>Hi, > >Pardon my ignorance of such affairs but I have no idea of how to set my >little company up for e-mail, and I need to know if this is the product. >Perhaps somebody can answer my post off-list so as not to clog the pipeline >with things the rest of you have already gone through.
Fair enough. >We have eight people in our company in one location, and one off-site. All >run PowerPC Macs, either Apple or Umax models. Right now we run our office >ethernet through an 8-port hub, and into a printer. Not everybody uses file >sharing because there is little need for it. > >We currently draw our mail from a web browser, everybody taking their turns >to dial into their Yahoo account or whatever they have. It's antiquated, but >doesn't make us crash and burn either. People would rather do that than get >into an app that drives us nuts. Heh. >I would like to find a reasonable product that would allow for the >following: > >-- all staffers to be able to send and receive e-mail from their desktop >computers. SIMS can do this. >-- the offsite person to be able to dial in to the server somehow and get >their mail. SIMS supports POP-before-SMTP and SMTP-AUTH, but doesn't directly support being dialed in to. If your offsite people get online in the usual manner and connect to the server over the internet, it will work properly. >-- ability to receive attachments. Yes. >-- be able to send to a mass list (we do legitimate direct mail, not spam, >to our clients), perhaps including attachments. Yes. >-- have facility to filter mail and set rules. SIMS has a limited facility to redirect mail based on certain conditions (who it's addressed to, who it's addressed from, etc.), but not to directly filter mail. >-- we would be able to get off of Yahoo and the others, setting up the mail >with [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes. >1. Am I correct that SIMS is NOT the actual client, that we would use Eudora >or something else (which is fine with me --it's free after all)? SIMS is the email server -- everyone using it would need a regular email client, such as Eudora. >2. Is this simple enough for a company with NO tech on staff to handle? Takes about 5 minutes (max) to setup, and about 30 seconds to add each user. >3. Is this done through their Ethernet connection, which is then connected >up to the modem -- or what? Pardon this question if it seems dumb -- but I >don't really have any idea how this is configured. We currently just have a >modem hooked up to one box and dial up from there. Whatever connection is currently selected in the TCP/IP control panel, SIMS will use. >4. What kind of connection do I need? We're currently running a 33.6 modem, >but I can easily go to 56K. It's probably rare when two or more people will >be using the connection at the same time. Hmm. Well, if the connection is not dedicated, SIMS will not be able to receive mail when it's not online unless you have your ISP acting as a backup MX. 33.6k is fine, though it might suck when sending attachments. >5. Do we need a separate computer just for this purpose, or can it run from >say, the office manager's station? SIMS uses very little RAM and CPU cycles -- I run a copy on my own machine. >6. In addition to all this, we would hope to be able to have the Internet >available to most desktops at some point in the near future. I realize this >will probably require a DSL or Cable line. Can I run the same system if we >upgrade to broadband? Indeed, it can. >I need somebody to hopefully hand hold a bit with us here, to tell us what >hardware we will need, what software, and how to make it as painless as >possible. We don't want to get fancy, just to be able to send and receive >basic mail and attachments at our individual desks. Again, we have no tech >on staff. I know that some people on this list are running SIMS on fairly old 120Mhz machines (perhaps even slower) and they work just fine. >Denzel Washington made a certain phrase famous in the movie "Philadelphia", >and it applies here..."Explain this to me like I was a three year-old." As does the green slimy bad guy in GalaxyQuest: "EXPLAIN! Explain as you would a child!" -- Pete Stephenson HeyPete.com ############################################################# This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to the mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
