On Dec 29, 2003, at 7:56 PM, Dan Egli wrote:
> Michael Johnson wrote:
>
> |> But services like POBox have three issues:
> |>
> |> 1) They CHARGE. I'm a poor student working part time trying to pay
> the
> |> bills with a family. I cannot really afford even the $15/yr.
> |>
> | I have a very hard time believing a statement like this. I see it
> all
> | the time on slashdot, and I don't think it holds water there either.
>
> Tell my wife that! If I proposed using a $15/yr service she would say
> "Absolutely not!".
>
How much does your internet connection cost you? Your ISP can't take
the MX record for you and have your mail stored there? You're already
paying for that.
> |> 2) They want you to have your address as <whatever>@pobox.com. If
> I'm
> |> going through all the effort of running a MTA, I don't want people
> to
> |> have to worry about relaying through someone else just to get to
> me. I
> |> want them to be able to contact me directly.
> |>
> | They do. As far as they know, there's no difference. I get messages
> | on my home server while at work and vice-versa. Nobody has to know
> if
> | I'm at work or at home. Sometimes, I'm even at the beach house or
> | skiing in the mountains. They still contact me directly regardless
> of
> | where I happen to be. I don't need to have a different email address
> | for each place I might be.
> |
>
> Thats not what I meant. I don't want to have to give out a @pobox.com
> address. I want the message being DIRECTLY delivered to my server. I
> use
> this address for home/work/etc.. also. I am trying to avoid yet
> another
> address. I have this address, this is the address I advertise, this is
> the address I want people using.
If your family can't spare the $15/yr, you may want to reconsider a few
things. I'm not going to play your financial advisor here, but you're
talking about barely over a dollar a month. It can't be that hard to
figure out how to spare that.
> |> 3) they put limitations on things that I might not want. For
> example,
> |> PoBox limits emails to 10MB. I ROUTINELY send/receive 25+ mb
> messages
> |> to/from my employer. If I send a full source tree update, it's
> usually
> |> about 20MB BEFORE encoding. If we assume the standard encoding rate
> of
> |> the encoded message being 4/3 the physical size of the unencoded
> |> attachment, that puts it at around 26-27MB.
> |>
> | I can't even begin to tell you how wrong it is to use a mail server
> to
> | send attachments that size. Use a protocol designed to transfer
> large
> | files instead of one designed to send small ones. Off the top of my
> | head, CVS, sftp, WebDAV, and scp come to mind. All of them much
> easier
> | to set up, and CVS is specifically desinged to do what you're
> | describing.
> |
>
> CVS: Don't I wish. This is ALL win32. My boss has flat out refused to
> set up a CVS server, repeatedly.
>
It sounds like it's time to find an employer who will make sure you
have the tools you need. At a minimum, there's <
http://www.cvsnt.org/>
to get the server running on his Win server. You can find clients for
it all over the place. VersionTracker and TUCOWS should give you a
good start.
> sftp: Secure FTP? Again, would be nice, but not an option. As far as my
> boss is conserned, if it won't run FOR FREE on a Win98se box, it won't
> be used by his employees. And I DO mean ONLY on the 98se box. All his
> machines are 98se. I even offered to setup a free ftp server on the
> 98se
> box (using DragonServ, since it's free), and he even said no to that.
Time to blow that popsicle stand. Find an employer who will make sure
you ahve the tools you need to do your job.
> WebDAV: What is THAT?
<
http://www.webdav.org/> can answer that question for you better than I
can here.
> scp: Again, This is going from a Win32 box to a Win32 box. And if you
> cannot run it for free on his Win32 box, forget it. He's even too cheap
> to rent an office. His "office" is the basement of his house! The Phnoe
> # he has for business use is a residental additional line. This guy
> will
> bend over backwards to spend $0.25 less!
>
Ditto above...
> |> Now luckily for me, my employer's ISP does not block my IP. But if I
> |> need to send mail to someon not on my employer's ISP, I can run into
> |> issues.
> |>
> | How about using your employer's ISP's smtp server? It should be
> simple
> | enough to get them to have you authenticate to send through their
> | server. But then again, their admin will probably get angry with you
> | for sending massive file attachments.
> |
> And since then, I've watched the quality of service drop like a rock.
> Now they have a policy againist 3rd party use of their servers. You
> MUST
> have an account with them to relay through their servers. And yes, the
> admin would freak if he saw 20+mb attachments going through.
>
But you do have an account through your employer. They should be able
to do this with little to no difficulty. A junior admin could do it.
> I'd love to use any method besides smtp for that, but smtp is the
> method
> my boss has dictated will be used.
Your boss needs to learn a lot about running a business. Hell, I feel
sorry for you...send me your resume and I'll submit to to my company
and split the hiring bonus with you if they take you.
-Michael
