[cobalt-users] RE: SMTP 'Ugliness' issue

["Dee Dreslough" <dee@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > I did find a solution for this on my system, though:
> > What I did was ask each of my users to use their ISP's
> mailserver (rather
> > than mine) for sending mail, but to use my mailserver to
> receive their mail.
> > But I only have 3 users. ;)
> > It's an ugly workaround,
>
> Why is it ugly?
>
> > and it probably isn't
> > practical (or professional looking) for a real ISP, though.
>
> As a "real" ISP (a full-service ISP at "http://www.ez-access.com/";), may
> I ask why not?

Well, I don't run an ISP or anything, but I've used tons of them. I was only
recently forced into this RaQ/Cobalt server world when I couldn't find a
competent ISP willing to handle my 50 gig a month traffic for 2 web sites at
a price we could handle with our feature list. (All I wanted was
Perl5...Just Perl5...Why was that so much to ask? ;) ) And no, we're not
porn sites. We're baseball and fantasy art. ;) (imonkey.com and
dreslough.com)

For the last 3 ISPs I've used, they have me get and send my mail from
mail.<my domain>.com, so I just assumed that was the standard for 'Real
ISPs'. And, I did find it was easier to set up my accounts with that setup -
I didn't have to think at all and remember what my home SMTP was. I like to
think about customer issues in terms of my parents. My parents would *need*
every piece of information for setting up their mail program (SMTP, pop etc)
on one piece of paper to have a hope of getting their mail set up without a
dozen calls to me. :)

But, you're right. I didn't mean to push any buttons...I just assumed that
mail.yourdomain.com was the standard these days.  ISPs certainly have a
right to have a user use a method that doesn't ruin the ISP's security.  I
guess ISPs just have to balance between that and the cost of customer
support that has to be done when Joe User calls in saying 'But I don't
remember what the SMTP server for my local ISP is...!' :)

-Dee (one of them "Room Temperature IQ" users... ;) )