Slashdot Mirror
Email-only Providers?
Amiralul writes "I feel that having GMail or Yahoo email domains on my business card isn't really a professional touch. Yes, I do have a work-domain email address, but it lacks IMAP and it's rather non-responsive from time to time, so I choose not to depend on it for the time being (the previous mentioned free services are actually more reliable). Besides buying a domain and using Google Apps on it (which isn't actually intended for home users), I was thinking on having a domain of my own and choosing a commercial email provider that should provide just that: email (POP3, SMTP, IMAP, with a decent storage space). I don't need storage for my website, I don't need an ugly web interface (if provided and looks decent, maybe I'll use it, but it's not a must-have). If it's free, it's ok, but it doesn't bother me if it has a decent monthly or annual fee. So, do you Slashdotters know any providers that would satisfy my email-related needs?"
http://www.fastmail.fm/ is still around, for a reasonnable 40$/year, and is a very good option which provides pretty much any feature you might want...
Actually my company used http://everyone.net/ and they provided a decent e-mail setup. Might be worth checking out.
GoDaddy's email service is horrible. It's ridiculously slow. Besides, you're lucky if you can order it before having seizures caused by their web site.
I've had clients use Fusemail with positive results.
Developers: We can use your help.
Here to second you about godaddy - slow and unreliable. I have some mail take ~ 6 hours to get thru to me for some reason. We are changing as soon as we get some time in our schedule.
Well based upon my years of consuming and expelling fluids I can tell you with assurance that the best solution "Drinking fluids like athletes" is obviously the wrong one for you. I would advise a direct shunt into a large vein - there are some nice ones in your legs and neck. Through this shunt you can pump a nutrient solution directly into your body, bypassing that clumsy mouthpart. With a little lube and a tube we can also address that "Where should I go to the bathroom problem of yours?".
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
What about their, um, minor billing issues earlier this year?
They have loads of features, yes - but reliability often hasn't been high on the agenda, assuming it's been on the agenda at all. Random outages lasting much of the day, the aforementioned billing issues, you name it. Cheap, cheerful and easy to do stuff with, but don't use it for anything remotely serious.
Plus, my IMAP email stuff is about eleventy billion times faster and more reliable since I moved to a virtual server somewhere else entirely.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
I think that if the OP were capable of (or wanted to) run his own mail server, s/he would do so. These days, it's almost not worth it, though. Dealing with spam is such a pain, and it costs a lot to have high availability (which most professional hosting will provide.) The only reason to run your own mail server is legacy (I inherited a domain and system for a small number of users, and I don't want to kick them off, but I want to keep my e-mail address) or paranoia (you don't want anyone having access to your stored e-mail but you.)
DIY is fun for the hobbyist, but not for the person who wants to get real work done.
Besides buying a domain and using Google Apps on it (which isn't actually intended for home users), I was thinking on having a domain of my own and choosing a commercial email provider that should provide just that
Now it's not very clear what his real concern there is. Instead of buying a domain, he'll just have a domain? Instead of using Google Apps, he'll just use an e-mail provider that provides e-mail? I'm not sure what he's trying to distinguish from what.
He says he doesn't want to use Google Apps because it's not fitting for "home use" (and I don't know what about it isn't fitting for home use), and yet he doesn't want to use a straight-up Gmail address because it won't look good on a business card. Well is it for home use, or business? And then on top of that, he says he has a business address but doesn't want to use it. I wonder what his real use for this address will be, and whether his company would have a problem with him conducting business through a non-work address.
In short, it's not very clear to me whether the original submitter has valid needs and objections to any of these things, or if he's simply on crack. If you work for a company and your work e-mail isn't meeting your business needs, then ask your IT department, not Slashdot. If your IT department isn't meeting your company's needs, then complain to management. As someone who has run an IT department, I hated it when users tried to go outside our system. Forwarding your work e-mail to Gmail is an unnecessary security risk. If my e-mail servers weren't doing a good enough job, I would have preferred it if my users would let me know about it so I could get the whole thing straightened out.
They often do know.
Outlook detects gmail's changed address, and displays the from address as:
So, while you can change your gmail "From:" address, outlook neuters it, and makes you look rather unprofessional. Of course, this only affects people who read mail via outlook. However, if you're trying to change your email address, you're likely sending email for business purposes, and business users are likely to use outlook.
Whee.
True, but I find that Debian + Postfix + Archiveopteryx is a solid enough platform that maintenance is infrequent and easy. If you can dedicate one machine to it and don't do anything else on that machine to break your mail setup, it's even more solid. None of the packages i listed above are anything less than rock solid.
Also, setting up my own mail server means I can have as many addresses as I want, such as a dedicated one for mailing lists which I can subscribe to as many as I want without fear of running out of space, and then use IMAP to provide perfect sync between as many PCs as I want.
No commercial company can offer even close to the flexibility you get running your own, so in my books, it's worth it.
I hate printers.
Nothing to do with stuck up. I get about 20 requests for information per week from people "who found our company on the web and want to know more about our xyz technology". If the request comes from a generic mail provider, it gets the generic reply package. If it comes from a @webuybigthings.com address it gets a custom reply, the right attachments and a follow up.
First option, 1 min, second option 10 min. Cost first option, $2, second option $20. Since the split is about 5:1, that's savings of over $100 in my time every week.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Likewise. Myself I use a Linksys NSLU2 running debian off a 4GB USB stick. I run Postfix for SMTP and Dovecot for IMAP.
Just find yourself an ISP that can give you a static IP and doesn't mind sorting out rDNS for our domain, plus a registrar that will let you do SPF - job done.
I have to disagree with "childish," unless the poster works in IT himself. Most people, even in computing, do work that has nothing to do with managing domains and email servers. When someone hires a consultant to write Java middleware, or write Flash games, or port Fortran code to C++, or help a company move to a distributed build system, they don't give a damn whether he receives mail at his own domain. It has nothing to do with his job.
Setting up and administering your own domain is an IT hobby that people outside of IT (including most professional programmers) have little appreciation for. To them, it's like the difference between sewing your own clothes and buying them in a store. Sounds like a lot of work -- who would bother unless it was a hobby they enjoyed?
Well, the interesting thing is, his email is saying exactly what he said to us. It's saying, I'm too small to get my own domain ($20 or so a year plus $10 or so a month for hosting) so don't expect great service. And don't expect the CFO to not know what hosting a domain email would cost. Hell, I have piggy backed one domain onto another clients just to take advantage of a 15 meg link and I give them a 10% discount on the billing to do it.
I remember one web programmer who failed to get a promotion changed on a website in time for it to start, he said "your lack of preparation doesn't translate into an emergency for me" when we attempted to get him to make the change. The owner of the site put up with it until I showed him the emails he sent 2 months before informing him of needing to make the changes and again, a month later stating the exact times of the promotion. He was replaced and taken to (small claims?) court over some remedial sum of money for failing to provide the services he was contracted to do.
Now, I use several free accounts, I don't put any email on a business card because I don't consider Email to be a first point of contact for a business relationship. I think it is only a matter of convenience to an on going business relationship. I also attempt to avoid business cards altogether, as a one or two man operation, I find word of mouth gives me more business then I can handle but I have a working relationship with three other techs who we all work for each other when needed.
Generally, I give one of the free email accounts out to customers who aren't regular and solid only when and if they ask. This is because of the amounts of spam that usually follow when they add it to their global address book and then forward the E-greeting cards around the office 20 times or get the email address stealing Trojan that sets up a SMTP server on five workstations so they can call and say "our network it slow". I spend far more money for traditional communications like the telephone just so I can be accessible to my customers when they need me. I would hate to think that someone would expect them to email you that they have a problem and can't get their computer to boot or on the internet. Even if your job with them is something else like programing some SQL code or something, they lost their ability to contact you.