[Hidden-tech] DSL & Voip

Maria Korolov (Trombly) maria at tromblyltd.com
Thu Oct 29 12:08:32 EDT 2009


Another option if you have to have your own email address is to use Google's
hosted mail service. It's part of their Google Apps platform, and the basic
service is free.

For example, for this account, i have unlimited email addresses that end in
@tromblyltd.com, as well as shared documents and shared company calendars.

(And free Google Analytics and everything else.)

If you don't mind running your business on Google, you can't beat the price,
and their spam filters are basically the best around.

And they'll replace their own branding on top of the email page with your
company logo. Again, for free.

They do this because they put a little sidebar on the far right with a list
of Google ads, which I believe you can get rid of if you upgrade to their
paid service.

I've been using this for ... about four years now, I guess. They've been
more reliable than any other email platform I've used so far, and I've had
zero problems getting anything to work. They have had a couple of outages
this year, which brought down the system, but again, fewer than I've had
with my previous email hosts.

You can access them online from wherever you are by using a URL something
like this: *http://mail.google.com/a/tromblyltd.com/#inbox*

(In my case, I have *mail.tromblyltd.com* redirect automatically to that
address.)

Since I have employees around the world, this is a great deal.

If you want to, you can also use Outlook in conjunction with this -- they
support POP3 and IMAP access. They've also recently rolled out an offline
version where they store backups of everything on your computer, for when
you don't have access to the Internet.

Currently, the free version offers more than 7 gig of storage, per employee
or user. The Premier version offers 25 gig of storage per employee, at a
price of $50 per user per year. (Nor per domain name, per user.)

I don't mind the privacy issues -- if someone wanted to subpoena my emails
for a court case, it probably wouldn't make much difference if they were
hosted with Google or a smaller provider or on my own server. Though I have
been careful not to have discussions in email relating to Chinese human
rights issues while I was based in China. If you're going to be doing that,
I strongly recommend using one of the encrypted, secure email systems
specifically designed to avoid detection by totalitarian governments.

Some webhosts today -- Dreamhost, for example -- automatically offer Google
Apps integration as part of their domain services, in addition to or instead
of their own webmail platforms. I don't blame them. I've seen the webmail
offered by the other guys, and it lags significantly behind features and
usability of Gmail. In addition to the spectacular spam filters, for
example, Gmail emails can be stored in multiple folders (they call them
"labels") -- most webmail systems will only allow you to put an email into
one folder at a time. Gmail also has a huge number of other features --
automatic translations of emails from other languages, filters that
automatically sort incoming emails into folders, canned responses that you
can pull from a menu and drop into an email, group calendar integration --
it can even remind you if you forgot to include the attachment you mentioned
in your email, or are sending your email to the wrong "Bob". (Creepy, but
can be very useful!)

I know that Google doesn't provide the personalized service that local
hosting companies do. But, on the other hand, I've never needed it. It just
works. If it doesn't work, then it's not working for everyone on the planet
and you know they've got a gajillion people on it fixing it.

Oh, the other great thing about Google's hosted email system -- it's
integrated with Google Chat (and AIM). I can instantly see which of my
employees are online, chat with them -- even have video calls with them, all
inside the email system. I use this daily to stay in touch with my guys in
India and China and Europe, and with some of my clients who prefer to IM me.

Best,

Maria



Maria Korolov
Technology columnist, Securities Industry News
Editor & publisher, Hypergrid Business (hypergridbusiness.com)
President, Trombly Ltd.
508-443-1130 | maria at tromblyltd.com


On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Michael Muller <michael at mullertech.com>wrote:

>   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
>
>
>
> Stacey,
>
> You are not the only one who is experiencing the issue of Verizon
> unilaterally changing the SMTP port blocking / firewalling.  This behavior
> costs small companies like mine a lot of time and agravation. (Disclaimer:
> Montague WebWorks, of whom I am a partner, is Stacey's hosting company.)
>
> Whenever Verizon makes a change we get barraged with calls.  Since this
> occurance is really out of our hands -- essentially we're on the other side
> of a wall we have no control over -- all we can do is offer suggestions for
> port numbers and server names.  And Verizon's support numbers and pages are
> usually very hard to get and sometimes completely useless.
>
> I would imagine if they keep this up one of two things will happen:  (a)
> America will give up on vanity domains for email and all switch to gmail or
> hotmail or yahoo or whatever, thus abandoning the small ISP's services,
> and/or (b) the small ISPs will organize with the cafe owners (will explain
> that in a sec) and file a class-action suit against Verizon and any other
> large connectivity providers for loss of business and unfiar practices.
>
> To say that switching to port 587 will stop spam is a complete joke. I mean
> really, what spammer sits in a cafe and sends a million emails from their
> laptop?  If you're a real spammer you've got your own server or you're using
> virus-bot technology, which infects and uses unsuspecting desktop and laptop
> machines across the Internet to send their spam emails.  Also, do you think
> they don't know that Verizon has changed to port 587?  Aren't the spammers
> EXPERTS in how email works?  Do you think everyone else will know to use
> port 587 and they wouldn't? Are they walking around right now scratching
> their heads saying "well hell... how come it's not working?"
>
> Bell South and Comcast both require that ALL outgoing POP-style email (not
> webmail) uses their own mailservers with a username and password.  This is
> unfortunate for people sitting in a cafe somewhere, using Outlook or an
> iPhone or any email client, because they'll never know the username and
> password to use.  So, they're screwed.  And maybe they'll stop going to that
> cafe.  Sucks for the cafe owners.
>
> No, it's bogus. And at a certain point they should all have to stop these
> inconvenient practices.
>
> The best thing they could do for the convenience of users of their service
> if they want to stop spam is to simply throttle down traffic over port 25
> and 587.  Stop any connection if more than, say, 25 emails are being sent in
> a single shot. Simple.
>
> They have the technology, and that would open up commerce again for the
> small ISP (such as myself) and the cafes who can't get their customer email
> out.  I can get testimonials from two cafe owners that the recent change
> impacted their business.
>
> Mik
>
>
>
> At 02:45 PM 10/27/2009, Stacey Langknecht wrote:
> >   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's
> area.
> >   ** If you did, we all thank you.
> >
> >
> >
> >Hello Everyone –
> >
> >A few things here…first, some feedback about Verizon: the worst customer
> service I’ve ever experienced, and this was from the beginning of my dsl
> service a few years ago! Everything is awful from their obnoxious
> auto-operator to the incompetent csr’s. I just got my email back up and
> running really due to the help of my host company, not Verizon, even though
> it was their fault (they blocked the port a few weeks ago, then told me port
> 587 was fine, then after a few weeks that stopped working, and now port 26
> is working again, but who knows how long this will last?!) – all this is
> because we have a home business with our own domain name. So….does anyone
> know of another company that offers dsl service to home biz folks that’s
> also reasonable???? I understand that Comcast, AT&T and the other huge
> companies are all doing the same thing, and Crocker is more expensive and I
> hear that they don’t offer ‘round the clock service if something goes wrong.
> Any suggestions?
> >
> >I’m also looking into VOIP and have heard mixed reviews on Vonage and
> Magic Jack. Has anyone used Ooma? I have a friend down south who uses them
> and says they’re OK. It seems like the big issue with Voip is the
> connection. Any feedback here?
> >
> >Thanks for all your help!!
> >
> >Stacey Langknecht
> >Hotsapp Woodworks
> >413-367-9408
> ><mailto:stacey at hotsapp.com>stacey at hotsapp.com
> >
> >_______________________________________________
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> --------
> Michael Muller
> office (413) 863-6455
> cell (413) 320-5336
> skype: michaelBmuller
> http://MontagueWebWorks.com
>
> Information is not knowledge
> Knowlege is not wisdom
>
> Eschew Obfuscation
>
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