Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Solving email problems
Today I learned how to solve outgoing email problems.
The problem: Email was coming into a new installation of Thunderbird but outgoing mail was throwing up an error message.
We checked:What turned out to be the problem? Using a friend's network whose ISP appears to block the use of port 25
- The details of the outgoing mail server
- The usernames and passwords of the relevant accounts
- The security requirements of the mail server
- The setup of Thunderbird connecting to the Internnet (no proxy or other strange setting being used)
- The appropriate details like reply-to are filled in correctly
Solution - use port 26!
This may help others in future if you have a strange outgoing email problem.Labels: email, technology
posted by Helen Whitehead 7:07 PM
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Improving HTML email
I have been very suspicious of HTML-based email for some time: sending an HTML-based email is a bit hit and miss - I have seen so many rendered as just a pile of code and quite unintelligible to the reader. Nobody - especially not when you're putting out an important newsletter - wants their email to end up in the Deleted box without even a cursory glance, and such an incident could put off readers for good. The Email Standards Project was born out of a similar frustration. It aims to work with email client developers and the design community to improve web standards support and accessibility in email.
It's amazing that there isn't already such a standard. The "state of the clients" reports on the Email Standards website are interesting reading - even with a fairly straightforward list of the kinds of HTML components that one would use in a HTML email many common email clients - including Gmail and Outlook 2007 - don't do very well.
All power to the community of email users who are spearheading this initiative., I look forward to hearing of more successes.Labels: email, email standards project, HTML, web-based email
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:04 AM
Thursday, 14 June 2007
That email mountain...
Debbie Weil writes in the Guardian about one way to deal with an overload of email. Well, we all face it to some extent, don't we?
Two bloggers in the US have declared themselves 'email bankrupt.' Fred Wilson declared: 'I am so far behind on email that I am declaring bankruptcy. If you've sent me an email (and you aren't my wife, partner, or colleague), you might want to send it again. I am starting over.' This received a lot of sympathetic comments and it is instructive to read the number of suggestions on how to manage becoming 'email bankrupt'. Jeff Nolan then declared bankruptcy as well, saying 'I am going back to voice communication as my primary mechanism for interacting with people.'
Personally, I am an advocate of speed reading. It's fairly clear very quickly whether an email is important or not. After dealing with email for 10 years, I also have a sixth sense for spam from just the title.
I also filter all my regular newsletters into dedicated folders to read when I have time, and have a labyrinthine system of email folders in which everything gets stored, regularly. Oh - and I archive my email. With Outlook it's quite easy to load and search your email archive on a CD. I'll let you know whether it works with other email programs..
I would like to invite you to comment on your top tip for surviving the email avalanche. Your good deed for the day - share with those of us in dreadful 'email debt'.
Meanwhile if anyone has a way to resist checking your email every time you pass your computer, I'd love to hear it!Labels: email, organisation, time management
posted by Helen Whitehead 1:07 PM
Tuesday, 12 June 2007
Google pitching to Higher Education
According to this story on the BBC today, Google is expanding its empire into universities - with entire campus e-mail networks switching over to using Google's e-mail service. Apparently Trinity College Dublin has switched over entirely to Google's e-mail.
The new Google-based e-mail addresses (which can still be applied to a university domain name, but which can be accessed from any online computer) can be kept by students when they leave. I'm not sure this is a good idea. There are all sorts of reasons (e.g., authenticity and identity) why a university email address should be limited to those actually studying or working in them. Surely it would be better if university email accounts simply automatically redirected once a student leaves, with a notification that "this student has left".
Google says its higher education tools, hosted by them, allow students to work on files from any internet-connected computer, to engage in collaborative work - working together in real-time on the same document - and to use online timetables and calendars.
What's next - the Google VLE?
I would have serious doubts about privacy and security of data by entrusting all to Google - but it's certainly true that Universities can no longer ignore the rise of Web 2.0 applications.
As Michael Nowlan, director of information systems services at Trinity College Dublin, is quoted as saying, "The digital natives will find their own way, make their own discoveries."Labels: collaborative working, email, Google, HE, learning futures, universities
posted by Helen Whitehead 9:56 AM
