>I think the dashboard and messaging is a great feature of the UT. The only drawback is that the messages go into private messaging and are never portrayed as 'popups' to the recipient so one must wait for the browser to refresh and hope the recipient notices private messages are waiting for him/her. However, I don't know that the majority of UTers would prefer popup messages anyway unless it could be turned on and off. Perhaps a survey?

You probably have turned off your audio notification. Just put it on and that will tell you when important messages like that are arriving.