How to configure ANOTHER email program

[bellgamin]

I considered sticking this under Support > Email, but I am not looking for support just now. I just want to tell you how it went when I configured my eMail program -- which is Calypso.

I do NOT use Outlook Express [OE]. I used to, but just about everytime I did, my AV and my Trojan Hunter would both freak out. So I switched to Calypso and now all is peaceful.

Cpanel configures OE for you *automatically* -- with any other eMail proggie, you're on your own.

Far as I could tell, Cpanel's documentation doesn't even reveal the names of the servers. The server names, by the way, are...

mail.yourdomain.org

...for both POP & SMTP.

I set Calypso up to "send when checking mail" so that I can SMTP-authenticate by the "POP before send" method. Calypso struggles with standard SMTP authentication [lots of eMail programs do, even the newer ones], but it works just fine under POP before send.

I configured Calypso with the username that AOH sent me in the welcome eMail. Let me make this clear -- username@mydomain.com did NOT work. Plain old username did.

Bellgamin sends
----------------------
Asking a web host how he feels about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs.

[Gnomercy]

One thing I'm gonna toss in here, just because I can see myself making this mistake and not realizing it for about 3 hours, is this...

Make sure you use your actual domain dot extension in your mail server names, whether it be .org, .net, .com, .us, .name... whatever. Please understand, I would normally assume that everyone would realize this, but I don't want anyone to experience any headaches from an oversight on this. So I'm not trying to be condescending towards anyone, but rather, am making sure that no one experiences a lapse in their thinking (PC way of saying blonde moment) when setting up their email clients.

Also, what other email programs are you all using? Calypso, OE, Outlook, etc... might be a good idea to go ahead and put up config routines for what everyone is already using here, so others can easily put it all together. Go ahead and post stuff here, if you put up something that would better go in support>email, I'll move it...

[bellgamin]

Thanks Gnomercy. Here are a couple of other lessons I learned from this experience...

A) Until you get your eMail program working right, do NOT mess with any of the eMail settings in Cpanel. Otherwise, if you have a problem, you won't know WHICH is screwed up -- your eMail configurations, OR the stuff you did in Cpanel.

B) If you are moving an existing website from another host to AOH then be SURE your site's new IP has fully propagated throughout the internet before testing your eMail program.

C) If you test your eMail program *too soon* [before it's fully propagated] & it seems to bomb out, try putting the IP of the mail servers into the Mail Server blocks [instead of putting mail.yourdomain.com]

How do I know all this stuff? Sheesh, don't ask! :( <blushing>

Bellgamin
~~~~~~~
Shopping tip: You can get shoes for 85 cents at bowling alleys.

P.S. Gnomercy seemed to struggle a bit at coming up with the names of NON-MS eMail programs. Here are several of the better ones: Becky, Poco, The Bat, Foxmail (free), Allegro, & *Calypso* (free). You can chase these down at...
Becky http://www.rimarts.co.jp/becky.htm
Poco http://www.pocomail.com/
The Bat http://www.ritlabs.com/the_bat/
Calypso http://www.ouisoft.com/calypso.htm

All the others (and more)...
http://www.emailman.com/win/clients.html

[Gnomercy]

Actually, I didn't struggle in the least... I had no idea what any of them were :)

In all honsety, when I began using the internet, I used OE simply because it was there. Eventually, I started using Agent for my internet news client, but continued using OE for mail until about 2 years ago, when I started using Outlook. I was working for GE at the time, on one of their helpdesks, and that's what I had to support, so I started using it at home as well and have basically let myself become pigeonholed into MS email clients. I would, however, switch in a heartbeat to a new email client if someone could point me in the direction of one that can reliably sort your email into various inboxes... Outlooks rules wizard doesn't actually do what it's supposed to half the time and it's the only flaw that really irritates me.

[bellgamin]

Calypso's filters work perfectly. They NEVER fail to sort my mail exactly as I want it. Plus it's free. Plus they have an active user's group, with Calypso's principal programmer on tap, at...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CalypsoMail

ALSO... folks who use Poco mail are absolute fanatics about its superiority to anything & everything else, including mom & apple pie. I haven't tried it myself, however.

[Gnomercy]

Well, Calypso certainly isn't what I'm used to, but so far I like it. Still have it set to leave a copy of everything on the server while I do my little evaluation, but it seems pretty straight forward, and I'm liking it so far.

I woulda tried that Poco thing that you mentioned, but seeing as how Mac users are totally convinced of the superiority of Mac's to everything, including Mom and apple pie....... well, perhaps I shouldn't go there :)

[Gnomercy]

Ok, I have a config question for you.... when setting up 2 accounts on one mailbox, why does the second one not work? I'm getting a "bad login" message from the mail server, though if I go to the webmail client, it works fine. I've compared the config information between the two accounts and can't find where I'm doing something wrong, but it's still not connecting. Any ideas?

[Gnomercy]

Never mind... I figured it out. For that account, I had to use my username@domain.com to log in and get my email. The reason for this follows:

If your account is on a CPanel server, and you're the administrator for that account, your email login doesn't require a domain extension because you are a real unix user; your login name can't be replicated because it's in /etc/passwd.

On Ensim, if your account has a dedicated IP, there's no need for the domain name either.

However, virtual users (non administrators) in a CPanel account are found in a table that is unique to a domain, and the user name could easily be replicated in multiple domains on the same IP address. The mail server name doesn't help, because the DNS translation happens locally on your PC and isn't included in a header, like a web browser would do. So the only way for the server to know what domain you're trying to log into is for you to supply it in the login credentials as username@domain.com




Sometimes it's good to have a direct line to the tech guru :)

[bellgamin]

Glad to see that you worked your config question. As to how/why you did it, I understood everything except the explanation. :rolleyes:

One of the main reason to use Calypso is security. Here is one gimmick that works really well, regardless of which AV you are using...

1) Create a filter with nothing but a single * [asterisk - the wild card] in the "What Pattern to Search For" block.
2) Leave the block directly under it as "ONLY" [which is the default - just don't change it]
3) Be sure there is a check mark in the Subject check block [which is also the default - just do not check any other blocks]
4) In the "What Action to Take" column of check blocks, check the block "Save Attachment" -- doing this will then enable the adjacent block, where you are to enter the file into which attachments are to be placed. It's your choice. I use...
E:\Calypso Virus Check

where E is my iOmega ZipDrive.

5) In the rightmost column check the block "Continue Filtering"
6) Click OK - at this point, perhaps earlier [I forget] Calypso is going to warn you that this filter will affect ALL messages. This of course is true because you have a wild card for the subject line. The effect of this clever little darling filter is as follows:

a) The filter affects a message If AND ONLY IF that message has an attachment. Messages without attachments are totally unaffected.

b) For each & every message that DOES have an attachment, the filter rrrrips off the attachment and sticks it into your "Calypso Virus Check" folder. The message itself processes normally through your other filters. The result DOES inform you that the attachment has been ripped & stuffed.

c) When I'm ready to examine attachments, I run my virus checker on the folder BEFORE I even open the folder. If it shows a bad guy, then I have to be extra careful when I open the folder & AV-scan individual files because my computer is set-up for single click & I use a touchpad.

I get several bad guys weekly, sometimes more. Klez is kinda rare but I get lots of YAHA's

I have other checkers that watch over my eMail, so this little filter is just an added attraction. It sometimes HAS saved me from stuff that got through NAV2001 and ZA-free [neither of which I any longer use.]

You're gonna love Calypso! :)

[Gnomercy]

Well, as for why I decided to use Calypso (I'm really just beta testing it for personal use), I did so because I have 2 email accounts that I check with one program, and filter the email based on certain conditions into various sub-folders. Outlook wasn't performing the filtering effectively (I was manually filtering about half my email) so I wanted to try something new that would perform this function effectively. As for attachment security, Norton Anti Virus serves as a proxy for my email, and filters out anything I might download via email, so that's not an issue.

My config issue was this (and this is going to be long, so bear with me). I have 2 email accounts that I configured in Calypso. My personal email address that resides on a website that functions almost entirely as a mail server, and my gnomercy@alphaomegahosting.com email address that is used for business. For argument sake, lets say my personal email address is Mike@abc.com. Now then, according to your original post on this subject, you couldn't use the login credentials you were supplied, namely username@domain.com, to log into your email, but rather, had to use the username without the @domain.com extension. I followed this for both accounts, and it worked for my business address, but for my personal address, I had to use username@domain.com to log in.

Now then, our server in our Texas datacenter uses Ensim for it's contro panel. In an Ensim enviornment, if your website is assigned a dedicated IP address there is no need to use the @domain.com extension in your login credentials for your email. If, however, your site does NOT have a dedicated IP address, you must supply the domain name you wish to log in to, as email alias' could be duplicated between domains and the server would otherwise have no idea which domain or mail server you're trying to reach. Alphaomegahosting.com has a dedicated IP address. abc.com does not. This is what caused the config issue for me.

In CPanel, which is what you're using, there are 2 possibilities.

1) You are the administrator for that site. This is the case for you, Bells. Because you are the site admin, you are listed on the physical server, outside the boundries of your domain, as a user. Because there can be no alias duplication between your domain and another (remember, your username is located in /etc/passwd under the root home directory) the @domain.com extension isn't necessary.

2) You are a "virtual" user. I.E. you're email account was set up on a specific domain by that domains admin. Your login ID is stored in a table similar to /etc/passwd, however it's located inside the domains files, as opposed to the root home directory. Because this table is located under the domain's file structure, it is possible, and indeed likely, that usernames will be duplicated across multiple domains. For example, every domain on the server could have a user named Mike. Simply using Mike as your login name would give the server no clue where you were actually trying to get to, so you need to use @domain.com to tell it where to go look for your stuff. My first inclination was that the mail server name, since it has your domain name included, should provide the necessary information, however this is not the case. DNS translation occurs on your local machine, and isn't transmitted over the internet when dealing with email as it is when using a web browser.



Now if I can just figure out how to make the filter associations permenant, I'll be happy... Where outlook would check all my messages as they arrived and attempt to filter them, I'm having to manually run the filters every time, which is basically what I had to do before.

The beta test continues.

[Gnomercy]

I'm almost embarassed by that one.... figured out the rules too. So far, I'm really quite impressed. I think I may have found myself a new email client.

[admin]

I have downloaded it too, but I haven't had time to install it yet.

[Afkamm]

I dumped OE a couple of years ago for Eudora. Totally love it now :)


Marc :O)

[bellgamin]

Hello Afkamm / Marc...

Oh yes! Eudora is indeed superb. I bought it shrink-wrapped, & used it for about 5 years. When the current version came out, however, they wanted me either to pay again, or accept ads on it.

Because of that, I looked around & discovered Calypso. As far as features and user-friendliness go, I would give Eudora a "10" and Calypso a "9.5".

But what sold me on Calypso [besides the fact that it is free] is the fact that my dear old computer always has had its back to the wall due to shortage of system resources (I run WinME). [At age 71, I'm sort of in the same boat. :p ]

Calypso is MUCH easier on system resources than Eudora. If I had WinXP & a bigger box, I might switch back to Eudora. But then again, maybe not.

Och! Calypso has a very endearing personality, she does!

Aloha from Hawaii to all thee & thine in Scotland,
Bellgamin

[Afkamm]

Hi Bellgamin :)

Before Eudora i was an OE freak, but when i started to get into newsgroups I found that OE wasn't that great for them and the pictures were always embedded and you had to save them seperately. I tried out Pegasus and a few others, but didn't really like them and I needed a program that could convert my OE emails as well.

I followed some of your links, but couldn't see any screenshots of Calypso.

I'm not too bothered about system resources, I normally close Eudora after checking for mail, I don't normally leave it open. You know there's a third option that you didn't mention, you can use Eurdora free without the ads, but with some features disabled.

Marc :O)

[bellgamin]

Originally posted by Afkamm
Hi Bellgamin :)

I followed some of your links, but couldn't see any screenshots of Calypso.

Marc :O)

The idea is... you download & install it and THEN you see the screenshots. ;)

I have a window-shot proggie. However, it makes screen shots a .bmp. The one I made of Calypso's screen was over 1Mb. I have neither the software nor the know-how to compress a .bmp into something more useful on a website.

Anyway.. a screenshot of Calypso isn't really needed. Why? Because you can set up Calypso's screen to look just about any old way that suits you. When I went from Eudora to Calypso, I laid-out my Calypso's screen with the exact same format as Eudora's.

Aloha........Bell

[Afkamm]

Blah don't fancy doing that, but I just might to have a look :D

Yeah .bmp is an uncompress file format, which is why it's so big. You'll need to convert it to a .jpg (jpeg) first and save with a compress factor of about 15% Should bring the file size down to about 40kb depending on width/height of the image.

Oh, you don't really need a window shot proggie, just press the Prt Scr key that's to the right of F12 and then select paste in an art program like Paint Shop pro.

Cya

Marc :O)

[Gade Terbob]

Having a bit of a config problem with Calypso. While waiting for the yahoo forums moderator to approve my app, thought I'd toss it out here, too. Here's the error detail:


*** Sending pending mail from account 'Williams' @ 12/03/02 14:41 ***
Connecting to: 'mail.homeatlastfarms.com' -> Successful
Logging into the SMTP server as: "hal-farms"
Disconnecting -> Successful
Failed to send one or more pending messages.
Sendrecv.c[215] Smtp.dll
recv() failed
WINSOCK Error: Error Number: 0


What I think the problem is this line: Logging into the SMTP server as: "hal-farms"

I can't for the life of me find where I put that. I've looked in both mailbox property and account property. Can't find it. Can't fix it.

Did somebody here tell me that MSN (as an isp) won't allow traffic to other mail servers? Danny or Gnomercy? I'm geezing.

[bellgamin]

A) Sorry Gade. *Winsock errors* are totally out of my league. The folks at the user's group may be able to help out. My only thought is that, since the error message mentions that you are "logging in" as hal-farms, that you have used "hal-farms" as your User ID.

B) Anyway, for what it's worth I have uploaded screenshots of the Calypso configs for 2 of my AOH domain emails. The ABN set-up is *standard*. I did the BBO set-up using my server's IP number. Both ways work. The shots are at...

http://www.alohabible.net/images/ABNacct.gif

http://www.alohabible.net/images/BBOacct.gif

C) By the way, Rose Software has purchased the rights to Calypso. You'll learn more about this upon visiting the user's group. This means Calypso will once again be maintained. The existing version is still free & can be DL from Rose's site.

D) They'll have to put the updated version out under a different name, however. The owners sold rights to the code but wanted to hang onto the Calypso name.

aloha..........bellgamin

P.S. I forgot to ask -- you DID do a pop-before-send, right?

[Gade Terbob]

I think this means that I did a pop-before-send.


*** Checking mail for account 'Williams' @ 12/05/02 12:50 ***
Connecting to: 'mail.homeatlastfarms.com' -> Successful
Logging into POP3 account: 'bobwms@mail.homeatlastfarms.com' -> Successful
Logging out of POP3 account: 'bobwms@mail.homeatlastfarms.com' -> Successful
Disconnecting -> Successful
12/05/02 12:50: No new mail.


The earlier posted error message comes after this.

[bellgamin]

Yah, it looks like you might have popped before smtp BUT...

Is bobwms@mail.homeatlastfarms.com your catchall account or what?

Is hal-farms your user name or is bobwms your user name?

Sheesh, I'm over my head! Still no word from the calypso user group?

.........bellgamin