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starwatcher) wrote in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_suggestions2010-02-17 07:40 pm
Add email hosting service
Title:
Add email hosting service
Area:
Server use (?)
Summary:
I'd like to see a separate, paid feature, wherein Dreamwidth offered email hosting service.
Description:
Since becoming net-capable, I seem to change my ISP every couple of years. (Usually to upgrade to better/faster service.) Changing my email addy each time is an irritation. Obviously, I need a permanent addy that won't change with my ISP.
I was considering G-mail, but the recent forced opt-in of Buzz makes me reconsider. That kind of behavior is why I prefer to pay DW than LJ for my social networking.
But any free email service - Yahoo, Hotmail - has similar problems with ads and promoting 'features'. I am considering paying a hosting service, buying a domain name, and using that as an email base. But I'm pretty non-tech-inclined, and afraid of jumping into issues I don't know how to handle.
I wondered if DW would be open to hosting an email service, for a stated monthly fee above the regular costs.
The service probably wouldn't be a BIG draw, so I suspect (hope) the servers could handle it, especially if storage space is limited and temporary. Nothing like Gmail's 7000+ MB, but enough that people can send/receive several large files before downloading to their own computer.
It may be just a pipe dream, but I'd sure like to have starwatcher @ dreamwidth.org as an email addy.
This suggestion:
Should be implemented as-is.
2 (4.7%)
Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
1 (2.3%)
Shouldn't be implemented.
33 (76.7%)
(I have no opinion)
7 (16.3%)
(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)
Job Too Hard
Even Dreamhost (one of the best hosting groups around) has pretty much pushed everyone at gmail instead, because it's a very expensive service to run correctly.
Re: Job Too Hard
I thought that might be the case, but I couldn't be sure unless I asked.
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Re: Job Too Hard
My team at work is responsible for a major high availability email platform for an ISP, and I've run my own mail server for personal use since... 1997 or so, and I can definitely say that doing it right is a nasty and complicated exercise. "Email" isn't a simple single system - it's potentially a bunch of complicated moving parts that have to work really well together.
The unfortunate root cause is that email was originally invented in the long distant past when the Internet was almost entirely a safe and friendly place. :-/ Since then, a whole lot of stuff has happened which has made email a very complicated thing to do well, ranging from a multitude of possible ways to access email, to the widespread issues of spam, hacking, etc.
As far as email services goes, gmail accessed via IMAP, with the GMail Lab "better IMAP" turned on, actually works rather well.
Re: Job Too Hard
Re: Job Too Hard
Specifically useful is being able to turn off the "All Mail" and "Starred". :-)
Re: Job Too Hard
Thanks for the clarification. But I echo havocthecat's question. What is IMAP, and in what way is "better" an improvement? I don't even know where to turn Gmail's IMAP on, or is it automatic?
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Re: Job Too Hard
Getting Started with IMAP for Gmail: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75725
GMail Supported IMAP client list: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=75726
The "Better IMAP" Gmail Lab is helpful because it additionally allows you to select what Gmail "Labels" show up as "Folders" in your mail client.
Re: Job Too Hard
no subject
It does get a lot of spam, though, because spammers dictionary-attack most services known to offer email addresses and harvest usernames where they can. (We do run SpamAssassin on the incoming forwarding queue; we don't *drop* any spam-flagged mail, but we do spam-flag it, and hope that your email client knows what to do with it.)
no subject
FYI, paid accounts do have a @dreamwidth.org email address -- it just forwards to your 'real' address.
Thank you; I also use my LJ addy in a similar fashion, and knew about DW, though I haven't made the switch. But the kicker is forwarding it to my 'real' addy, since I have to find a new one next month; I had hoped Dreamwidth might be an option in the future. But I guess Gmail will do, even though I find it a personal irritation. C'est la vie...
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no subject
(It's still opt-in by default, but you can turn it off, so I wouldn't call it a forced opt-in.)
no subject
Thank you. I did disable it the first day, and it didn't affect me. But the first opt-in by default, without warning people, and compromising their privacy, is as near 'forced' as makes no practical difference; it rankles to give them my business.
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no subject
no subject
Having an @dreamwidth.org email address is one of the big things I actually consider when thinking of getting a Dreamwidth account, even if it's just a forwarding address. I guess I'm just going to have to learn how to set up a mail server on my webhosting space.
no subject
no subject
For a particularly painful example, one woman's third-most-talked-to-contact? Was her abusive ex-husband.
And initially, disabling Buzz DIDN'T disable the auto-adds and people kept coming back, I'm told. I don't know. I looked at it, shuddered, and decided I was too tired to even bother.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0217/Google-rep-suggests-Buzz-backlash-was-unexpected has a short writeup and some links. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=6e85df808f43a8c9&hl=en is from the google support forums. And http://gizmodo.com/5470696/fck-you-google is the abusive-ex-husband case (although as the link may suggest, the tone and language are aggressive - and it's not bleeped out in the main body of the post).
no subject
Normally Google does alpha/beta testing of new things via their "friends and family" network, and apparently they didn't do that with Buzz for some reason. If they had, I suspect the "privacy issues" would have cropped up.
Why it was rushed out the door, nobody has said that I am aware of.
If you're setting up a mailserver, I recommend:
postfix
spamassassin
postgrey
courier imap or uw imap
Presumably your webhosting space gives you a static IP address that is yours alone and a server (which may be virtual, but that's fine) of your own to play with - if not, you'll need one.
no subject
And I'd need a static IP address? Agh. >.< That'd double my yearly webhosting bills. Heh, and then I'd have to hope it wasn't blacklisted by anyone ...
no subject
Yeah, deliberate pressure to release ASAP almost certainly existed. Whether or not it was deliberate decision from on high or just a mid-tier project manager cutting a corner to skip the usual alpha/beta testing phase, we'll never know without someone internal to Google leaking some email.
Re: Email Server
You sure would need a static IP address. Putting an MX record (the DNS record type which says where to deliver SMTP email) on a dynamic IP address is a recipe for getting your email delivered to someone else whenever your IP address changes.
And yes, blacklisting is a possibility if you're running your own mail server. Not very likely if it's just you and you're properly configured (i.e., not an open relay, or configured to allow mistaken mailbounces) though.
no subject
An understanding that what a bunch of uber geeks led by
That's the big problem. I like Buzz, to an extent, and will likely use it more eventually, but I get that others don't.
FWIW, I already had a Google profile (I wanted to test OpenID login), and I wasn't forced to follow anyone--I suspect they didn't test it properly with people with a profile, and rushed it out because it's technically ready.
There are many privacy concerns with gmail, just as there are with any web product.
If you care enough, buy a domain, get the email address pointing somewhere like Gmail, and host your email in the cloud, but be prepared to move around (I don't know if services like Yahoo will host your own account, but Gmail certainly will).
no subject
Basically I love Gmail and would like it without Buzz-like levels of dumbarse ;-)
Mail Software Review
Re: Mail Software Review
Thanks for the suggestion; I'll check it out.
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