[kwlug disc.] Home e-mail server vs. freeshell.org?

[Paul Nijjar]

On Sun, 10 Jun 2007, Unsolicited wrote:

> If Paul choose it ...
 	That tends to be a bad criterion to use in making decisions.

> I'm hoping the lag isn't noticeable if I'm only mail reading/hosting
> and html hosting.
 	No. I think it will be fine for POP usage, although I have no 
experience with this. The lag comes in when I compose messages 
interactively.

 	I do remember that there have been a couple of outages in the six 
months since I started using the service. None of the outages lasted for 
more than a few hours, but you may want to be careful if you really need 
total uptime.

> Without vpm, all me+{word} goes to me.
 	I did not know this.

> VPM, yes.
>
> Much cheaper. AFAIK. I'm never going to want 50 mailboxes, but I do
> want more than 5. And I'm trying to get out of ISP/vendor lock in. I'm
> going to have to change ISP's, and I only want to have to go through
> the e-mail account notifications/changes once.

 	SDF has been around for 20 years now, which is one reason I went 
for the service. Having said that, I don't have a huge amount of 
confidence that they will be able to stay operational indefinitely -- 
the rent for their server rooms is enormous, and they keep buying these 
really expensive machines.

> I've confirmed that I can. Had to bboard and com to confirm - someone
> had to point out http://sdf.lonestar.org/index.cgi?faq?VHOST?06,
> particularly 'This will allow you to create POP3 mail accounts for
> addresses associated with your domain.' Wouldn't have found it otherwise.

 	Right. But reading that FAQ it still sounds as if you have to get 
VHOST service with them for your additional domains. I probably am 
misunderstanding something; I obviously have not looked into the issue.

> Yeah, I see that. Can't hardly blame them, I suppose. If you look at
> join (http://sdf.lonestar.org/index.cgi?join), they're really not
> asking for a lot.
 	No. Their costs are high and they are trying to keep the service 
running, so it is reasonable that SDF is not quite the "pay once and not 
worry any more" service I would have liked.

- Paul

--
Paul Nijjar - http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion
Next electoral reform info night: Tuesday June 12, 7pm