By TANGELA JOHNSON

Staff Writer

Most students may not be aware of a valuable tool they have at their disposal.

Danny Schales, the university network administrator, said students may not know the different advantages there are to using a Tech e-mail address.

"You can activate a spam filter to get rid of junk mail," Schales said. "We check and tag all of the incoming mail, but we don't delete it. It requires the student to turn it on."

Schales also said there is an auto-respond function that can be activated to let friends know a person will be out of reach for a period of time.

An updated version is also in the works, Schales said.

"The next version will allow you to share calendars and to-do lists with others," Schales said.

Schales said students who do not want to check their Tech e-mail accounts can have the messages forwarded to an account they do check.

"The thing that the students need to be aware of is when we send information out it is sent automatically to the Tech e-mail address," Schales said.

Dr. Ray A. Newbold, interim associate dean for undergraduate studies for the College of Applied and Natural Sciences, said, "I have sent messages to students for committee meetings, deadline reminders and not only do they say they didn't get the message, when they are told it was e-mailed to their Tech account, the response is, 'Oh, I never check that.'"

Newbold said the e-mails sent to the account as reminders or announcements count as legal notification,.

Which means the student is responsible for the information contained in the e-mails, and he does not have sympathy for those who miss important notices.

Byron Wilcott, a senior aviation management major, said he is one of those students who does not use his Tech e-mail. "Most of my friends use Hotmail, so I stopped using my Tech e-mail account at the beginning of my freshman year," Wilcott said.

Wilcott said the Tech account worked well for him, but Hotmail offers an instant messenger service, and Tech does not have this same service.

Wilcott also said he has less hassle logging on to other accounts.

Wilcott also said he feels the many misconceptions about the Tech e-mail accounts are keeping students from using them.

"I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't know you can check it off campus because I know I didn't," Wilcott said.

On the other hand, Starr Bradshaw, a senior marketing major, said she never used any other account once she began attending Tech.

Bradshaw said she feels the reason students do not check their accounts is because they do not know about them.

"If [more students] were aware of it, they would use it because it is easy and quick," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw said she encourages her fellow students to use it because it is efficient and many important announcements are made through the system