Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with web and email

How to transform daily emailed data into a web–accessible chart?

borborygmi — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:47:31 -0800

I get reports emails every morning with simple, TSV data in the message body - and am trying to do something pretty with them, automatically. I'd like to forward these emails ... somewhere... and have them transformed into charts that are viewable on a password-protected site, or something like Panic's Status Board app.

Are there any tools that can help me get this job done? The simpler, and cheaper, the better. I looked at sites like StaHat.com but still felt like I was missing a few steps.

I don't have access to BusinessObjects or CrystalReports. but I do have FTP access to a server and some coding skills in HTML, C and python. Also pretty good with excel, if that helps.

I am looking for a web based email scheduler. Can you help?

citybuddha — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 04:40:30 -0800

I am looking for a web based email scheduler. Can you help? I use the web based email scheduler to post/schedule updates for me on Social media sites, however lately it has fallen short on performance. Can anyone suggest a similar service?

How to backup remote web server and email on servers?

Brandon Blatcher — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 10:40:40 -0800

Backing up a web server and the email on it to a local machine, how to do? If one is hosting a remote and a private webserver with two websites on it, along with email for various accounts, how does one back up all of the files on the webserver and said email accounts, to a local machine? No need for database backups, they're taken care of my the hosting company. But we're responsible for our files and email accounts.

Ideally, this would be automated and the email would retain the folder structure of the various accounts.

How to ask client's IT team for SMTP access

circular — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:54:21 -0800

I'm running software on a client's server that needs to send email reports. It typically uses sendmail, but we switched the DNS over to the client's own special MX records instead of the local mail exchanger. My software can use SMTP--what do I need to know in order to ask the client's IT guy for access without looking like a complete idiot? Does the IT guy need to set up some sort of special account for me, or just hand over the SMTP credentials? Will he be willing to do so? (The software is completely above-board and needs to send email)

I've only ever used sendmail and not this SMTP stuff through a client's IT services before. Of course, I've used my own SMTP before, but this is a relatively large institution. I don't want to commit any gaffes...thanks!

(And of course, I hope this is just stupid simple and is done every day)

Time for Gmail Upgrade?

london302 — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:26:44 -0800

Google Apps Upgrade Question: I use free version of gmail for my personal domain and because it pulls my personal and work emails I have reached the 7GB limit. I find the ability of searching all my emails in one place on web very useful (as oppose to installing desktop clients on all the different computers I work on). One option is to upgrade to paid version which pushes my limit to 25GB.

In principle I am open to paying a few bobs to get more space BUT I have questions for the hivemind:

1. Is there a way around, can I just buy more space and do something geeky clever? If I can retain search capability that would be the ideal option.

2. The upgrade gives many features which seem to be of use to big corporations. Are any of these features going to be useful to me as a single user on my domain?

3. If you upgrade your account does it automatically charge you for as many email addresses you have or can you just upgrade one or two users?

I want my emails to work

saeculorum — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:57:10 -0800

How do I pick a web hosting service that has an email server that is not blacklisted? I've been using a deep-discount web hosting service (I don't think the name is relevant and I don't want to be accused of promotion) for hosting a few assorted files, a single web page, and hosting my email needs for a single domain name I own. In short, I don't have particularly challenging demands for a provider. About five years ago, I picked one solely based on price. Recently, my emails have been increasingly returned - or worse, simply not acknowledged at all by the receiving server - due to the host service's email servers being on spam blacklists. The apparent reason recently has been hosting trojan spamming PHP scripts. I am annoyed by having emails returned and am particularly concerned about unacknowledged emails and want to switch providers. However, I have no idea how to pick a provider that provides un-blacklisted email service.

Does anyone have recommendations on a low-price (with low-demand) hosting service that satisfies this desire? Alternatively, are there un-blacklisted SMTP servers I can "rent" for sending email while still using my provider for receiving emails? I have a strong desire not to have the email address changed on sent emails (like Gmail SMTP servers do) and not to have any advertising appended to the end of the email.

Which tool do I need?

luriete — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:19:45 -0800

Looking for a social media tool that allows visitors to our website to sign & send a pre-written email (and to possibly add their own comments or edits as well, but that's not 100% necessary) to a group of local politicians. I've seen things like this many many times on social and political campaign websites, but have no idea if there's an out-of-the-box solution or if we need to hire someone to write it. Our group, SactoMoFo (Sacramento Mobile Food) is trying to push for a change to local regulations that effectively restrict food trucks from operating inside the city limits; after a 3,500 signature petition and a few events (one of which brought in the entire city council and 10,000 attendees), the city promised to revisit the current regulations, but after one particular local restaurateur lobbied the city heavily against changes, they've now dropped the issue. We want to get it in front of them again, and this will be one of many tools we use to do it.

Help me figure out how to make a form letter! (Electronically.)

JMB1138 — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:48:11 -0800

How can I create an online form letter that users can send in the form of an email? I've looked and looked and I can't seem to find any help on this. I want to create a pre-written email that users can send as their own to a specified recipient (or recipients).

Just like advocacy groups when they get people to write their representatives. I thought perhaps something like Wufoo would work, but it doesn't look like they have the functionality to make it work: https://wufoo.com/forums/discussion/1320/customized-form-lette/p1

Any solutions that wouldn't involve hiring someone to code this for me?

Do you know of a free web base facebook update and email scheduler?

citybuddha — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 06:32:58 -0800

I looking for a reliable and free way to schedule facebook updates. I have used laterbro, hootsuite and socialsafe. All have issues. I post about 12-20 times a day and they frequently stop sending the updates at some point. The best solution would be web based. I would also like to find a free web based email scheduler as well. What have you, hive?

A weekly newsletter that adds/omits information from the e-mail?

gacxllr9 — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 05:21:47 -0800

Is it possible to create a newsletter that will add/omit information to a weekly e-mail based on the user's preference at the time of subscription? I've subscribed to a few newsletters, and the options always involve receiving separate e-mails (i.e., If you indicate on a form that you are interested in receiving news about dogs and news about tornadoes, you'll receive one e-mail about dogs and one e-mail about tornadoes.) I'm in the process of designing a newsletter that I'd like to have add in/omit information based on the user's preference at sign up.

More explicitly, I'd like to create a "school news" weekly newsletter that goes out to the parents who have subscribed to it. At sign-up, the user can check the "club news" box, the "events news" box, etc. If they only check one box, only that content is displayed in the weekly e-mail. If they check every box, all of the content is displayed in the weekly e-mail. I hope this is making sense.

Anyway, is this theoretically possible? I've never seen a newsletter that allowed for this type of thing.

I want to learn about marketing on the web — the right way.

joshrholloway — Sat, 29 May 2010 12:31:59 -0800

I am interested in learning more about legitimate old-school marketing applied to the web, including how it relates to SEO, web analytics, usability testing, email campaigns, social media, etc. I'm looking for books and other resources to help me learn the basics of both technology and philosophy. I hesitate to even use the term "Internet marketing" because of how sullied it is by affiliate marketing, pyramid schemes, and keyword stuffers. This question from last week — specifically the comments by jeb, acoutu, and fremen — begins to touch on what I'm talking about. I don't want any of that junk.

I'm much more interested in learning how the fundamental principles of marketing that go WAY back apply to the web today. I'm interested in learning how to set up and read into analytics data, what legitimate techniques in SEO work, how to test your sites and optimize them for your readers/customers, etc, etc. I want to know how customers interact with content and with products. I want to know what it means to write well for the web.

What books, websites, and other resources should I be looking at? There is the obvious Godin, but I'm also interested in learning technologies as well as marketing philosophy. And again, I don't want any black-hat or even questionably legitimate stuff. I'm not doing this to make money, just to teach myself how to drive traffic and satisfy customers in 100% honest ways. (And yes, I know: "build good content first.")

Any advice you can throw my way would be appreciated.

Facebook's taken over my GMail

reenum — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:22:19 -0800

When I log into Gmail, Firefox redirects me to a page on Facebook. What gives? Over the past couple of days, when I log into GMail (even using the secure site), I am redirected to a page on Facebook that says the following:
----------------
We've redirected you to this page as a precaution

Some websites may try to trick users into providing information or otherwise risking their online security, through a process called clickjacking. The website you were on may not have meant any harm, but we brought you here as an extra safety measure.
----------------

I've tried this with Firefox on a Mac and on a PC, and get this issue on both.

Any suggestions?

How to send phone pics to a spartan web site via Flickr?

ehamiter — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:16:59 -0800

What's a minimal self-hosted "blog" that hooks into Flickr's API so I can send photos from my camera directly to my web site? Ideally, I want a blog that is not a blog. I don't want tags, or articles, or categories, or spam filters, or any of that stuff. A perfect solution workflow would be this:

I take a picture with my phone
I send it to Flickr via e-mail
Flickr then posts it to my website with no interaction

The ideal layout would be a main site title, and each time I send a photo it appears as the newest one, using the title I typed. There would be maybe 10 photos on the main page. You could access earlier photos by clicking "older" or something like that which would serve as the archives.

I can do this with wordpress, movable type, typepad, etc., but they are all way too huge feature-wise and not what I want. I can also do this with blogger or tumblr, but they are not self-hosted. I tried this recently with textpattern, but the templates and general admin are much too complicated for my needs.

It should be very simple, aesthetics-wise. You could maybe change the color scheme / typography via CSS, but that's about it.

Does something like this exist? For the Flickr hook-in it needs to be a MetaWeblogAPI Enabled Blog or other Flickr-approved application.

Thanks for any suggestions.

m.exchangemail.com

benzenedream — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:35:08 -0800

Seeking a lightweight web interface to Exchange 2003 server. Need something more usable than OMA, but more smartphone-friendly than Outlook Web Access. We don't allow work email to be cached on non-work devices for legal reasons. I'd like to be able to log in to webmail but find OWA rather clunky on a smartphone browser; OMA provides a bare-bones interface that's intended for ActiveSync rather than actual humans. Has anyone cobbled together a reasonable solution? I guess I'm looking for something like the mobile gmail page for Outlook. We won't be upgrading to Exchange 2007 for a while so its features are not an option.

iPhone-class RAZR replacement for Verizon service?

attercoppe — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:30:20 -0800

What's the best current Verizon phone for me? So I'm dropping my Alltel service and switching to Verizon to share a plan with my wife. (Oddly enough, though they merged, I can't just have them move me over, I have to cancel the one and sign up with the other.) They also say I will need a new phone.

I currently have a Motorola RAZR, as does my wife. I love mine's interface, especially the speed - the wife's is stupid slow, and kind of ugly besides. (My software version reports as GATW_04.06.00R, hers I don't know and don't have access to at the moment.) I'd like to find a phone with a similar look and feel to my current one, particularly the speed - hers seriously takes like a few seconds after a keypress to display menus or switch screens.

Alternately, I might like to go big and get something I can at least get email on, maybe even browse web pages. Streaming media capability (aka Pandora) would be more icing. The Verizon rep I spoke to says they'll give me a deal on the new phone, and I can spend a little anyway, so I'm not looking for crazy cheap - but not made of platinum either. I dream of an iPhone or even just an iPod Touch so I can use wi-fi - of course that's not an option on Verizon, but I think at least some of the BlackBerrys have wi-fi? I am not interested in paying extra for a data plan to do any of this.

You probably need more info from me, feel free to ask away and I'll try to watch closely and answer quickly. Give me your experiences and thoughts, please!

Cellphone plans for texting rather than talking?

tzikeh — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:12:48 -0800

I love my Treo (smartphone), and I use it for everything - except for making phone calls. Are there any plans out there that privilege texting over speech? I'm currently with Verizon and paying about $70-$80 a month, but I don't even come close to using up my minutes. I think I have 450 minutes and I maybe use 20-30 a month. The money all goes to text messaging, which I use far more than I ever use the phone service.

Are there any cellphone plans out there which have flat fees for texting that aren't on top of the fee for phone minutes? And if there aren't, does anyone have a suggestion of how I might lower my monthly costs without giving up texting?

get me online!

ouchitburns — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:58:41 -0800

What cell phone plan should I take in BC, Canada? I am about to enter into a new contract and want a phone that I can also use to do email

I am incredibly confused as to the options for Canadians. All I want is to be able to either visit gmail.com or use some sort of outlook type program to send and receive emails. A bonus would be being able to use wikipedia or google.

When I talk to the customer service agents, they talk to me about portals and things that I should understand but don't.

Help!

What email service does your company use?

x41-pbj — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:02:14 -0800

What email service does your company use? The small company I work for (10 employees and growing quickly) uses GoDaddy now, primarily for historical reasons, and it's pretty terrible. Any recommendations for enterprise email services?

phpList: seriously, wtf?

drjimmy11 — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:27:59 -0800

phpList: seriously, wtf? I develop a website for a non-profit, and they requested I set up phpList on the server so they can send out newsletters.

Everything went ok (eventually), I can now send emails and recipients will get them. Eventually.

I sent a bunch of emails as tests on Sat., copying them to both my gmail and yahoo accounts. phpList's queue shows that it sends them within a second.

However, I don't receive them to my email accounts until, at a minimum, a few hours later. Some of them were still showing up this morning, 2 days later!

I am a pro. web developer, but don't know that much about email servers and such. Have other people had this experience with phpList? Do yahoo and gmail give delivering these emails a low priority or what? And where exactly are they for the two days between phpList "sending" them and them showing up in my inbox?

I am a bit worried that my client might want to send newsletters with time-sensitive info. A few hours is ok, but two days is ridiculous.

Any ideas or alternatives?
thanks!

Email Alias Creator: Does Such a Thing Exist?

hazelshade — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:55:22 -0800

Are there any free (and non-sketchy) services out there that would allow me to create an e-mail alias that would re-direct to 30 people? I realize this is a huge shot in the dark, but, then, isn't that what AskMe is for?

Google searches yield nothing.

Registrar w/ bulletproof mail redirect?

skywhite — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 06:18:24 -0800

Registrar w/ bulletproof mail redirect? For several years I have been content with service on my dozen domain registrations with my old registrar, but no longer. I recently registered a .com domain and created one email redirect and one webmail account but neither work. I had to hunt on the registrar's site for the contact-form and never received an automated email with a ticket number. (UPDATE: finally got an automated email this very minute.)

I'm looking for a registrar which offers superlative mail forwarding. I don't really need webmail or hosting or spam protection -- just rock solid redirect from a registrar who isn't going away and has a good reputation. I'm currently paying US $15/year per domain (a mix of European and American domains) -- offering 5 webmail accounts and 1,000 redirects per domain, and I would be willing to continue to pay in that range.

easy setup email hosting

andrewzipp — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:36:16 -0800

I need to move a domain name, and set up email hosting for 200 addresses, with minimal downtime. I could do this through Dreamhost, but they're asking to have every single name entered in separately. Is there an email host that can set these up in bulk? I don't need web mail, just a new POP3 address.

Webmail solution

captainscared — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:48:25 -0800

I am looking for a web based email solution for numerous pop accounts. I have numerous email accounts from several domains and I'd like to find a one-stop web solution to checking all of them while at work, without email forwarding, etc.

I'd love it to be free but that's not a deal breaker. Likewise, I'd like a solution that is more robust than squirrel mail.

Thanks.

Help me with my e-mail ponderings...

dance — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 09:42:00 -0800

This is a two-part question concerning e-mail, the internet's original 'killer app'. i ) We know email has its flaws - but I'm looking for reasons (obvious and non-obvious) why an email address directory for the entire net has never (been attempted?) worked.

ii ) Does anyone know of a web app (preferably AJAX) which would serve as a repository for a given group's email addresses? Sort of a smaller version of the above. Individuals would be able to update their record in the app (perhaps by verifying with the system they own the address), there would be sensible authentication processes and vCards could be generated on the fly? It strikes me this could be quite handy...!

Generate email response from database.

Nothing — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 14:37:27 -0800

Is there a free simple web to email gateway or scriptable email responder that will run on windows server 2003? I need to generate an email report based on the subject of a recieved email (an id number) and send it back the the requester. And I need to check the requester's email address against a user database.

The website already generates the same report on a web page, but web access is not always available to my users. The report has to be generated upon request, it can't be generated on a schedule.

The mail server is the very simple one built into windows server 2003. I don't have access to Exchange or anything like that. I thought of just watching the mailbox directory and triggering a program when a message showed up, but I don't have the windows programming skills to do that.

The easiest thing would be to load the web page, save it, and send it back as an attachment. Is there an easy way to do that? The web is full of autoresponder programs for spammers that do nothing at all like what I need.