[Hidden-tech] DSL & Voip

[Michael Muller]

Well, the future may be here already.

I guess I am one of those stalwarts who wants to hold back hyper-global-integration wherein everyone uses one platform that provides everything for everyone.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying what Google offers is bad, or that what you're doing, Maria, is bad. It serves your purposes and probably you couldn't be efficient if you didn't have this system.

But, although I'm a technologist and a programmer, I still prefer to hold off on full adoption of anything that removes my control, or puts me into a single-entity hosted matrix of a gajillion other people.  Not only is there an all-eggs-in-one-basket issue, but there's the creepiness factor too. 

And outside of the subpeona issue, there's also the indexing issue.  They know what people are talking about en mass because they index everything they touch.  That sort of global trend awareness scares me a little.

Anyway, that's my reasoning for trying to remain the little local guy who could.  Keeping SOME things out of Google's databases is probably a good thing, including our emails.

Mik



At 12:08 PM 10/29/2009, Maria Korolov (Trombly) wrote:
>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 @<http://tromblyltd.com>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>http://mail.google.com/a/tromblyltd.com/#inbox
>
>(In my case, I have <http://mail.tromblyltd.com>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 (<http://hypergridbusiness.com>hypergridbusiness.com)
>President, Trombly Ltd.
>508-443-1130 | <mailto:maria at tromblyltd.com>maria at tromblyltd.com
>
>
>On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Michael Muller <<mailto:michael at mullertech.com>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><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>http://MontagueWebWorks.com
>
>Information is not knowledge
>Knowlege is not wisdom
>
>Eschew Obfuscation
>
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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