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Q: Small Buisness users with POP email accounts. ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   4 Comments )
Question  
Subject: Small Buisness users with POP email accounts.
Category: Computers > Software
Asked by: drain1-ga
List Price: $20.00
Posted: 01 Apr 2004 05:56 PST
Expires: 01 May 2004 06:56 PDT
Question ID: 323483
I currently have a client with 5 employees.  The business has a
service that provides them with POP email accounts.  Currently there
are 3 or 4 PCs in the store.  One of the pc's is running Outlook, and
that version of outlook is configured to retrieve all 5 of the POP
accounts.  Rules then distribute the mail to different folders within
Outlook.  My question is this:  The owner and his employees would like
to be able to send and retrieve their POP email from any of the PC's
in the office, not just the 1 dedicated PC they are currently using. 
The owner would like to have all email stored centrally for ease of
backup and retrieval.

More background:  All the computers in the office are on a common
Ethernet segment behind a small office d-link router.  The d-link
router is connected to the internet via a cable modem.

Request for Question Clarification by till-ga on 03 Apr 2004 07:54 PST
Does the web server support the IMAP4 protocol ?

till-ga

Clarification of Question by drain1-ga on 03 Apr 2004 13:51 PST
I currently do not have any form of a web server withing the company. 
Also I don't know what IMAP4 is.  I assume it is an email protocol,
but I know nothing about it.

Dave.

Request for Question Clarification by till-ga on 03 Apr 2004 23:03 PST
The IMAP4 is an email protocol that might help you to solve your
problem as then mails are left on the mail server:

"IMAP allows you to fully utilize the bandwidth available to you, and
unlike early POP servers (this is no longer the case), IMAP is
centered on the notion that the server is your primary mail
repository. Messages are always retained on the server. The client may
issue commands to download them or delete them, access and set message
state information, but the server always maintains the mailboxes. The
protocol also provides for the entire structure of a message to be
transferred, which can provide a client mail program with an outline
of a complex MIME message, but without requiring the client to read
the entire message and parse it locally to determine that structure,
which is how POP works. This is especially important on low-bandwidth
connections. The same applies to message envelope information which is
normally presented in the message header. This information may be
transferred directly, and allow the client to present a list of
messages to a human reader in a fraction of the time it would take to
transfer the entire mailbox across the wire, and parse it locally.
Once a message is selected for viewing, the entire message may then be
brought in. Alternatively, a client might wish to browse only a few
lines of a message, or a specific part of a multi-part MIME message.
This is also possible; and is extremely advantageous on slow
connections.

from: 
What is IMAP
( http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/IMAP.html )

"Advantages of IMAP
IMAP keeps all mail on the server (i.e. Helix). Mail is not
automatically downloaded to your desktop machine each time you
connect, although you can still explicitly choose to save messages
locally. This has the following advantages:
-IMAP is much faster than POP 
-IMAP downloads messages one at a time; POP downloads all new messages
each time a connection is made
-Mail can be accessed consistently from multiple clients (e.g. home,
office); all changes you make to your mail folders (deleting messages,
moving into folders) will be 'seen' from any client.
-Mail can be accessed simultaneously from multiple clients. 
-A misconfigured IMAP client is a nuisance; a misconfigured POP client
can cause serious problems that are difficult and time-consuming to
recover from
IMAP is immune to "duplicate messages" that occasionally afflict POP clients "
from:
HIH Helix Mail
( http://helix.nih.gov/docs/online/email/imap.html )


You do not need to have a web server in your company, many internet
providers support the IMAP4 protocol. You should check if the provider
that hosts your POP email accounts supports IMAP4. If not it should be
possible to find a provider that does support IMAP4.
In germany such a solution is available for a few Euro a month, it
should be cheap as well in the USA.


till-ga

Clarification of Question by drain1-ga on 04 Apr 2004 06:57 PDT
I will find out what mail protocols his current provider supports,
then get back with you.

Dave.

Clarification of Question by drain1-ga on 12 Apr 2004 13:25 PDT
My client is currently using INTERLAND for his Web and EMail hosting. 
They do not offer an IMAP solution.  Also I've checked with
RoadRunner, his ISP, and they also do not offer IMAP.  So I went
searching and found Simplicato.  They seem to specialize in IMAP EMail
hosting, and have various plas to choose from.  It also appears I can
leave his web page where it is, and just move the MX record to
Simplicato for his email.  Am I missing anything here, or is this the
right way to proceed.

Dave.
Answer  
Subject: Re: Small Buisness users with POP email accounts.
Answered By: till-ga on 12 Apr 2004 23:27 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
I had a look at the offer of www.simplicato.com and it seems they
offer all feautures required for a professinal IMAP EMail hosting.
Things I consider very important:
- spam filtering
- online virus checking
This is exactly the kind of service I use myself for my EMail here in Germany.

As you mentioned in your Clarification you should leave the website
hosting as it is and just change the mx record to simplicato:

"Can I have my web site with another company and email by Simplicato?
How does it work?
Yes. Another service provider can be serve your web site
www.yourdomain.com while we can serve your mail. The DNS (See What is
DNS?) for your domain can point www.yourdomain.com to your current
provider server and mail to us. You will need to have a MX (Mail
Exchange)(See What is MX Record?) record point to our server. When you
place an order you will get an automatic email with specific
instructions how to set the DNS records for your domain. You can see
an example of the automatic mail that you will receive (link at the
end of the page or another pop up page)"
from:
Simplicato FAQ 
( http://www.simplicato.com/?s=home&p=email_faq#1 )

Clarification of Answer by till-ga on 12 Apr 2004 23:38 PDT
Sorry, I don?t know why but some lines of my answer were not accepted
in the input field:

I hope that this helps to solve your problem. If anything should still
be unclear please post a Clarification Request before you rate my
answer.

till-ga
drain1-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars and gave an additional tip of: $10.00
Extremely useful answer.  I had no other place to turn to, and Google
Answers came through for me.

Comments  
Subject: Re: Small Buisness users with POP email accounts.
From: cmiller-ga on 01 Apr 2004 07:54 PST
 
I've done this for one of my clients.

At each machine, set up their outlook client to download their mail. 
However in the advanced tab, I leave messages on the server. That way
the boss man can have the copies at his central location.

Is this what you were looking for?
Subject: Re: Small Buisness users with POP email accounts.
From: drain1-ga on 02 Apr 2004 03:51 PST
 
Not exactly; If a user downloads copies of email on their machines,
and deletes some of them (SPAM) the main computer would then still
have to delete all of the SPAM as well.  In addition any sent mail
from a remote computer would not be on the main computer.

I think I am looking for some kind of central repository that can then
be accessed via clients from other machines, or maybe even a simple
web server app on the main computer.
Subject: Re: Small Buisness users with POP email accounts.
From: corwin02-ga on 03 Apr 2004 09:26 PST
 
What you essentially looking for is a mailserver (like Exchange)
however that would be quite an investment for a small company however
there are smaller programs that can do essentially the same , look
into products from the following companies

WorkgroupMail Mail Server  from Softalk http://www.workgroupmail.com/
cost about $20
Winmail server from AMAX http://www.magicwinmail.net/ cost about $129
Argosoft Mailserver from Argosoft
http://www.argosoft.com/applications/mailserver/  freeware

Hope these help you out
Subject: Re: Small Buisness users with POP email accounts.
From: till-ga on 13 Apr 2004 05:15 PDT
 
Thank you very much for the rating and of course for the generous additional tip.

till-ga

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