Accessing one email address on 3 different ISP'S

[Fred Forsythe]

My wife is using TBird 1.5.0.5 on her laptop. She needs to access her work email from 3 locations, her local workplace, an out of town workplace, & our home. I'm having trouble because none of the 3 ISP's allow users to access their SMTP server from another ISP. So for example, if the SMTP is set to her local workplace, she is not able to access it from home, & vice versa. Same with the 3rd location. What are the options here? Tried using her gmail account, but all replies to the mail she sends with this setup come to the gmail account. Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks

Fred

[classicsoftware]

I have the same issue so you have. I have Comcast at home and Adams Cable at my vacation house. You have three choices:

1) Change the outgoing mail server. You can have multiple outgoing mail servers and set one to the the default.

2) Change the outgoing mail server at each location. It takes only a second to do it.

3) Set up a separate profile for each location and have one of the locations take the mail off of the server and the others leave the mail on the server.

[Fred Forsythe]

Thanks for the reply. Another problem is the support at her 2 work locations is abysmal. Believe it or not NO ONE at either place seems to be able to tell her (and by extension, ME) the SMTP address, logon & password for their location. I'm thinking she (and you) cannot be the only ones with this situation. Seems like someone would offer a universally available SMTP address for $10/mo or less. If there is such a thing, I haven't been able to find it.

Fred

[Fred Forsythe]

OK I just found these guys http://www.authsmtp.com/?gclid=CKf8tbu2_IYCFQFfLAodjjMMGg Looks like a solution, or am I missing something? Seems pretty cheap too, they will relay 1000 emails/mo with a total size of 100mb for $24/YEAR. OR, 2000 emails/mo with a total of 200mb for $40/year. Before I sign up, am I missing something in terms of this being a solution?

Thanks!

Fred

[classicsoftware]

Once you get the SMTP once, you have it forever. You can always check out someone else's PC.

[Paul Komski]

Presumably the only problem is sending mails from the three locations. You should be able to receive using TBird from all three but you should be able to use GMail to send BUT ENSURE YOU CONFIGURE IT to reply to the normal non-gmail address.

In GMail go to Settings >> Accounts >> Click on the edit info link and change the Reply To address to the non-gmail address.

You could also include in your gmail sig a note to use the "reply to" button in the recipients email client and restate the mail address that you want used if the user wants to type the addy into the address bar - since from and reply to are obviously two different entities.

PS
You can setup free POP and SMTP at http://bonbon.net/index.jsp and with luck the SMTP will work via your multi-isp setup. It has worked for me when they have blocked other ISP's SMTP servers. I think the dont generally block web-based smtp only isp-based smtp. Another way that I have been able to bypass ISP blocking is to use a web host and domain name that supports such mail packages - I have been using www.netfirms.com (http://www.netfirms.com) successfully for this for some time.

PPS It is worth stating that has been the proliferation of SPAM that has caused mail providers to attempt to filter and control who sends what mail when they are connected to the net. Without SPAM everyone would be far more relaxed about who can send what.

[Fred Forsythe]

Thanks Paul, the gmail thing works perfectly (look at the SETTINGS... what a concept... ;) ). Now her work email, gmail & hotmail (using hotmail popper) all go out through tbird seamlessly! I've only tested it on our home connection, but I can't see why a different ISP would be an issue. You're a real life saver on this one!

Fred