[Hidden-tech] DSL & Voip

[Lynne Rudié]

Hi Mik
	I agree with you about the "creepiness factor" and I'm glad to hear  
another techie say it out loud. I consciously keep my business small  
(and local) enough that I don't need to consider the global issues  
that Maria has to deal with, otherwise I'd probably be using Google too.
	The parts of Google I use (I have gmail accounts for specific  
purposes and/or groups) are great but the indexing issue is something  
that I'm not sure how to feel about. The data is there and that's the  
way the world is going, but I think we need to keep a certain amount  
of mindfulness about it. It's one of those things that can be used for  
good or evil, and one really evil person/entity who puts their mind to  
it has the ability to take down a whole lot of good folks. Maybe that  
will never happen and I'm just being an old fogey. But still, it's  
worth thinking about.

	And I know, this has nothing to do with the subject of this thread so  
those of you who aren't old fogeys please disregard.
	Lynne


	
On Oct 29, 2009, at 12:24 PM, Michael Muller wrote:

>   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's  
> area.
>   ** If you did, we all thank you.
>
>
>
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
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