OT: Internet Hosting recommendations.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Wonder how many domestic users would get anywhere near 10+ gig in their mailbox without downloading it?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's interesting. I've been using a 123 reg pop box for many many years. And the outage the other day is the only one I can remember. And fixed within a couple of hours of me noticing it.

Could be I'm unusual these days in that I always download mails and remove them from the box.

[Roger Hayter]

The habit of many users nowadays is to leave everything on the server (and perforce in their inbox if they use an email program) and just let it accumulate for years on end. And, quite often, they are only aware of Outlook for work email and webmail for personal email, as though this were a legal requirement. Unless they need to explicitly download an 'attachment' of an obscure sort they will view or read attachments in their web browser and leave them on the server too.

[John Rumm]

If you are using IMAP[1] then all the mail is left on the server, so its not uncommon for users to rack up loads of stored crap. (and if they are organised enough to put/auto filter it into folders below the inbox, it can create the illusion of order and store even more cruft)

[1] and if you want to share a mailbox between multiple platforms and also allow web mail access, then it makes sense to use IMAP.

[Huge]

Quite. When we migrated from AllInOne mail to Lotus Notes some years ago, one user had 26,000 emails in her Inbox. After multiple failed attempts to migrate them, we told her we couldn't and she just shrugged and said "Oh, well". The bitch didn't even *need* the damn things.

[Roger Hayter]

I do think that it is unfair to blame users when they do things, no matter how dysfunctional, that you have *let* them do.

[Roger Hayter]

OTOH, if you organise your email into directories *not* below your inbox, which exist in a real filesystem and are backed up locally and stored properly off-site as duplicate backups then *you* are taking responsibility for your stored email which is then removed from the ISP's server. And you are responsible for your own data rather than trusting it to a bunch of possibly American capitalists who have little long term interest in keeping it intact for you.

If you really want to share your old emails between devices you can use your own server.

[John Rumm]

True, but if you take it off the server and keep it locally, then the mail won't be accessible on your other devices.

Note also that clients like Thunderbird will mirror all of an IMAP directory structure locally anyway.

Seems like a bit of a jump in complexity!

[John Rumm]

Worth looking at for those of us into woodwork?

[Huge]

[24 lines snipped]

Well, I agree with your intent, but would just like to point out that neither system was chosen, configured or operated by me.

[T i m]

So that's £3.80 / user / month in 50GB email storage and with 'full' Outlook / calendaring.

One thing I'm not sure about though is would they still be able to be [e-mail] if using Office365? Is it that they get a new domain and the mails get massaged to reflect their own domain info? I think we did play with Office365 at the beginning (it was a newish thing) but didn't get anywhere (with the calendaring extension) bit particularly.

Check. I think they did look at the next offering up but there was still a question re supporting Outlook calendaring (but it was a while ago now).

True, but potentially adds another layer of complication / passwords etc and for these people it really wants to be KISS (even if it costs a bit more). ;-)

Ok. Not a good failure mode.

Ok. Are they just 'basic' mailboxes John or would they support Outlook / calendaring?

So far their website has been little more than a static / template holding page, just to provide *something* showing a web presence. In fact I've already ftp'd it to my PC in case they decide to host it elsewhere (assuming that is all there is to it).

Hmmm. Whilst I don't think they use any of that there is a possibility they could (like the boss getting copies of generic 'sales@' emails as you suggest).

Within reason. ;-)

No quite, and never having used anything like that myself am not really a good judge either. I think the idea with Outlook / Calendaring is that you can send an appointment request and that can be 'allowed' to update the calendar (or not etc). I think what they do is use some of it but just email it to one person in the office who manually updates a shared calendar (or something)? Now they are used to doing it that way I'm wondering how much value there is in making it more complete / automated?

I think it would need to be something that was integrated with Outlook or they would stay as they are (but hosted elsewhere).

It's also possible they could have a mix (with some 'dumb' mailboxes) as they do have some that are used as basic enquiry / service etc.

ATM I'm really on a reconnaissance mission for them to see if they can get something that is more reliable (and with a sort of automatic 'go ahead') but without costing lots more if possible. 'Some more' would be ok. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

You you can have your own domain - they office 365 portal will give you the DNS changes you need to make to it to get mail routed to their servers.

123's own mailboxes are normally just POP3/IMAP (although they also will also do you Office 365 Essentials as well if you want)

They now enforce a mailbox size limit, which is better since it stops that particular problem occurring.

Rackspace resell office 365 as do many others. However they also have their own hosted "Cloud Office" Exchange option - hosted on their own servers. That offers 100GB mailboxes. Price is about £6.75/month/user IIRC.

I was talking particularly about the domain hosting rather than their web hosting packages. Their web hosting is ok for basics stuff, but I don't find it very good for more sophisticated stuff where it tends to get a bit laggy.

(they also have a control panel app that will allow you to automatically setup a myriad of common web apps - the main difficulty I have had with that is that many then don't actually work correctly once setup!)

You can do much of that on office 365 as well - but all the toys need to be attached to a mailbox. So you consume a mailbox license for every address you setup, even if all its going to do is forward stuff somewhere else.

You can send meeting requests etc and have them automatically sync calendars etc. You should also be able to allow people to manage calendars for others, do block schedules etc. (its not something I use myself, so don't have much experience with it)

(I find the Thunderbird built in calendar with synch to google calendar and thence my phone is adequate for my needs)

Note there are a number of google calendar to outlook sync options out there, so you can achieve the same end result without going full exchange...

e.g. (one of a number)

Sure, always worth looking at the options before you need to jump ship!

[T i m]

Your own existing domain (so I am clear)?

So, say they currently have a user, sam(at)acmetrading.com, if they port the email from 123 to Office365, any email sent to sam(at)acmetrading.com will be processed at Office365, not 123? All the mentions of the email / reply address will be sam(at)acmetrading.com (I'm pretty sure that's what you meant but I'd like to make sure).

Can this be done by individual email (eg, those who need calendaring go Office365 and the others their basic email offering) or is it all or nothing by domain (please)?

Understood.

I was recently asked to look into why one of the email accounts wasn't working and upon accessing their webmail, noticed it was 100% full. They must have been sent some messages warning them at various thresholds and just ignored them. ;-(

Ok thanks. I think their std Exchange package would probably be sufficient (considering they currently only have 5GB mail storage). ;-)

Ah, check.

Do you have any thoughts re keeping the website with the likes of 123 John? I think my man would probably rather move everything away from

123 just out of principal (and it might make the billing / payments easier)?

Oh. ;-( And the thing is at my level of experience I wouldn't instinctively know if it was that I had done it wrong ? ;-(

Understood.

Yes, that's the sort of thing they were hoping to be able to do (originally anyway).

Ok.

I setup Thunderbird for them in the beginning but they decided they needed Office for compatibility with both their customers and suppliers. I still use TB to access my email account on their (123's) system.

It's quite possible that things have moved on since we first looked into it all and I think we tried a couple of options that were supposed to run in the background providing such (but that never really worked). Whilst it may seem logical (for someone technical / up_to_speed like yourself ) to use such solutions, I'm reluctant to put my mark on anything that could make it 'more complicated' for everyone. I'm not saying that it is necessarily more complicated to implement, just that it involves 'other stuff' that may make the picture more complex. I get enough calls and texts asking me to remind them of their passwords as it is!

And it's that kind of feel I'm hoping for (and getting) from the good folk here.

Cheers, T i m

p.s. Just to thank you again for your previous help re Sketchup. I am now generally able, when faced with a requirement to come up with a 3D printed solution that works and with reasonably subtle design. The last hurdle was the use of the 'Follow me' tool to apply chamfers and countersinks and I've used that to good effect quite a few times now. ;-)

[John Rumm]

yup

You would need to set the MX records of the domain in question to point at the MS email servers - then even though the DNS records are hosted by

123 and their name servers are the authoritative ones, you would not be using their mail servers at all.

Its generally all or nothing - although there are ways you can fiddle about it by creating an additional "private" email domain (i.e. one to handle email that is not used publicly, but can be a place to host mailboxes and to target forwarded emails.

Some providers like Rackspace also do something called split domain routing, when you can have their email servers have first bite of the cherry, but then allow any not matching addresses to fall through to another mail server - creating a kind of mx chain. Don't think that 123 can do that.

For a basic "brochureware" site then they are ok (I still host a few static site with them)

Well some are quite obvious - like install mediawiki and they don't have the default permissions set for Apache so that it can write to the image directories.

Drupal runs out of the box - but there was a hue delay in access to the site on the first hit (after the first connection in a session it was then ok ish but a bit slow).

They allow mysql databases, but last time I looked the limit on size was quite small, so even a smallish site like the diywiki would not fit.

+1

.> p.s. Just to thank you again for your previous help re Sketchup. I am

Glad to hear it. While I am certainly no expert at it, its still a very useful tool. Its a shame they don't do the pro version at a more sensible price!

[T i m]

Ok, but would you say (all else being equal) there would be any disadvantage moving everything away from them or would doing so be pointless / unnecessarily complicated, IYHO John (if their std domain and webspace hosting is cheap / reliable)? I was just thinking he would have two bills (MS / 123) and still have I don't know if they (123) would still have the opportunity to muck things (email) up? eg, If there are settings on the 123 panel that have a bearing on the emails being picked up by O365 instead, could they go wrong (and going by what you say about their other panel controls below etc).

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

The difficulty with moving is if you have to keep everything working while you port over - that can be difficult - you would have to get the new mailboxes in place, import all the data and then effect the changeover.

Once you have pointed the MX records in the domain at new servers, the domain host has little to do with it... (I spose if someone were to DDoS their DNS for long enough it might cause an issue).

[T i m]

That was also something I was thinking about. Can you plan these things to happen at 5pm on a Friday?

Hmmm, I'm wondering if they would be happy to start afresh. ;-)

Is there an 'export mail' function on the Panel or is that something you typically do via the client? It's been a long time since I was doing anything like this. ;-(

Isn't that exactly what has happened to 123 a couple of times recently (I'm not sure what impact it had but I understand they were attacked)?

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

You can plan yes ;-)

You can do it with a client like thunderbird - it will let you access old and new mailboxes and copy stuff between them. It does depend on how good your broadband is though!

Alternatively there are third party sites out there that will port email between different types of mailbox.

Lastly, talk to the new email host - they may well have automated tools for bulk import and migration.

Yup, but generally they have not usually taken out their DNS for it to matter... (they have hit their hosting though). Also keep in mind that any host can get DDoSed.

[Dave Liquorice]

Fasthosts? Run, don't walk, away.

Spam source, don't care. unresponsive.

[T i m]

Ok ... and are you in a position to be able to make a comment on 1&1 OOI please Dave?

And / or anyone else we should consider (for email if nothing else)?

Cheers, T i m

p.s. I think my 'spaced' email is with FH and TB does have trouble getting mail from them (slightly) more often than it does from VM (Googlemail is it)?