| Q: |
Is Letterrip Professional still for sale? |
| A: |
No. It is no longer being offered for sale. Support will continue indefinitely. |
Following are some of the technical questions that
are commonly asked about LetterRip Pro. Don't forget to also check
out the manual for detailed information about LetterRip Pro.
| Q: |
Is the recipient list sorted
by domain name in an outgoing message? |
| A: |
Yes, this is automatic. Addresses are sorted and grouped by
domain. See the next question for more details. |
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| Q: |
When a message is sent to a host
(domain) that has more than one subscriber, does LetterRip
Pro send the message just once to that domain or does it send
once for each subscriber? |
| A: |
LetterRip Pro only sends the message once. This dramatically
improves performance, especially when communicating with the
mail servers for the online services. For example, if your subscriber
list had 20 subscribers at AOL, only one copy of the message
would be sent to AOL. |
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| Q: |
How many incoming and outgoing connections
(threads) should I allocate? |
| A: |
There is no hard and fast answer to this. The optimum number
of connections is dependent on a number of factors including
the:
- type and speed of the Mac
- amount of memory in the computer
- number of incoming messages
- number of outgoing messages
- total number of subscribers
- size of the messages
- bandwidth of the network
- bandwidth of your DNS server
At first, it might seem a good idea to simply increase the
number of connections to the maximum, but this is not necessarily
the optimum configuration. Remember that for each additional
thread, you decrease the potential performance of each thread.
For example, if you have a 28.8k baud connection and 10 outgoing
threads and all of the threads are sending, then the performance
per thread will be about 2.8k baud.
If you have a high speed net connection and a powerful Macintosh,
it is probably reasonable to increase the number of threads.
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| Q: |
When should I use a host mail server? |
| A: |
We generally recommend that you do not use a host mail server.
LetterRip Pro contains a powerful SMTP mail server for sending
messages and is highly optimized for mailing list sending. Additionally,
by allowing LetterRip Pro to communicate directly with the subscriber's
mail servers, a number of errors can be more easily managed
than if there is another mail server in the middle.
There are times when it may make sense to use a host mail
server. The most common case is when you have a very slow
connection to the Internet but the mail server has a very
high speed connection. Even in this case, it really only makes
sense if the list has a very high traffic.
Also, if your list resides behind a firewall, it may be necessary
to send all outgoing mail through a designated mail server.
In general, it's best to start by using LetterRip Pro's built-in
SMTP server. If you notice a significant delay in messages
being sent, then you might want to try using the mail host.
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| Q: |
How fast should messages go out? |
| A: |
Although this is hard to generalize, messages are usually
received, processed, and sent within a few seconds. There are
many factors affecting performance including the:
- traffic on the list
- average size of the messages
- number of connections
- number of subscribers
- network bandwidth
- quality of the subscriber addresses
The performance of the computer is rarely much of a factor in
performance of the list. Performance of the Internet and the
connection to it are usually the limiting factors.
Remote hosts with poor connections, high traffic, or great
distance can have an adverse effect on performance. For best
results, you should remove bad addresses and chronically non-responsive
hosts from subscriber lists.
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| Q: |
Are domain names cached? |
| A: |
Yes, domain names are cached. Since domain name look-ups can
be time consuming, the caching improves performance.
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| Q: |
Can I run other programs on the same
computer as the server? |
| A: |
Yes, but as with any server application, it's recommended
that you limit the other programs that are running to those
that are necessary. If a program crashes, then your mailing
list server will be unavailable to the subscribers of your lists.
Also, the mailing list server can use quite a bit of the processing
time if your lists are very busy. |
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| Q: |
Can I run an SMTP mail server like AIMS
(Apple Internet Mail Server) on the same computer as the mailing
list server? |
| A: |
Yes, if you use POP3 to retrieve email. You cannot use SMTP
because only one SMTP server can be running on a machine at
a time. |
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| Q: |
Do I need a full-time Internet or intranet
connection? |
| A: |
No, you can have a part-time connection. If you have a part-time
connection, we recommend retrieving email using POP3 and routing
the outgoing email via another SMTP server.
If you have a full-time connection, we recommend that you
use SMTP to receive incoming email. SMTP mail servers need
a full-time connection to listen for incoming email.
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| Q: |
Can I have a digest only mailing list?
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| A: |
Yes, although it is somewhat unusual, it is easy to do. Simply
select "None" for the subscriber list in the General
setup for a mailing list.
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| Q: |
Can each mailing list have custom responses
such as responses to subscription requests? |
| A: |
Yes, you can customize both the global responses and the responses
for each list. The global responses are used by default for
each list. It is easy to change one or more of the responses
for any list. |
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| Q: |
Is a file created for every subscriber
for every outgoing message? |
| A: |
No, LetterRip Pro is efficient and writes only one file to
disk for each outgoing message. The recipient list for the message
is stored with the message in a highly efficient format therefore
reducing disk space requirements. |
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| Q: |
How do I create a list to send out announcements?
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| A: |
Announcement lists are called broadcast or one way lists:
the list is not open for discussions. Such lists are also sometimes
used for bulk mailings. It's easy to set up an announcement
list: turn on moderation in the Moderation setup and enter a
private account. To send announcements to the list, send email
to the private account. |
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| Q: |
Can I use LetterRip Pro as my mail server?
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| A: |
No, LetterRip Pro only accepts mail addressed to the lists
and requests. |
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| Q: |
Can I make a list private so no one
outside our company can see the list? |
| A: |
Yes, there is a checkbox within the Mail List entry window
that will make the list private to all non-subscribers. Private
lists are excluded from the "lists" command. If non-subscribers
attempt to subscribe or get information, they will receive a
bad list reply (as if it does not exist). Subscribers for private
lists must be manually added. |
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| Q: |
Can I run LetterRip Pro behind my firewall? |
| A: |
Yes, your network administrator will need to know about your
list addresses, so the mail server can properly route mail to
LetterRip Pro. You must route all outgoing mail to your network's
mail server in the Server Settings dialog. In addition, you
may need to use full addresses (i.e. the address that those
outside the firewall use to mail to the list) within the account
fields of your mail lists, so the server will properly accept
the incoming mail. |
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| Q: |
I can't connect to my server from a remote administrator. Why? |
| A: |
Most likely your server is behind a firewall. The admin communicates with the server on port 5279.
This must be open on the server for it to be able to communicate with the admin. |
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