CapeSoft
CapeSoft Newsletter #44
- March 2005 -


Hi All,

This month's news includes some exciting product updates, and an informative article about spam and the benefits of running your own email server, compiled from some recent postings on the newsgroups around this subject. Read on for more info...
AnyFont Goes Gold

AnyFont v1.20 Gold is now even more programmer-friendly. In Clarion 6 and above, entering the global default font is done through the Font Dialog box instead of manually. No more contemplating how to spell your favourite font. The user can now change the character set at runtime too, so people in non-English speaking countries will have no problem choosing Cyrillic or Thai or whatever they need.

AnyFont allows the user to change your program's font at runtime. It's great for people who insist on really high (or low) screen resolutions, or prefer their own personal non-standard font.

As per normal procedure, AnyFont will go up to it's gold price in the next couple of weeks, so cash in on the special beta price now!

AnyFont Features For more information:
http://www.capesoft.com/accessories/anyfontsp.htm

Where to buy AnyFont
Current Cost: $29
New Gold Price effective 22nd March 2005: $49

Available at: https://www.clarionshop.com/secure/checkout.cfm?pid=742&q=1


SendTo Moves Up A Gear

SendTo enables you to send your data exactly as it appears in the browse to a Printer, File (HTML, Excel, Word, CSV or PDF) or email it directly. Simply drop on the SendTo button on any browse/list in your application, and you have all these options available without having to design extra reports or export procedures - it literally takes a few seconds to add this amount of functionality to a browse.

The latest release of SendTo significantly enhances functionality and feature support. For example, both Word and Excel now fully support colors, so the output produced accurately reflects the styles used on the browse (fonts, styles, background and font colors etc.). A number of changes have been made across the board to make the output more consistent and to ensure that the output matches the browse as closely as possible.

SendTo requires the following CapeSoft products: Office Inside, NetTalk, Draw and WinEvent.


Click here to see enlarged image.


For more information:
http://www.capesoft.com/accessories/sendtosp.htm

Where to buy CapeSoft SendTo
Cost: $99
Available at: https://www.clarionshop.com/secure/checkout.cfm?pid=724&q=1


Spam and Email Servers

Spam is a frustrating, yet necessary topic of discussion these days. In the ISP's desperate attempt to help filter out spam, they often end up blacklisting, or disallowing valid mail from getting to it's destination. CapeSoft has found that in many of the situations where our customers have not received responses from their support or sales requests, that the ISP has been the culprit. In almost all cases, the customers were unaware that their ISP had taken such action.

In a recent newsgroup thread on this topic, Bruce's suggestion was this:

"With the explosion of broadband it is now so trivial to set up your own domain, and email server, (even if you have a dynamic IP number) that there is no excuse for allowing your ISP to filter out mails you should be getting. If you have a permanent connection, then the first step people can take is being responsible for their own incoming mail. This means running your own mail server (for example http://www.capesoft.com/utilities/EmailServer/EmailServer.htm).

It means you'll need to do your own spam filtering, but at least it will be under your control. The spam filtering done by ISP's "on your behalf" will often throw away real mails as well. If you have a helpful ISP, then get them to whitelist clarionshop.com, and capesoft.com (and any others you can think of.) If you don't have a helpful ISP then I recommend taking a couple hours to set up your own mail server, and filter your own mail."

Recently, one of our fellow Clarion Programmers posted a question on the newsgroup about the benefits of running your own email server. I have copied Bruce's response here, as I think it has given many people a better understanding of the benefits of running your own email server.

Q: "What are the situations that an email server, such as the one from CapeSoft would be needed? Why would you use this in place of (or in addition to) the mail server provided by your ISP?"

A: "Usually "in addition to".

Some uses would be:

a) anytime your network bandwidth "bottlenecks". i.e. usually you go from a LAN (Mbps) to a WAN (Kbps) then a server would help to insulate you from this. For example Collecting your emails may take 10 minutes from an ISP (especially if someone sends you a big attachment or two.) If it was on your LAN it might take 30 seconds. Sure it took the 10 minutes anyway, but that happened "behind the scenes" so you don't have to wait for it. Sending large attachments is quick to the local server, then you go home, then the local server sends upwards.

b) same as (a) - for things like newsletters. Send out a lot of email (quickly) to the server, and the server then sends "slowly" to the ISP.

c) mailboxes - your isp may give you 1, or 2, or 20 mailboxes, but with your own server you have unlimited boxes. Don't want to give your email address to someone? ok - make up a new one on the fly, and assign it to you. i.e. having the server at-hand means you can manage it and that gives you more flexibility.

d) mailing around the office? there's a 100Mbs connect between 2 of you - why then send mail via an isp, on a kbs link?

e) incoming mail - if your incoming mail goes first to your ISP, then to you, then your ISP has the opportunity to filter some of it out for you. Some do, some don't. Some have good filters, some have bad. Overall, you're not in control. Having your own server, which is direct for _incoming_ mail again gives you more control.

f) outgoing mail - regardless of how you handle incoming mail - you may choose to bypass your isp for outgoing mail. This can be useful when your ISP implements really dumb rules in an attempt to limit spam (and at the same time limits legitimate outgoing mail). There are situations where it's better to send via the ISP (called "relaying") but again having your own server gives you the power. "

... and in another response:

"You can also have multiple MX records for SMTP for a domain.

First a little background - DNS is the "domain name system" which is what maps something like www.capesoft.com to 1.2.3.4 or whatever.

For mail there's a special DNS entry called an MX record. This is used for your mail, so that other mail servers out there know where to send to. If you wanted them to send directly to your machine then you would "set your MX record to that machine's IP number".

But wait, there's more.

It turns out you can have multiple MX records (the primary, secondary and so on). If the primary is busy, or offline, or something then the mail can go to the secondary. This secondary might be your ISP for example.

Then in your local mail server you set it up to "fetch" mail from the secondary on a regular basis in case any ended up there. (Every 15 minutes or so is usually fine)."

I hope this has been a helpful article. If you would like to find out more about CapeSoft's Email Server, please feel free to contact us. Alternatively, here are some helpful links.

For more information:
http://www.capesoft.com/utilities/EmailServer/CapeSoftEmailServer.htm

Where to buy CapeSoft Email Server
Cost: $30
Available at: https://www.clarionshop.com/secure/checkout.cfm?pid=531&q=1

Source Code Cost: $499
Source Code Available at: https://www.clarionshop.com/secure/checkout.cfm?pid=573&q=1

 And... A Useful Tip To End Off With

Gizmo Richards maintains a site dedicated to making you more productive in the little things each day.
http://www.techsupportalert.com - It's a fantastic resource, and well worth a bookmark.

Apart from a bunch of How-To's, there's also a page listing the "best" free software out there. Yep I know how much y'all like spending money, so this won't be very interesting, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Up till now the "best 46" was reserved for paid subscribers, but Gizmo has recently opened it to everyone here...
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm.

There's also a newsletter available on this site which is a good read if you want to subscribe (for free).


Well, that's it for this month. Until next time, when we will bring you more exciting news from the CapeSoft HeadQuarters, keep well.

Feedback
If you have any queries, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@capesoft.com.

All the best and happy coding,

Lesley Dean
CapeSoft Software (Pty) Ltd.
www.capesoft.com
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