Vacation Mail
CSE has an auto-reply program you can use to answer emails if you're going to be away for a while. Just send a mail to on@vacation, with the subject something like "I'm away until dd/mm/yy/" and the body of the mail containing the message you want people to get. When you come back, send an empty mail to off@vacation to disable the auto-reply.Depending on how you send your mail, you may need to send an extra confirmation mail. If this is the case, you will be sent an email with details after you mail on@vacation. Just send a test mail to be sure that it has activated.
See the man page for more details.