Help neded with E mail servers

[Tog]

I work in a hotel and we have a guest that cannot send e mail. His mailserver does not recognize him. I had the same problem with mine and removed the port # from the SMTP address for the outgoing server. He does not have a port number in the address. His ISP is Canadian and ends with a .ca. I don't know if that matters at all, but it's the only thing I can think of. Incoming e mail works fine?
Any travelers out there know how to make this work?

[Moose]

Hi Tog.

If it's sympatico, Bell/Aliant, or any of the government ISPs, then he's being prevented from sending email because he's outside of the network. He's essentially fitting the same profile spammers use when they attack 3rd party relays.

He has a few options:

1) Dial-up to his network. This, of course, is expensive, and so isn't something I particularly recommend.

2) While he can still receive mail, he should send using a web mail account and have it redirect replies to his home address. Bell/Aliant has a web page (somewhere) where you can log in and work with your pop3 account from elsewhere. So does the NB government (and probably the other gov networks as well.)

3) Find an open (to you) third party relay to "abuse", just like the spammers do. This actually isn't a flip answer. When I was undergoing and recovering from one of my surgeries, my folks were in town for almost two months to help me out. Dad would get his email from NBNet/Sympatico, but send out using my (cable) ISP's mail server (which was a local connection from my house). It's a perfectly valid arrangement.

The point is, odds are, he can use the same SMTP server the hotel uses, and this trick will work wherever he goes, but he may have to change his SMTP settings at every stop, most likely, unless your hotel has an insecure relay.

When he gets home, he can change it back to his local network.

[Tog]

In the hotel we have an open wireless network, so pretty much anyone can get to any internet site. Logging into hi home server shouldn't be a problem and we suggested that one. I also suggested Hotmail or other web based service. Now that AOL is opeing up the doors to all, they offer free AOL E mail as well.

He suggested using the hotel smtp, and that seems like it would work, if I could find it. We use webmail accounts here. I looked in outlook and we don't even have a client configured in the front desk.

I'll pass on what you've suggested. I'm assuming from his accent that he's from Quebec, so I don't know if that makes a big difference either. I couldn't really understand what he said his provider was, so I'm not sure of it's one of the ones you mentioned.

Thanks for the input on this.

[Moose]

He's on a Bell offshoot, most likely. Possibly Videotron. Either way, he's enough of a techie to know what he's doing. He'll need to find an open relay somewhere.

What's your hotel's email provider? (You can PM me if you don't want to openly say. That's fine.) Hotmail or the like?

[Tog]

He's on a Bell offshoot, most likely. Possibly Videotron. Either way, he's enough of a techie to know what he's doing. He'll need to find an open relay somewhere.

What's your hotel's email provider? (You can PM me if you don't want to openly say. That's fine.) Hotmail or the like?

OOhh Videotron sounds familiar.

Our provider.. Good question. I know we have at least one hotmail account. There is also the official e mail that is used for stuff to and from the office, but that's on the manager's computer and I don't have access to it. At one time it would seem we had a Gmail account, but there was a note a few weeks back to stop using it. I never knew we had it. There may be a few others as well, but none of the front desk or lobby machines have anything listed in outlook or Outlook express for an account.

[SeanF]

Sometimes the ISPs offer ways to use the e-mail off-network, by using SMTP authorization. Whether that's an option for this gentleman (and how his e-mail software would need to be configured to take advantage of it) would depend on his specific ISP.