Comments on: ISP-In-A-Box: The $500 Mac mini (Part II, Mail Services)

By: Eric Le Baron

Eric Le Baron — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 21:10:41 +0000

Like Jeff (comment #4) I’m using my Powerbook on the road.
To keep all email folders synchronized on the Powerbook and my XP box at home (including the Sent Items folder) I would like to have more info on how to achieve this in a secure way (that is, the way you did it…).
Will buy a Macmini for that purpose.
Great articles!

By: Garito

Garito — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 14:15:49 +0000

I think you need to ask Postfix Enabler programmer to send you some kind of money (I register my copy of the program)

Thank you very very much for your weblog. On thursday I buy an Mac mini and your information is perfect for my needs

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 23:22:37 +0000

A sound reason (IMHO) to deploy either an IMAP server on my local system:

1. I want full control of and responsibility for my own mail archives; I want important business communications to be stored locally, not reside permanently on a remote server belonging to a third party.
2. I want to experiment with different mail clients without having to repeatedly import and export my mail archives for each one.

By: froghead

froghead — Sat, 05 Feb 2005 03:10:56 +0000

Thanks for the feedback but there are a number of reasons why I don’t want to use a web host, but essentially I want to keep it all under one roof, mine.
I am new in alot of respects as my strengths are video and graphic work, but I always find it better to keep things closer to home.
I will just have to struggle through on the mail end of things then. Thanks again.
[WM: There have been a number of questions along the lines of your original one. I plan to address these early next week. Stay tuned!]

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 17:31:24 +0000

Will this SMTP setup work from outside the local network? This sounds great if I set it up on my iMac at home, but when I’m using my powerbook on the road, can I use my home iMac as an SMTP server?

Example: My ip address is 12.53.18.233. I have dyndns setup as homeimac.dyndns.org. On my powerbook, can I set homeimac.dyndns.org as my SMTP server? If so, can’t any spammer just set that as their SMTP and use my machine to send unauthorized email?

[WM: You can allow outside access to SMTP but, as you mentioned, the spammers will kill you if you do it incorrectly. One way is to require a login name and password to access the SMTP server to send messages. You can find lots of information about it searching the web. Another solution is to put the SMTP server on your PowerBook. That’s what I’ve done, and it works great unless you happen to hit an ISP somewhere that blocks the outgoing SMTP port. Fortunately, that’s still pretty rare.]

By: froghead

froghead — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 03:43:04 +0000

newbie alert!!!
So if I use a unique url, wouldn’t I need to set up a mailserver for this url?
how else would the mail know where to go? I setup my url http://www.mine.com
I would want my email to be me@mine.com that address doesn’t exist for my isp, so aren’t I going to have to have my server also be a mail server?
[WM: Take a look at our article on Web Hosting. I think you’ll find it’s a better (and cheaper) fit for what you want to do.]

By: George

George — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 15:52:14 +0000

Well Done so far so very awesomely great!! THX! Looking forwards to parts 3, 4 and 5!!