Email Hosting
Electronic mail or E-Mail has become a common mode of communication since he advent of the Internet. Originally, email was text only and was limited to the few universities that had Internet access. Today, email is provided by any number of services and can be either free or as part of a hosting service.
There are two (2) main parts to email. The sending server and the receiving server. While that might seem trivial, depending upon your email provider, the setup can be anything but simple. It is possible to install and manage servers that control both or only one. Most hosting companies make this transparent. But, depending upon their configuration, they can offer simple email send and receive or a whole host of additional flexibility and access that increases access and usability.
Sending Email
In order to send email, you need what is called a SMTP server (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). This server will allow authenticated users to send email to others on the Internet from an email client. In this way, you are not limited to your Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) email, but can send from a company account (e.g. me47@myisp.net vs. info@mydomain.com).
Typically, you will have access to an SMTP server that on port 25. Unfortunately, some ISPs take all traffic on this port and force you to use their email server. The best way to combat this is to use an available port. However, your web host may not allow this access. In that event, you will be limited to webmail. Fortunately, this largely limited to home access and not business ISP accounts. So, you can still use your company email account at work, but may not be able to send from home.
Receiving Email
Mozilla Thunderbird
Once email has been sent to you, it is routed through the Internet to your web host’s mail server (which may or may not be the same as your web server). In most cases, this is accomplished via a POP3 (Post Office Protocol) server. This type of server downloads your email messages and deletes them from your mail server. This is often a requirement of using the web host’s mail server and is enforced by your individual mailbox size.
You can receive email on any number of email clients. The most popular are:
- Thunderbird
- Apple Mail
- Outlook Express (PC)
- Outlook (PC)
- Entourage (Mac)
Account Setup
You can run their account creation wizards to enter all the relevant information for your email. Typically you will need the name of both your sending and receiving mail server, your account login name and your password. Typical settings for these are:
| Sending Mail Server | mail.mydomain.com |
| Receiving Mail Server | mail.mydomain.com |
| Account Login | john.doe or john.doe@mdomain.com |
| Password | (your email account password) |
IMAP
Some hosting company’s offer access to IMAP email accounts as part of their hosting services. Often, this will be part of a larger or more expensive hosting account. If you are offered access to an IMAP enabled server, you should consider using as it offers real advantages over the POP3 server mentioned above. The main advantage being access to your emails from any (and all) computers that have your account information. So, you can setup both your work and home computer with your email account and keep exact copies on each of them.
The main difference is that IMAP servers keep all your email on the server. In order to make sure your local (on your computer) email account is correct, it is being checked constantly throughout the day to make sure all the new email is retrieved and deleted email is put into the trash. Because of this, there will be additional network traffic from your computer. However, you will not notice a slowdown as it is fairly small.
HTTP Email
Gmail
HTTP Email is offered by several companies as an alternative to domain specific email or in addition to it. Some examples are:
MS Hotmail
The two main difference are 1) the email may not be specific to your domain (john.doe@gmail.com) and may only be accessible via webmail. However, some HTTP email is available via a standard email client (e.g. Hotmail, Gmail) and you can configure it in a similar fashion to an account from your web host.
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