OT: Looking For An eMail Host

Last 3 weeks, several people have reported sending me eMail that
I have not received - and they did not get any bounce message.

Been getting intermittent reports like that over the past couple
of years.

Some months ago I had to lead my provider through debugging one
of their utilities - which was blocking email to a whole range of
temporary addresses.

I'm thinking that just on GPs, maybe I should change my eMail
provider.

Can anybody recommend a provider that I could point my domain
name to? I'm accustomed to paying about $7.00 per month for my
current service.
--
PeteCresswell

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
> Last 3 weeks, several people have reported sending me eMail that
> I have not received - and they did not get any bounce message.
>
> Been getting intermittent reports like that over the past couple
> of years.
>
> Some months ago I had to lead my provider through debugging one
> of their utilities - which was blocking email to a whole range of
> temporary addresses.
>
> I'm thinking that just on GPs, maybe I should change my eMail
> provider.
>
> Can anybody recommend a provider that I could point my domain
> name to? I'm accustomed to paying about $7.00 per month for my
> current service.

Bounce messages are becoming more and more passe - servers don't send
them because they tell spammers what emails are invalid (and, by the
lack of a response, which emails are valid).

Additionally, due to spam problems, many hosts are employing blacklists
- I know. for instance, on my systems I deny anything from dynamic IP
addresses - virtually all of these are compromised Windows machine. But
in the case of a blacklisted server, at least my MTA sends a response as
to why their email won't go through (it's an email send failure, not a
response message to the sender).

I don't have any good suggestions for you for email servers. But you
need to watch that they provide the services you want.

And in your particular case, if these people were known beforehand, I
would ensure your host has a whitelist capability you can add these
people to. Not good for "first time callers", but possible.

One other though - put a "contact" form on your site; then instead of
sending email to you, they can get a hold of you through the contact form.


This is all pretty normal, but

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

Per Jerry Stuckle:
> I deny anything from dynamic IP
>addresses

But isn't that most individual users who are not paying their ISP
extra $ for a static address? (this question from somebody who is
relatively clueless in this area...)
--
PeteCresswell

(PeteCresswell) wrote:

> Per Jerry Stuckle:
>> I deny anything from dynamic IP addresses
>
> But isn't that most individual users who are not paying their ISP
> extra $ for a static address? (this question from somebody who is
> relatively clueless in this area...)

ISP mail servers, from whence mail should come, have static IP
addresses. Customers (almost always) have dynamic IP addresses, unless
you are on some sort of broadband and you pay extra, such as for a
business class service.

Blocking dynamic IPs filters out all the spam sent by compromised
Windows PCs infested with mass-mailing trojans, which use their own
internal SMTP engines, and which do not send mail through the ISP's
outbound servers.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
> Per Jerry Stuckle:
>> I deny anything from dynamic IP
>> addresses
>
> But isn't that most individual users who are not paying their ISP
> extra $ for a static address? (this question from somebody who is
> relatively clueless in this area...)

Yep, and if they are sending their email directly from their home
computer, they will be rejected. However, very few people have a Mail
Transfer Agent (MTA) running on their home machine. Rather, they go
through their ISP's email server, their webhosting server or similar -
all of which have static addresses.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

Per Jerry Stuckle:
> Rather, they go
>through their ISP's email server, their webhosting server or similar -
>all of which have static addresses.

Does anybody have a ballpark figure that ISPs commonly charge for
a static address?

Where I'm going is that if it's $10/month or less, maybe I could
break even by running my own email server and not having to pay
an email host.
--
PeteCresswell

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
> Per Jerry Stuckle:
>> Rather, they go
>> through their ISP's email server, their webhosting server or similar -
>> all of which have static addresses.
>
> Does anybody have a ballpark figure that ISPs commonly charge for
> a static address?
>
> Where I'm going is that if it's $10/month or less, maybe I could
> break even by running my own email server and not having to pay
> an email host.

It varies by ISP's - very widely. But why would you need one? It's just
so much easier to use your ISP's MTA (or your web host's MTA).

I would never recommend someone run either a web site or a mail server
from their home.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

Per Jerry Stuckle:
>It varies by ISP's - very widely. But why would you need one? It's just
>so much easier to use your ISP's MTA (or your web host's MTA).

I've got a domain name that my mail comes to. Right now I'm
using Plan B above.... but my host has been down since sometime
on Friday and I've lost significant numbers of messages -
evidenced by people calling me on the phone and asking what's up
that I haven't responded.

My thought was that I could avoid future repetitions of that
situation. Sounds like hosting my own mail is not a viable
option.

Can anybody suggest another approach? I guess I'd be looking
for redundancy somehow. Maybe have two hosting accounts in
different geographic locations, point the DNS to one and, if it
goes down, point the DNS to the other? I guess I'd lose mail
during the cutover period... but that would be less bad than
what's going down now.
--
PeteCresswell

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
> Per Jerry Stuckle:
>> It varies by ISP's - very widely. But why would you need one? It's just
>> so much easier to use your ISP's MTA (or your web host's MTA).
>
> I've got a domain name that my mail comes to. Right now I'm
> using Plan B above.... but my host has been down since sometime
> on Friday and I've lost significant numbers of messages -
> evidenced by people calling me on the phone and asking what's up
> that I haven't responded.
>
> My thought was that I could avoid future repetitions of that
> situation. Sounds like hosting my own mail is not a viable
> option.
>

Yep, you can avoid future repetitions of the situation. Get yourself a
good web hosting company.

> Can anybody suggest another approach? I guess I'd be looking
> for redundancy somehow. Maybe have two hosting accounts in
> different geographic locations, point the DNS to one and, if it
> goes down, point the DNS to the other? I guess I'd lose mail
> during the cutover period... but that would be less bad than
> what's going down now.


Get a quality hosting company. The only time my email has been down in
the last 5 years was a couple of weeks ago - when I upgraded my vps
without doing all the homework involved. So email was down for a few
hours while I got things straightened out. But fortunately it didn't
affect any of my customers.

But even with a shared host - any outage like that is unforgivable.
IMHI, an email outage is worse than a website outage.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

Per Jerry Stuckle:
>Get a quality hosting company.

Which one are you using?
--
PeteCresswell