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Topic: email servers
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Hello everybody,
I see that David Carter-Tod is having fun (sarcasm) reviewing mail servers for use with Conversant, and I had an idea.
If Macrobyte were willing to provide a mail hosting service tailored specifically for Conversant, on a monthly basis, would you be interested?
We'd set it up so that a given mail exchange, like sit.conv-mail.macrobyte.net (just a stupid example off the top of my head), has only a single account which your Conversnat server would use to download it's messages. All other mail sent to that mail host would forward to that one account.
This is the zero-maintenance approach to Conversant's email interface. When you create a new conversation, it would be automatically configured to use the mail host here (based on the information you provide at installation, or to the server admin system). You'd also have the option to use this same mail server for outgoing mail from Conversant, but that wouldn't be required (some ISP's don't allow you to use SMTP servers other than their own).
If you find this idea interesting, would you pay for it? Be honest with me... I don't see this as a big money maker, I'd just want to make enough to cover Macrobyte's expenses. Would you pay a $20 setup fee, and $5 or $10 per month?
There are other options, bu this is the one I like the best.
Any interest?
Seth
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Seth,
I would definitely be interested in that. Yes. The price you quote is quite
reasonable.
Clark
On 5/30/02 1:09 PM, "Seth Dillingham" <seth@macrobyte.net> is rumored to
have written:
> Msg URL: http://conversant.macrobyte.net/287
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> Hello everybody,
>
> I see that David Carter-Tod is having fun (sarcasm) reviewing mail servers
> (http://instructionaltechnology.editthispage.com/2002/05/30#a2868) for use
> with Conversant, and I had an idea.
>
> If Macrobyte were willing to provide a mail hosting service tailored
> specifically for Conversant, on a monthly basis, would you be interested?
>
> We'd set it up so that a given mail exchange, like sit.conv-mail.macrobyte.net
> (just a stupid example off the top of my head), has only a single account
> which your Conversnat server would use to download it's messages. All other
> mail sent to that mail host would forward to that one account.
>
> This is the zero-maintenance approach to Conversant's email interface. When
> you create a new conversation, it would be automatically configured to use the
> mail host here (based on the information you provide at installation, or to
> the server admin system). You'd also have the option to use this same mail
> server for outgoing mail from Conversant, but that wouldn't be required (some
> ISP's don't allow you to use SMTP servers other than their own).
>
> If you find this idea interesting, would you pay for it? Be honest with me...
> I don't see this as a big money maker, I'd just want to make enough to cover
> Macrobyte's expenses. Would you pay a $20 setup fee, and $5 or $10 per month?
>
> There are other options, bu this is the one I like the best.
>
> Any interest?
>
> Seth
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> To Unsubscribe from this list visit:
> http://conversant.macrobyte.net/members/settings/preferences$conversation=deve
> lopers&plugin=Email%20Interface
>
> Please be thoughtful when quoting messages. Do not
> quote more than is necessary (just what you are
> responding to).
>
>
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At 01:09 PM 5/30/2002 -0400, Seth Dillingham wrote:
>If you find this idea interesting, would you pay for it? Be honest with
>me... I don't see this as a big money maker, I'd just want to make enough
>to cover Macrobyte's expenses. Would you pay a $20 setup fee, and $5 or
>$10 per month?
>
>There are other options, bu this is the one I like the best.
To be honest, I doubt that we'd pay for this. If we're going to go to the
trouble of setting up a Conversant server, we'll go the extra step and set
up a mail server. Purely as a developer I might be interested, but even
then I suspect most developers are geeky enough to want to do it themselves.
Probably not what you want to hear, but for trial users it might help to
offer this for free, otherwise it's just a barrier to entry. You can then
ask them to pay up when the trial period expires if they plan to continue.
Just my 2 cents.
David
--
David Carter-Tod
<wccartd@wc.cc.va.us>
Instructional Technologist/Distance Education Contact
Wytheville Community College, 1000 E. Main St.,
Wytheville, VA 24382
(wk) 276-223-4784
http://www.wcc.vccs.edu/
Online certificate in web site design:
http://www.wcc.vccs.edu/websiteDesign
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On 5/31/02, David Carter-Tod said:
>Probably not what you want to hear,
All I want to hear is what people really think. :-)
(A "ka-ching" now and then doesn't hurt either.)
>but for trial users it might help to offer this for free, otherwise it's
>just a barrier to entry. You can then ask them to pay up when the trial
>period expires if they plan to continue.
If someone just want to see how the email interface works, for free,
we'll just recommend that they set up a site on free-conversant, which
includes the email interface.
Seth
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My Conversant installation seems to be confused.
Any request to my IP results in
Error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name
"adrObjectToServe" hasn't been defined.
Time: Fri, 31 May 2002 19:44:08 GMT
Please report this error to the Webmaster.
["Hard Drive:Applications:Frontier:Guest Databases:ops:Conversant
Data.root"].ConversantData.websites
Since I chose the "more compatible" installation of Conversant (i.e.,
I also want to run Manila) shouldn't the Conversant responder just be
getting out of the way?
I can fix this temporarily and use Manila by changing the IP address
at ConversantData.hosts but obviously that's not a solution.
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On 5/31/02, John VanDyk said:
>Error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "adrObjectToServe"
>hasn't been defined. Time: Fri, 31 May 2002 19:44:08 GMT
>
>Please report this error to the Webmaster. ["Hard
>Drive:Applications:Frontier:Guest Databases:ops:Conversant
>Data.root"].ConversantData.websites
>
>Since I chose the "more compatible" installation of Conversant (i.e., I
>also want to run Manila) shouldn't the Conversant responder just be
>getting out of the way?
>
>I can fix this temporarily and use Manila by changing the IP address at
>ConversantData.hosts but obviously that's not a solution.
The available options for the responder were to make Conversant's the
default, use Conversant's "smart" responder (which is actually just a
smart responder condition), or turn off Conversant's responder and use
MainResponder.
Which option did you choose: the second, or the third?
The smart responder looks for a match in ConversantData.hosts, so that
you can have one (or more) hosts which are served by Conversant (a host
can be an ip address, a real host name, or a combination of a either of
those two with a specific port number like 127.0.0.1:81).
You can serve Conversant entirely via MainResponder if you want to by
choosing "Off" in the responder section of the installer. If that's what
you want to do then just delete Conversant's responder from the table at
user.webserver.responders. You'll also have to set something up in
Config.mainresponder.domains, but how you do that depends on whether
you're already using a sitetree or if you just want to assign a host name
(or multiple host names) to Conversant.
I hope that helps...
Seth
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>The smart responder looks for a match in ConversantData.hosts, so that
>you can have one (or more) hosts which are served by Conversant (a host
>can be an ip address, a real host name, or a combination of a either of
>those two with a specific port number like 127.0.0.1:81).
I think I see. I chose the "smart" responder but what I was thinking
was that I could serve, say, http://127.0.0.1/myManilaSite and
http://127.0.0.1/myZone/myID/ and have Conversant only respond for
the second one.
Thanks.
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On 5/31/02, John VanDyk said:
>>The smart responder looks for a match in ConversantData.hosts, so that
>>you can have one (or more) hosts which are served by Conversant (a host
>>can be an ip address, a real host name, or a combination of a either of
>>those two with a specific port number like 127.0.0.1:81).
>
>I think I see. I chose the "smart" responder but what I was thinking
>was that I could serve, say, http://127.0.0.1/myManilaSite and
>http://127.0.0.1/myZone/myID/ and have Conversant only respond for
>the second one.
We didn't go with that approach because MainResponder already allows you to do that, via a siteTree in config.mainresponder.domains (I can help you set that up if you want). We could have duplicated that feature in our responder, but it would have been a mostly wasted effort since people who need to run Manila already need to run MainResponder also.
However, you've brought up an interesting point. Did you know you can shorten your Conversant URL's considerably? You can set it up to reach your sites at any of these URL's:
http://host/zone_name/site_name/
http://host/zone_name/
http://host/
Instructions and an explanation are going into the docs, but if you want a quick overview, just ask.
Seth
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