[P1] SMTP on iBook

[Mike Beede]

>> An alternative is to send mail through the school's server.  You
>> can have several SMTP servers specified with the OS X Mail ap (which
>> also handles SSL connections quite slickly).
>
>    Tried it. They gave me the same answer as when I'd asked about using
> the apparently "public" wifi network in the library-- they can't allow 
> me
> to do so on *my* laptop, but I am more than welcome to sign a Dell 
> [*#&$!]
> out of the library and do so with that. Sigh.

There's your problem.  A wise old prof once told me, "it's always easier
to get forgiveness than permission."  I'd just have fired up the network
and used their SMTP server.  Since you already asked, that's not an 
option
(depending on your personal moral code).  I'd do it anyway on the 
principle
that an officious personage that's taking *my* money and stopping me 
from
using *my* facilities is to be ignored.  But I'm kind of a dink.

So you don't even have network connectivity?  If that's the case, forget
sendmail--the Mail ap will deliver your outgoing mail when you connect
to the net again.

If you're sending only to people in a single domain, you can use their
SMTP server even if you're outside their network (probably....everything
is "probably").  Usually it's "smtp.whatever" but you can find out where
it is by doing "dig mx domain".  Usually they'll reject mail to another
domain (as an anti-spam measure--that's why your ISP won't accept your
mail) but they have to accept mail for their own users or no one would
get anything.  If you send mail to a bunch of domains (like most people)
that doesn't do you any good.

>    I discovered where the turn it on in my hostconfig file. And have 
> been working
> my way through the O'Reilly howto ( 
> http://www.macdevcenter.com/lpt/a/2692 )
> with a copy of 'Unix for Mac OS X' in hand to aid in my rustiness with 
> vi.

As long as you're rusty, I'd switch to emacs.  It has online help
and is much more powerful and usable than vi.  Just the ability to
run a shell inside a buffer is worth the switch.  When I was a vi
user it took me three days before I was working at least as fast
as I was before--and I was definitely not rusty at that time.

>    I mentioned I prefered POP based mail to the web-services for 
> convenience
> sake, and then I spent several hours on this. I suppose it was all 
> masked as
> a way of further procrastination from studying calculus.

Web mail is an offense against God and man.  My initial advice still
holds.  Dump that ISP for a good local one.  I can't exactly tell
you what "good" means, but if they claim that no one's ever wanted
an authenticated SMTP connection, then they *aren't* "good."  My
ISP answers the phone on the third ring and the person on the other
end knows more than I do about routing and other arcana.  And if they
*don't* know how to solve the problem, they contact someone who does.
It isn't any more expensive than Earthlung or one of the other 
do-nothing
big fish, either.  Just my opinion....

Regards,

	Mike