Please don't leave copies of emails on the server!

Clients with "real" (non-forwarded) domain emails:

For those of you with domain email addresses (yourname@yourdomain.com) which are NOT forwarded to gmail or elsewhere, everything should be functioning perfectly. There is one change, however, and that is that the new server is limiting everyone to 500 MB of server space for emails. This is obviously a lot of space -- as long as you clear your messages off the server regularly. Note that this does NOT mean you have to clear it off your own computer, you just need to click the box in your email preferences that says to delete email off the server.

In Apple Mail, for example, you can do preferences, then accounts, and then under the Advanced tab, UNCLICK "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message" and you can pick "after one week" or whatever.

If you check your domain email in gmail (a great solution), go to mail settings (under the blue gear in the far upper right corner), choose "Accounts and Import." Under "Check mail using Pop3," on the far right click on "edit info." Then UNCLICK the box that says "Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server."

Other various email programs should have a similar way to do it.

Simple!

thanks,
maddee

Server upgrade complete

Thanks for everyone's patience throughout this needed server upgrade. It turned out to be pretty hellish, with both Ryan (my wonder tech guy) and I working till 3:30 this morning getting email back up and running. To make a long story short, all spam controls and even more importantly forwarding addresses were lost in the server switch. This means that anyone whose email is forwarded to say a gmail account temporarily stopped getting email this weekend. This was unexpected — GoDaddy had "never" seen this happen before (yeah, right). So Ryan and I had to add each one back in manually — over 300 email addys.

While doing that, we also forwarded any email that came to the new server from Sat-Mon to you each individually so that you didn't lose anything. You should have received what we forwarded, but if not -- if you feel like you might be missing email from those three days -- let me know and I can figure out how you can access it. Again, the vast majority of you should have zero problems at this point, so don't worry unnecessarily! [and note that anyone who gets email via webmail or an email client like Apple Mail was NOT affected]

However, if anything seems funky with your email, let me know and I'll do my best to respond quickly, but to say I've been inundated is a bit of an understatement. ;)

Last note: this was a very important upgrade — it was better to do this now while we were still functioning fine than waiting so long to upgrade that the server crashed and we lost everything! So even though it felt frustrating to many of you, and I have slept little in four days, I do believe this was worth it.

I appreciate all of you!

maddee
P.S. I will be sending one more email to those people who have regular (non-forwarded) email addresses.

Setting up Domain Email in Gmail!

You can set up your domain email (yourname@yourdomain.com) in GMAIL, which means you can send and receive your domain email right from GMAIL.

In gmail, go to mail settings (under the blue gear in the far upper right corner), choose "Accounts and Import.” Under “Check mail using POP3” click the box that says: “Add POP3 email account” and follow the instructions. It’s really quite simple.

Put in your email addy (yourname@yourdomain.com)

Username is full email addy: yourname@yourdomain.com

Pw: xxxx

POP Server: mail.yourdomain.com (port 110 is fine)

Choose: “Send through yourdomain.com SMTP servers”

SMTP Server: mail.yourdomain.com

Click “Always use a secure connection (SSL) when sending mail”

That’s it!

You can even then send using that account, which is awesome.

Make sure to NOT CLICK the box that says "Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server." – this way, while you can save emails in Gmail, our server won’t be overrun with a million saved messages!

Note, if your domain account is already set up in gmail, to remove copies from server do this:

In gmail, go to mail settings (under the blue gear in the far upper right corner), choose "Accounts and Import." Under "Check mail using Pop3," on the far right click on "edit info." Then UNCLICK the box that says "Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server."

That's it!

Simple!

Server: almost all set!

To all my clients:
We began moving all client websites to a new, faster, more stable server at the start of this weekend. That means that your website and email should run a bit faster and definitely more efficiently. For today, Sunday, be aware that everyone's ISP (the service you use to connect to the internet, e.g. Qwest, Comcast, Earthlink, etc.) does their internet updates at different time intervals, so it's possible that you might still be seeing info from the old server depending on whether your ISP has updated their information yet. However, the switch from old server to new will be complete by mid-day Monday at the latest.

If you're unable to see your website or get your email after about noon on Monday, please let me know. By the way, I got about 1,000 (no joke!) OLD emails into my inbox last night, so this might happen to others as well. Just delete them, of course.

Some good news: we did not lose any stored email! But if you think you might have missed new email at some point during the transition, this is how you can access it, at a domain I left on the old server for this purpose:

http://webmail.storyinspiration.com

username: yourname@yourdomain.com (example: madeira@xuni.com)
pw: your email password, of course

I would really appreciate it if you give the new server the full time needed for the final switch (till noon on Monday) before you send questions about your site or email.

Thanks so much for your patience through this ordeal. I've tried to keep the stress level down, knowing that there are a lot more important things to be upset about than a weekend of wacky server-ness! :)

The up side to all this is that our new server is faster and more stable than ever before!

maddee

Webmail Users

Clients using webmail for their WEBSITE EMAIL (this has nothing to do with gmail or any other email addresses you may have):

If you use webmail to get your email, that means you do NOT check your website email (i.e. yourname@yourdomain.com) via Outlook or Apple Mail or any of the standard email programs. Rather, you access it via a browser window via this URL:

http://webmail.yourdomain.com

If you use that, and only if you use that, then the following info is for you:

Unfortunately, there's no "easy" way to download email from webmail. The only way I know of to do it is to decide on an email program (such as Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc.), install it on your computer, and set up your email in it. Then there is a setting to download all email from the server, which is easy.

For those on a PC, here is a link to the "top 11 free email programs for windows":

http://email.about.com/od/windowsemailclients/tp/free_email_prog.htm

For those on a Mac, all macs come with Apple Mail, which I use and love.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time nor knowledge to help you further -- if you don't understand what to do yourself (and most of these email programs are quite intuitive), you'll need to contact someone locally who can help you.

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with GoDaddy and this time the guy who is backing up and transferring our server said that clients who use webmail could "very likely" lose all email stored in there.

SO -- if you use webmail, the email in your inbox and other folders (if you have any) could disappear. In other words, with all the backing up of the content on my server (300+ domains and associated email), GoDaddy cannot guarantee that webmail won't be affected so they wanted me to give my clients a heads up. If you have important stuff stored in there please follow the instructions above!

I'm so overwhelmed with keeping up with work and dealing with this server issue that I really don't have time to look into individual issues -- I'd super appreciate it if you could call on someone who can help you if you can't figure it out from the above info.

Thanks much!
maddee

NEW:
For those of you setting up "real" email accounts, here is the info you need:

username: yourname@yourdomain.com
password: whatever you used for webmail

incoming mail server: mail.yourdomain.com
outgoing mail server: mail. yourdomain.com
then also: make sure that Authentication is clicked on and put in your password

New Server!

To all clients:
After about 7 years with the same server, we are upgrading to a new, faster, more stable one. The actual switch-over will occur over the next three days (Friday-Saturday). There should not be any downtime to your website nor email but I wanted to give everyone a heads up just in case something does happen. We'll do our best to make this as smooth as possible, and we really do not foresee any issues.

The only possibility for an email issue is for those people who use webmail for their domain email, which I think only a very few of you do. (This means you check email with your browser rather than via Outlook or Apple Mail for example.) If you do, and you know how to download these emails to your computer, please do so. Anyone who has questions on this, please email me. Remember that if you can't get through to me at this usual email, I can also be reached at madeirajames@mac.com, but try the xuni one first.

Thanks for your patience with this very much needed upgrade!

maddee

many clients, many books...

I've been completely delinquent about keeping the blog and Facebook updated! I really do want to... and I won't make excuses except that... I have too much work!

The many client books that have come out since my last post:

Desires of the Dead, by Kimberly Derting
How Lamar's Bad Prank Won A Bubba-Sized Trophy by Crystal Allen
Suits, by Nina Godiwalla
The Mountains Bow Down, by Sibella Giorello
Where Shadows Dance, by C.S. Harris
Altar of Bones, by Philip Carter
Shimmer, by Alyson Noel

I'll try to keep better up to date after this.

So grateful for so many amazing clients!

maddee