Thanks Technet, was wondering about something like that. We are in the process of looking at new software so this needs to be taken into account when choosing our s/w. Oh, and we use dedicated software, can't get anything off the shelf :-(

Edit I feel like I'm at the beginning of a big exciting adventure into the world of broadband. Thanks for all the info. It is quite a minefield so this sort of help has pointed me in the right direction and saved me a lot of time.

Hi, can anyone help.. Can I set up Outlook Express to do automatically dial up to send and recieve messages/ e mails, and then disconnect. Like the AOL flash sessions? Its NTL Dial Up. I have broadband with BT but want to keep my e mail address which I have organised with them. I can recieve to my NTL e-mail through BT broadband. But it won't let me send or auto forward.

david2000, send your messages through the BT server, but in Tools/Accounts for the BT account, specify your NTL email address and not the BT one. The messages should be sent looking as though they are coming from NTL. This trick works for most but not all ISPs, but I used to have BT ADSL and as far as I remember it worked with them. So when you send/receive on your BT connection you will be receiving on the NTL account and sending on the BT account.

I've just taken the basic BT Braoadband package Kayak. So no e mail account. I hoped IE had a flash session but cant find it. Thanks anyway Kayak

You don't need an email account with BT, david 2000. Just set up an account in Outlook Express, specifying your NTL address as the email address, mail.btopenworld.com as the pop and smtp servers, and Bob's your uncle.

Kayak's sea of knowledge makes mine look like a puddle.



;-:

Kayak/david 2000,

BT sent out an email to all (business?) customers recently asking for the domains from which they will be sending emails out from, which gave me the impression that they are only going to allow people to send email with a non-bt domain through their servers if they know in advance that is does indeed belong to at BT customer.

I dont know how much further they are in implimenting this tho.

J.

No need to use their outgoing SMTP server, of course - just run your own!

the troll/kayak/david 2000,

for windows I know people who have had very good success with MDaemon, assuming that is the OS you are running. However, some ISPs block outgoing port 25 connections to servers other than their own.

I think this may start coming more into play now with the onslaught of virii which have their own built in SMTP servers...

J.

Windows 2000 comes with an SMTP server (part of the add-ons on the installation CD), although I've never tried it. I assume that XP does too. I've never seen the point of running your own, though. Perhaps someone could enlighten me?

Kayak,

It means that no matter what ISP you use, you set your email client to use the local host (127.0.0.1) as the SMTP server.

When your STMP server recieves an email, it will normally look up the mail exchangers for the recipient domain itself and deliver directly to them, without using an intermediatory step (your ISPs mail server)

However, attempts to run services like this may be blocked by ISPs, indeed there are some that block it already.

J.

Thanks TulletJ, I will ring them...

Good morning,

Help required regarding internet connection...

Have a cable modem connected to a 4 port router and 4 pcs,how can i expand to put more computers on the setup can it be done by disconecting 1 of the pcs and installing a 5 port hub then plugging the pc back in very like extension sockets on the mains....cant be that simple surely...

Any help would be welcome thanks for your time....creep.

Mega...

Well, I'm now the proud owner of a working SMTP server. I read somewhere that it's an extremely geekish thing to do, and so it is :-)

I suppose it does mean fewer hops to get mail delivered, and also as you say Jon that I don't have to select the correct From account when sending mail.

MB, you can use either a hub or a switch/router, both connected in the same way. As you say, a hub is basically like extension sockets. Any traffic that is put through a hub is sent to all the connected devices. A switch/router is more expensive and filters traffic to the correct destination, so that only the computer that needs to see the traffic actually gets it. This is much more efficient in network terms since the wires connecting idle computers are not filled with traffic that doesn't have to be there, therefore higher throughput. That having been said, you won't see any difference whatsoever if you are just using the network to share the modem. It's only if you were doing a lot of file transfers between PCs, playing real-time games, etc. that it might be slower than it otherwise would be.

In connecting the hub you would put the computers that are most used on the router and the rest on the hub. It really is like extension sockets, no configuration will be required.

If you do decide on a hub and are quick about it, as it happens a very nice one is going cheap here, one careful gentleman owner etc. etc. :-)

good value hub

Kayak,

Thanks very much for the info have the system up and running a couple of minutes after your post :-)

Cheers mate..

Mega...

Kayak , thanks for your help. I have gone into Outlook Exp, then..
Tools
Accounts
Properties
Clicked "servers" Tab
Then I have left Incoming server the same, but changed SMTP to mail.btopenworld.com. Then clicked "Apply"
SORTED Now Send and Recieve throught BT Broadband with my ntlworld e-mail address.
I have my telephone calls through NTL on a BT line to keep my e-mail addresses active. They also give me un limited Dial Up Internet access, so long as I spend 15 per month on phone calls. Their tariffs are cheaper than BT anyway so its a winner all round. I can spend all day on the Dial up, just kicks you off every couple of hours, but you can go straight back on. So its a useful back up for free.
Thanks once again Kayak.

David 2000, you may notice with that solution that when you are forwarding or replying to messages sent to you, it doesn't work. That is because they are sent to your NTL account which it tries to use to send the message out again. The answer is that when you forward/reply you need to select the BT account in the drop down box in the From field. Or you could run an smtp server, but that is geekish :-)

The BT account should be set as the default account, but unfortunately it doesn't use that when forwarding/replying.

Kayak,

Make sure your SMTP server is ONLY set to allow connections from your local host else, depending on how it is set up, anyone could use your connection to relay email.

Now, for more advanced things, should you have a static IP with your ADSL, it would be possible for you to register, for instance, kayak.com (if it were available), and set its mail exchanger records to point to your home machine. Your SMTP server would then deal with the mail, and if you are using MDaemon, then it could route email into different mailboxes, allowing you to have seperate email accounts for the whole family (mdaemon supports pop3 very well.)

Just an idea. If you want to do this and need to know how to set up the DNS for it, just give me a shout...

J.

Jon, yes, I've been through all the options and set it just to accept connections from my local network. The main difficulty actually was with the ISP with which I have my mail account. Out of 10 smtp servers that I tried, theirs was the only one that wouldn't accept just the host name in the HELO message, it wanted a domain name tacked onto the end. Good security, I thought, until I realised that any "x.y" would work!

As for the rest, as it happens I did have a static IP with Pipex until a few weeks ago when I exercised the option to make it a dynamic one for privacy... and you can't go back! But to be honest I already have different mailboxes by setting accounts up with dial-up ISPs. I'll give you a shout when I want to progress to the next level of geekiness :-)