Tuesday, July 10, 2007

New mail setup

Well, I had a little fun with email this week. I noticed yesterday that I hadn't received any email. In case you don't know, I host my own email. I have a Windows server here at the house that receives all of our mail. I looked at the server and everything seemed to be running fine. I looked at the firewall to make sure it was still configured to forward mail to the server. I also restarted both the server and the firewall.

Still wasn't working. A test message just disappeared into never, never land. I tried to connect to the server from an outside computer that I have access to--no luck. I finally decided I was just going to go to bed and find out if Comcast started blocking port 25, which is necessary for email to happen.

Sure enough. My first search this morning turned up an article from ZDNet, hot off the press. If I was a corporate customer I definitely would have called and complained, but since I'm just a techy home user, hosting his personal mail, I decided to change options and move on.

So Kathy and I are now using Google Apps. I'm excited about giving it a try. I'll have to find a way to synchronize calendar, contacts, and email for Kathy's Axim. I'm not too worried about that, though. I already found a free app to synchronize calendar. I'm going to email my friend that uses Google Apps at work and see what they use.

However, I just finished making the changes, and sometimes internet changes can take a little time to move across the globe. We should be up and running soon!

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Back from vacation

This picture gives you a good idea of what we did all last week--relax on the beach, relax in the a/c, read a book, maybe watch a movie. It was wonderfully relaxing. We have posted some pictures on Picasa.

Now we are back in Ohio and getting back to work. I have today off due to the July 4th holiday, but Kathy decided to trade Monday for today. She is in at work and no one will be bugging her so she can get caught up from a week off.

After work we are headed to watch the new Transformers (trailer | IMDb | review) movie with some friends. Jason (who turns 30 today!) is super-excited about the movie. Should be entertaining. I think we are headed back to his house for some grilling after the movie. Hopefully the weather cooperates.

I'm not too worried about finding any fireworks tonight. We went over to Jason's last night for a surprise birthday party and his neighbors had one of the most amazing home firework display I've ever seen. They were only a couple of houses down so it was quite loud, and it kept going! They had at least two hours of fireworks, if not a little more than that. And not just roman candles and the like, but actually ones that shot up into the air and exploded. I have no idea how much they spent, but it must have been a considerable amount.

Well, I should get back to work. I have a laundry list of things to do today, which does include laundry. I haven't gotten very far on the list yet...
Posted by Picasa