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...
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?
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.
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?