faq − email
How do I set up my e-mail?
What are auto-responders?
What are my e-mail addresses?
What can I do about e-mail viruses?
What if I don't use Outlook or Outlook Express?
What is SpamBouncer?
How do I set up my e-mail?
Click here for a step by step guide to setting up Outlook Express from the Microsoft site. For those that are more experienced, you will need to change the POP3 settings to the ones allocated to you with your web site, your SMTP outgoing server address to your current ISP settings and to add your username and password. All of these are included with your web documentation that we send you when we publish your web.
What are auto-responders?
Auto-responders send an instant reply to the person who has just sent you an e-mail to confirm your receipt of their mail. It can include the header from their message and say whatever you like, but the usual is to thank them for their mail and explain that you will respond shortly. Most people expect a response to their mail within 12 hours, so if you are away on holiday your auto-responder could thank them and tell them the date when you will be back and be able to reply to them. Don't forget that once they have received an auto-response from you they know that you have received their mail, so there is no point in pretending it got lost in the e-post!!
What are my e-mail addresses?
An e-mail address can be thought of as a password protected folder (called a POP3 - or Post Office Protocol - mailbox) on the server that hosts your web site where your guests post your mail.
Each address will end in @yourdomain.co.uk or whatever domain you have chosen. The part before the '@' character is the 'folder' that the mail will be delivered to, such as enquiries, or reception or yourname; whatever you have chosen.
Your e-mail programme will then use the password to open this folder and collect your mail, delivering it to your pc. When you send an e-mail your mail programme will send it to the server and they will send your mail to the recipient. When they reply, it will come back to your 'folder' and the cycle continues. (For those who are e-mail savvy, I know this is a little simplistic but it's the easiest way I can describe it!)
If you already have an e-mail address that you wish to keep using, we can set up a 'catch-all forwarding' which will intercept all mail sent to your domain and deliver it to your existing address.
What can I do about e-mail viruses?
Be sure you have an up to date virus checker for a start! There are many more good quality programmes. Look at this month's PC magazines to find one with Anti Virus reviews and take your pick. Whatever you pay, it will be cheaper than getting a virus! If you receive a mail from someone you don't know, don't open any attachments that come with it. Even if it comes from someone you do know and the message seems out of character, check with them before opening it. Many viruses now grab names from the victims address book, replicate themselves and send themselves to every address found in it. The victim is not aware that this has happened and you may not know either until the virus activates its payload and wipes your drive.
Your mail is scanned for viruses at the point of entry into our network. New virus definitions are checked for and updated automatically ensuring that no known virus bearing email can make it to your in box.
What if I don't use Outlook or Outlook Express?
You will need to consult the documentation of your current e-mail programme on how to change the Incoming POP3 sever and the outgoing SMTP settings to the details we give you with your site.
What are a structured e-mail submission form and database?
Our e-mail forms are structured to submit to you as formatted text. If you require them as tab, space or comma delimited please let us know when you order your site. This data you can then use to import into your own database. (A database is a one or more large structured sets of persistent data, usually associated with software to update and query the data. A simple database might be a single file containing many records , each of which contains the same set of fields such as e-mail addresses, home town, dining preferences etc. These you can the use in a mailing list.)
When we create your form, we actually build three pages. The submission form itself, a confirmation page that shows the visitor what they have just sent and confirms your receipt of it, and an error page should the GCI not parse the form, asking them to re-submit their information.
What is a mailing list?
A mailing list utilises the details you have collected into a database from your e-mail response form to send targeted mail to web site visitors who have expressed an interest in one of your services. For instance, if you collect all the e-mail addresses of people who are interested in Mother's Day lunch, you can accurately target them with details about that event, without wasting your time sending it to others. As your e-mail responses also include the name and address of visitors, you can mail them conventionally should you choose. The more details you collect in your database, the more personalised and targeted you can make your mailing lists. A word processing programme such as MS Word makes it very easy to import all the data into your mail shot document, and for more advanced data management MS Access would be your best bet - don't phone us for configuration though!
What is SpamBouncer?
If you want the ultimate protection from spam e-mail you should enable the SPAMBouncer on your account. Although this is an extra cost it will remove 98% of all spam e-mails from your in box. More than half of email messages transmitted on the Internet today are spam, whilst analysts predict that spam will account for 70 percent of all emails by April 2004, a Gartner survey in 2002 revealed that staff were already spending an average of 49 minutes per day (10% of their time) managing their email.
A significant proportion of unsolicited email messages contain pornographic content causing distress to the recipient and creating dangers for younger users. Additionally, a number of employees have already successfully sued their employers for failing to provide adequate protection from pornographic emails. Emails using social engineering techniques and spoofed web sites to dupe the reader into disclosing confidential information such as online banking access details, addresses and credit card numbers are a growing trend. People were stung for an estimated £8.4 million last year in the UK alone through advanced fee and other forms of online fraud.
SPAM Bouncer operates on our powerful mail server cluster, every email destined for your mailbox is scanned and checked by a number of different processes at the point of entry into our network. "You can expect to see upwards of 98% of unsolicited mail eradicated from your in box." Thousands of tests check the message headers and content for tell tale signs of spam. The originating mail server and senders address are verified to prevent spoofing and the tests used by SPAM Bouncer are proactively monitored and adapted to any new techniques the spammers employ.
Bayesian algorithms are used to build up a database of the characteristics of unwanted mail and the characteristics of legitimate mail. The database can then be consulted to determine the likelihood of any particular message being spam. Furthermore, through continually analysing messages the database is actively updated as the nature of spam changes, creating a form of self evolving intelligence. Several real time blackhole lists (RBLs) are maintained on the Internet which catalog known sources of spam. SPAM Bouncer checks for the presence of the originating mail servers in any of these lists. Any message has a unique checksum, as users report unsolicited mail messages, their checksums are added to the databases. Several collaborative checksum databases are consulted to ascertain whether the message concerned matches one previously identified as spam by another Internet user.
This scoring system combined with the quantity and diversity of tests performed means that unlike most competing products, the likelihood of SPAM Bouncer incorrectly identifying a message as spam is negligible and makes it nigh on impossible for spammers and virus writers to craft their messages to bypass the filters.
From the moment you activate SPAM Bouncer on your mailbox you can expect to see all virus bearing mail and upwards of 98% of unsolicited mail eradicated from your in box. However you can tune the sensitivity of SPAM Bouncer as well as add addresses and domains to your black and white lists to create a perfect solution tailored to your needs