[Hidden-tech] DSL & Voip

[htcontact at townwebsites.com]

A third "ditto" - I'm nervous putting my data into the hands of a  
company that isn't sure who owns the online rights to copyrighted books.

I have succumbed, though, to using a couple gmail accounts, one for  
document sharing and another for email.  Email hosting is a hassle and  
a resource hog, so I'm happily transferring some of my domains' email  
accounts from a VPS to google apps.  Wish someone else would compete  
with google in this space; I'd trust many companies more with my data  
than Google.

Charlie

  (checking my carefully SEO'd page ranks as they dissappear from view :)

Quoting Lynne Rudié <lynnerudie at verizon.net>:

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