Members of the Class of 1998 may scatter across the globe after today's ceremony, but WebBlitz, a new web based BlitzMail program, will make it easier for them to keep in touch.
WebBlitz "gives you universal access to your BlitzMail account," said Dan Scholnick '00, who created the program with Dave Latham '01.
Scholnick said students and alumni can use the new program to access their accounts anywhere they have a web browser and internet connection, including airport terminals and public libraries.
Before WebBlitz, students and alums had to connect to Dartmouth, find BlitzMail and download the program in order to check their mail.
"[WebBlitz is] on the web. It's through web pages. You don't need special software to use it," Latham said.
Latham said he and Scholnick began working on WebBlitz at the end of April and are continuing to modify the program.
WebBlitz currently has the same features as the Macintosh BlitzMail program, but cannot support MIME or send enclosures and does not include bulletins, Scholnick said.
He said it is also difficult to encrypt messages sent on the internet, and it is possible, but very unlikely, that someone "snooping the wire" could access users' passwords.
"I'd be very shocked if someone did," Latham added.
Scholnick said many other internet-based mail programs, including POP mail and Yahoo mail, do not encrypt messages.
Latham decided to create WebBlitz because UNIX machines in Sudikoff have an incomplete version of BlitzMail. He said he decided to try to create a web-based program because it "seemed like the easiest, fastest way to get started."
Latham asked Scholnick to help him with the project because Scholnick was taking Computer Science 78, Networks.
The two have won second prize in the software design category of the Kemeny Computing Competition for their creation.
The site has had 2,500 logins since the beginning of May and can be accessed at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~dschol/blitz/.
