet cord when you move in along with your NSIT care package, and you'll have a jack in your room. If you use it, your internet will be much much faster than if you use the wireless. And keep it handy, because the internet can get annoyingly slow sometimes. And just as a rule in general, if you're downloading torrents, NEVER do it over the university network. The MPAA/RIAA/whatever is definitely watching here, and although at first they'll give you just a warning (and almost everyone I know who downloads stuff has gotten this warning), some don't heed it and end up getting sued thousands of dollars.</p>
<p>And as a testament to my printer issues, just an hour ago I had to print something. Logged into 2 computers, with both of them telling me that there was no printer hooked up. Got it on the 3rd try, then tried to put money on my card. But of course, the machines that allow you to do this are broken in the Reg for whatever reason. So I had to go to Crerar after all this trouble just to print an essay. Lesson: If you want to print something, don't waste your time on the first floor of the Reg. Print from the Maclab or from Crerar, every time.</p>
<p>Also: there's no free printing here. Maclab stopped the free printing business this year, so you have to pay $.10/sheet everywhere on campus. Except i-House. If you want free printing, move to i-House. It'll save you a bundle, in addition to the fact that you don't have to sign up for a meal plan, get free access to talks by Nobel Laureates et al, not to mention that the singles are cheaper than singles elsewhere and the people are significantly more mature than the rest of the housing crowd...</p>