Email is still with us, and still it needs to be managed. This was my experience one year ago.


A while back I had an alert from my web hosts at A Small Orange, reminding me in their polite way, to manage my email. In other words - go and sort out your damned email box and clear the crap out of it.

I did.

Many hours later, I wrote

I am feeling sanctimonious, and with 500 emails deleted and sorted, I can ask you guys the following questions. Hands up:
1- who doesn't check their email regularly?
2- who doesn't check their email properly?
3- who doesn't reply to the emails that should be replied to?

To set the ball rolling, I raised my hand, guilty as charged to number 2 and a little bit guilty of number 3.
Keep on reading, dude

Tags: ASO, North x East, TicTap

Don't throw away your corporate emails or IMs, and stock up on your mega tera peta byte hard drives. Yes, folks, the laws pertaining to electronic communications are tightening up around your necks. The law requires email archiving.



Keep on reading, dude

Once upon a time I was struggling for a tech idea to write about. But never let it be said that I am permanently lost for new material. Ka-ching, a very thorough post about Google mail desktop alerts had appeared (ironically) via email subscription from Untwisted Vortex That man saved my bacon and filled me with original inspiration again.

Google alerts. What can I say? They are ground-breaking and very useful, (or as Google would say: )

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

I cannot add anything else to the conversation, except I have the alerts installed and every day the Googloids send me an email to let me know who has written about topics I am interested in - funny quotes, Pisstakers... And every day I am inspired.

Keep on reading, dude

Comcast are about as useful as a snowball in hell. The very least a homogenous faceless internet-oriented corporation should be able to provide is a standard internet service for their users - wherever they go. But no, they can't even be relied on for that. Sending emails is a hassle for Comcast users on the move.

Port 25 blocked - sometimes

Two Macs in our new Comcast-tainted home lay dead in the water, as far as email out was concerned. Ordinarily, you might expect a little aggravation flitting from one ISP to another while on the move, (perhaps? maybe?) Or it might get a bit tetchy sending emails from Outlook or Mail to Comcast accounts.... But to have to reconfigure your email account when emailing via the same company - Com-fricking-cast to Com-fricking-cast - come on, what's with that?!!!!

Well, for the bored with life, what's with that is this:

Port 25 is standard for outgoing emails

If you use Outlook or some other desktop mail client, (rather than webmail like hotmail or gmail) emails leave your computer via port number 25. Sadly, spammers know that too, and use port 25 to flood the world with digital crap.

ISP's are also part of the spam problem, unable to keep up with spammer tactics, so, basically, most ISP's choose to bury their head in the sand and block bona fide idiots like me from using port 25 to send their own legitimate emails while on the move.

That would be almost fine as a tactic if a) - it were a consistent policy, and b) - there were a clear set of instructions on what to do when faced with port 25 blocking. Comcast screwed up on both counts.

ie At my last house Comcast didn't have an issue with port 25, but at this place they do. And secondly, getting appropriate info from Comcast is like pulling teeth.

How to check to see why you cannot send emails

If you try to send emails and you see your email timing out for no apparent reason, you can do this telnet trick to troubleshoot your mail client. In my case, it proved that I wasn't mad and it said in black and white that there was no address ie the ISP, the craptacular crock of Comcast ,was blocking port 25.

Comcast help not

With hackles up, locked out of sending email for whatever reason? you ask Comcast Help for help. Because they only have like 2 permutations in their help book, anyone who isn't using the standard combination of comcast email and Outlook is pretty much shit out of luck for an explanation from a techy. How annoying is it to find yourself in that loop of "Not my problem, talk to the hand, and when you are bored of my hand, talk to the people who make your eMail client."

Of course, when really pressed (to justify their job), the techy can bullshit you with "expansive online cross platform real world help" ie a URL to a page with lovely photographic instructions for various email clients, one of which included step-by-step moves to set up Apple Mail.

And that is where the real issues began, because the instructions to send emails out from Apple Mail via the Comcast server don't fricking well work. After following their arcane and completely erroneous instructions, I get over 900 unread emails downloaded, and downloaded and downloaded. I know I am popular, but not that popular. And still I could not send out a hint of an email.

Apple support

Thank goodness for unpaid non-Comcast-affiliated experts who rove the help forums at Apple support. Volunteers took the time to apply their expertise to write clear simple steps on how to solve Comcast's problems.

How to use Apple Mail and Comcast when port 25 is blocked

For anyone who is interested, you need to use port 587 and keep the rest real simple, much more simple than Comcast would have you believe.

Or to keep it real simple, stay at home and stick to a webmail set up.

Thanks to the techies who have contributed to this post via comments. They have helped out hundreds of users.

Other email related posts

Tags: Email, port 25, ISP, telnet