Support - Email Basics
So you've got a mail account on our server . . .
It seems like everyone nowadays has two or three email addresses (and the accounts associated with them). What's special about your new account here on Crosstec's server?
Absolutely nothing.
The only positive is that if you're using us to host your domain (like www.yourdomain.com), then you can take advantage of using emails linked to your domain name.
Your friendly administrator should've emailed you a username and initial password to use with your account. He should've also included any aliases for your mail account(s). So let's say you've now got:
- A username like smithj - This simply is the account
we've created on the server that will contain your identity. Our naming
convention is to use your last name and first initial of your first
name (this may be different under certain circumstances).
You will use your username ...- in the "Username" or "Account Name" box of your Mail Program's "preferences" or "options" (see below)
- when logging into our webmail interface (see below)
- A password - This is what you'll use when asked for
a password when logging in or connecting to the server. You may change
your initial password to one of your choosing here.
- One or more mail aliases - These could be like john.smith@yourdomain.com or contact... info... sales@yourdomain.com (you get the picture). These aliases can be forwarded to your home account (remember smithj we talked about earlier) on our server, -OR- you can have any or all of them forwarded to an existing account with other service providers (e.g., aol, msn, yahoo, hotmail). Please contact your administrator to set up any desired forwarding. By default all mail will go into the account on our server and you will have to retrieve it using the methods below.
Enough with the chit-chat, how do I use this already . . .
Answer: You may use your account in either (or a combination) of two different ways.- Using your computer's Mail Program:
If you are comfortable in setting up mail accounts on your personal computer's mail program, just add an email account for each username you've been given (like smithj). Each mail program is slightly different (Outlook Express vs. Netscape Mail vs Eudora, etc.) so I won't go into the details for each of them here, but they should all ask for the following information.
- Server Type: pop3
- Full Name: This is your name
- Incoming Mail Server (POP): mail.crosstecsys.com
- Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): This will usually be
your current ISP's mail server. Simply use the same one as you do
for your other email accounts. If your email client supports outgoing
server authenticaion methods such as CRAM-MD5, Login, or Plain and
you wish to use us as your outgoing server, you may use mail.crosstecsys.com
as your outgoing mail server and use your account name and password
as the authentication parameters.
- User Name/Account Name: your admin mailed this to you (like
smithj)
- Password: whatever the admin emailed you, or whatever you
changed it to here.
- Email Address/Reply-To Address: this will be the alias you decide to use (or just your account name) "alias@yourdomain.com" or "accountname@yourdomain.com"
If you decide to use this method to access your email, I ask that you have your mail program download all mail to your computer and delete the copy on our server. This keeps mailboxes from accidentally getting filled up and possibly hindering your mail service. This is done by unchecking the box that says something like "Leave a copy of messages on server". You'll figure it out.
Finally, if you are using your current ISP's mail server as the Outgoing Mail Server please make sure that the "REPLY-TO" or "email-address" for the account is entered correctly. This will force your outgoing mail from this account to appear to come from "yourdomain.com". Most of the time we can't use our server as your outgoing mail server because of some security issues which could cause us to become 'blacklisted' in the Internet community.
One last note - Usually there is an option where you can specify how often your mail client checks our server for mail. Please set this to a reasonable period of time. I know everyone would like to know within a second of when a message arrives for them, but setting a very low mail check rate will place undue load on our network connection (when you consider we have hundreds of users checking their mail). A common setting for this is 5 minutes, which we think is reasonable. Although if you're on the phone with someone and they tell you they just sent something, feel free to click your 'Send and Receive' button a few times until it gets there.
- Server Type: pop3
- Using our Webmail interface:
A second option (that's a bit simpler to get going with) is to use our webmail application that you can use from any web browser. It's similar in function to "Hotmail" or "Yahoo Mail".
It's at https://www.crosstecsys.com/webmail/ (I highly suggest setting this as a favorite to keep from having to type it everytime). Also make sure to put the "s" in the "https". This signifies that this is an encrypted channel and is much more secure than the method I described in method (1) above.
Remember that your actual email address and the name you use to log into the server may be different. Your account name (e.g., smithj), is the user name to log into the server, but your emails may come from and go to your aliases if you decide to use them. Therefore, for the webmail login page, you'll use your account name and password to gain access.
Once in the webmail application, you should explore the options and get a feel for how it works.
Important Note: Make sure your "email address" and "reply-to" entry in the Options->Personal Information section of the webmail application is set to your email address. Both entries should be set to the same value (i.e., alias@yourdomain.com). If not, when you send mail through webmail, it will appear to come from "accountname@crosstecsys.com" instead of "smithj@yourdomain.com" or "alias@yourdomain.com".
That's it, you know everything. If you have any questions, feel free to send a message to your administrator. He'll get you back on track in no time.
Q: Is there a limit on the size of messages I can receive or send through your server?
A: Yes, there is a 10MB limit on messages. If you must send something larger than 10MB, please try zipping the file(s) up using an application such as WinZip or gzip before attaching them to your message.
