The E-mail Trick

So, you have your own domain address, but are unable to send e-mail through your own SMTP server because your stupid ISP is blocking it? This is a very normal problem; many ISPs prevent their customers from sending e-mails through any SMTP server except the ones configured by the ISP. The reasoning for this is quite sound as it can prevent people from setting up SPAM servers and SPAM zombies to work as they should.

As an added bonus, it also means that as you change ISPs when moving around with your laptop, you usually have to change the SMTP server used. But most ISPs allow you to send mail through the company everybody loves: Google.

That’s great. If you create a Gmail account you can use the Gmail SMTP server to send your mail and you’re mostly home free, not matter what ISP you’re no. The only problem is that all your e-mail will appear to come from your Gmail account since you have to log on the SMTP server with your Gmail account. If you use Gmail, it’s not a big deal, but in my case I wanted the mail to come from my vegard.net address.

Enter Google Apps. With a Google Apps account, you can log on to the Gmail SMTP server with your Google Apps account and that account can be pretty much anything as long as your able to validate your own domain.

So there you go, transparent e-mail sending on any ISP from your own domain.


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