By Jacqueline Hlavenka

Earlier this semester, a large black poster with a giant orange-letter “G” was placed over the exit of the Student Center directly above its neighboring HofCast, while students walking by wondered what in the world the mysterious “G” actually represented. After weeks of seeing the ads across campus, the long wait is finally over.

According to the Student Computing Services Committee, the letter “G” stands for the arrival of Google Mail in every student’s myhofstra.edu Portal, becoming effective on April 1.

The “G is Coming” advertising campaign launched in February, starting with a single advertisement in The Chronicle, followed by a poster in the Student Center. As the movement grew, advertisements made their way from hallways to t-shirts to HofCast slides- creating a campus-wide buzz as students attempted to figure out what ‘G’s arrival meant for the University.

“G is a three-phase campaign, and we started with the orange posters. After we ran the first ad in The Chronicle at 4 a.m, the plant department hung up the poster in the Student Center. This way, students going to class saw ‘G,’ and people opening The Chronicle saw it,” said Jesse Webster, assistant manager of Help Desk Services

With only one flyer per academic building, the first phase of “G” established the advertisements in high traffic areas where most students are likely to look.

“We thought if we got people talking about it [‘G’], once we put up the ads with the Web site written on it about three weeks later, they would want to go and find out what ‘G’ is,” said Laurie Harvey, director of Student Computing Services.

Currently, advertisements with the “G is coming” slogan feature a link to the University’s official Gmail site, describing the advantages of Gmail and PDF tutorials on how to use the service. Through the Hofstra Portal, students will be able to access a more specialized version of Google exclusively catered to the University.

“It will be totally transparent for the student. It’s a specialized, customized program,” Harvey said. “When everyone comes back from break, there will be an option on the Portal that says old mail and Gmail. All the mail that [students] receive after we make the change will go to your Gmail account. You won’t have to do anything.”

The new features of Hofstra-based Gmail will feature two gigabytes of storage space, a built-in word processor, spreadsheet, calendar, chat services, RSS feeds, which send information on new updates, and a tool called collaboration software-a device that allows two students working on the same task in different rooms to work together over the Internet.

“You can collaborate from your Gmail account and see each other’s updates as you work on a paper or an assignment for class. Also, if you subscribe to certain Web sites, Google mail reader separates RSS updates from these sites into categories so you can see what the latest post is,” Harvey said.

Previously, the University has operated its student e-mail services with Novell Netmail since 1999, providing students with an e-mail address, five megabytes of space for e-mails and other organizational tools. Before Netmail, the only software available was basic text-based e-mail-however, once Novell released Netmail, the program had a graphic interface that looked more aesthetically pleasing and increased usability.

“Recently, Gmail, MSN mail [and] Hotmail are providing students with more features. In 1999, NetMail was the best at the time, but we’re ready for a fresh new face,” Harvey said.

Once the University makes the switch to Google on April 1, no new mail will be coming to any Novell accounts. Students are advised to go through their personal archives of mail and save any necessary files before May 1 when the Novell account becomes obsolete.

In the past, students have purchased Microsoft Office and antivirus software while attending the University without realizing that the services are free through the University. To make sure students are fully aware about their computing experience, Student Computing Services wanted to make sure their message stuck in people’s minds. Nonetheless, the secret behind “G” made the campaign a campus phenomenon.

“People thought it was Mr. G the Weather Man, or some people thought it was a religious thing, like G for God, which was weird. Once people figured out it was Gmail, they felt so funny knowing what ‘G’ was, that they didn’t tell any of their friends and left them in the dark,” Webster said.

As the entire campus vowed to keep the secret, Webster was impressed that a University of 13,000 students stayed true to the campaign.

“For me, it’s more fun to know something that others don’t, and the secret behind it makes ‘G’ even more interesting.”