alternatives sought to freeparking

I know I posted either here or to plusnet.service.customer-feedback a while
ago but I can't find the archived messages in google for some reason.

The question was - what other alternatives are there to Freeparking.co.uk?
I need a company that does what they do but I'm fed up with the variable
service (forwarding is erratic) and one that has a more professional looking
website - I can't believe they haven't given the current one a serious
revamp to fix various problems. I have suggested that but obviously they
have better things to do.

thanks
Martin

Deano wrote:
> I know I posted either here or to plusnet.service.customer-feedback a while
> ago but I can't find the archived messages in google for some reason.
>
> The question was - what other alternatives are there to Freeparking.co.uk?
> I need a company that does what they do but I'm fed up with the variable
> service (forwarding is erratic) and one that has a more professional looking
> website - I can't believe they haven't given the current one a serious
> revamp to fix various problems. I have suggested that but obviously they
> have better things to do.
>
> thanks
> Martin

On 24 Aug 2005 10:32, "Deano" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>The question was - what other alternatives are there to Freeparking.co.uk?

>I need a company that does what they do

Then you might only get answers from other customers of theirs...
a) have you considered posting this n uk.net.providers and
b) rather than expect us to guess at 'does what they do' could you not
be specific about what precise facilities you need ?

From the rest of the post I assume forwarding mail to some other mail address
might be the answer, but with some hosting sevices one can set up some or all
of the following, or some combinations of same:

o mail re-writing so an incoming message for (E-Mail Removed) will
be redirected to (E-Mail Removed) and (E-Mail Removed)
is sent on to (E-Mail Removed)

o ability to 'bounce' mail with ":fail:" instead of a destination address

o ability to 'drop' mail using ":blackhole:" instead of destination address

o a catch-all address to redirect mail to some other address (eg to Gmail)
or to 'drop' it (bounce is not recommended, and dropping mail can lose a
lot of non-spam mail, so rediecting may be best for a catch-all)

o individual auto-responder messages, so someone can get an automated
"all mail should be replied to with 48 hours" message from the server
when they send a message to "(E-Mail Removed)", and a different
response is returned to senders of mail to "(E-Mail Removed)"

o forwarding of mail to one or more destinations for individual 'users'

o POP (and perhaps IMAP) storage of incoming mail for particular 'users'

Unless one uses the first option, mail re-writing, almost any combination of
the others is possible, depending on the control panel / hosting plan / policy
of the hosting firm, so one can set a 'catch all' to :blackhole: but set up 5
individual mailbox names, each witht heir own unique password and capable of
supporting web-based reading / composition of messages, with additional mail
addresses set to forward mail on, and a number of auto-responders too... so as
a possible (if unlikely) situation, mail sent to (E-Mail Removed) may:

a) be saved in POP mailbox for 'webmaster'

b) have an auto-responder message, telling the sender that if no response has
been received within 72 hours, to use the form at http:/contact.domain.coom

c) have a copy forwarded to (E-Mail Removed)
and a second copy be forwarded to (E-Mail Removed)

d) be ignored by the 'catch-all' filter (sends all else to (E-Mail Removed) )

Now, if Freeparking.co.uk just offers a 'catch-all' address to send mail to
some other mailbox, fine, but if it offers a few other features, then maybe a
quick explanation of what you're after would be useful.

Since you mentioned a Plus.Net customer newsgroup, you might also consider
whether you would want the mail to be handled by your ISP instead, or if mail
filtering (depending on subject line, blacklisting, or any other header field)
is what you're after then perhaps using Claranet's hosting for the domain (as
part of a mail + news + hosting deal for 30.00/year) would meet your needs
(rather than set nameservers to use Plus.Net and use their hosting/mail).

Anyway, sorry, I've forgotten the question :-) Good luck. Peter Morgan.

--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!

poster wrote:
> On 24 Aug 2005 10:32, "Deano" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> The question was - what other alternatives are there to
>> Freeparking.co.uk?
>
>> I need a company that does what they do
>
> Then you might only get answers from other customers of theirs...
> a) have you considered posting this n uk.net.providers and
> b) rather than expect us to guess at 'does what they do' could you not
> be specific about what precise facilities you need ?
>
> From the rest of the post I assume forwarding mail to some other mail
> address might be the answer, but with some hosting sevices one can
> set up some or all of the following, or some combinations of same:
>
> o mail re-writing so an incoming message for
> (E-Mail Removed) will be redirected to
> (E-Mail Removed) and (E-Mail Removed) is sent
> on to (E-Mail Removed)
>
> o ability to 'bounce' mail with ":fail:" instead of a
> destination address
>
> o ability to 'drop' mail using ":blackhole:" instead of
> destination address
>
> o a catch-all address to redirect mail to some other address (eg
> to Gmail) or to 'drop' it (bounce is not recommended, and
> dropping mail can lose a lot of non-spam mail, so rediecting may
> be best for a catch-all)
>
> o individual auto-responder messages, so someone can get an
> automated "all mail should be replied to with 48 hours" message
> from the server when they send a message to
> "(E-Mail Removed)", and a different response is
> returned to senders of mail to "(E-Mail Removed)"
>
> o forwarding of mail to one or more destinations for individual
> 'users'
>
> o POP (and perhaps IMAP) storage of incoming mail for particular
> 'users'
>
> Unless one uses the first option, mail re-writing, almost any
> combination of the others is possible, depending on the control panel
> / hosting plan / policy of the hosting firm, so one can set a 'catch
> all' to :blackhole: but set up 5 individual mailbox names, each witht
> heir own unique password and capable of supporting web-based reading
> / composition of messages, with additional mail addresses set to
> forward mail on, and a number of auto-responders too... so as a
> possible (if unlikely) situation, mail sent to (E-Mail Removed)
> may:
>
> a) be saved in POP mailbox for 'webmaster'
>
> b) have an auto-responder message, telling the sender that if no
> response has been received within 72 hours, to use the form at
> http:/contact.domain.coom
>
> c) have a copy forwarded to (E-Mail Removed)
> and a second copy be forwarded to (E-Mail Removed)
>
> d) be ignored by the 'catch-all' filter (sends all else to
> (E-Mail Removed) )
>
> Now, if Freeparking.co.uk just offers a 'catch-all' address to send
> mail to some other mailbox, fine, but if it offers a few other
> features, then maybe a quick explanation of what you're after would
> be useful.
>
> Since you mentioned a Plus.Net customer newsgroup, you might also
> consider whether you would want the mail to be handled by your ISP
> instead, or if mail filtering (depending on subject line,
> blacklisting, or any other header field) is what you're after then
> perhaps using Claranet's hosting for the domain (as part of a mail +
> news + hosting deal for 30.00/year) would meet your needs (rather
> than set nameservers to use Plus.Net and use their hosting/mail).
>
> Anyway, sorry, I've forgotten the question :-) Good luck. Peter
> Morgan.

Thanks for the detailed response. Basically i have a few domains that need
to have specific addresses redirected. I'm far from an advanced user when
it comes to this stuff but I was impressed by the features on the FP control
panel. If there's something similar out there I would like to know about
it.

FP forwarding has been a bit slow recently as they've been deluged with spam
apparently. My problems with FP are as follows;

Slow forwarding (and my mates use them and choose to bug ME about it)
Website that needs a big revamp (they use popups to communicate important
messages!)
Lack of regular, informative e-mails
No easy way of assessing service status

Blackfoot hosting have come to my attention and they sound great. I don't
mind paying for another ISP so I might use them to host the domains.

I really don't want to rely on plusnet for email! I'll take a look at
Claranet, thanks.

In article <430d888d$0$97113$(E-Mail Removed)> of
Thu, 25 Aug 2005 10:06:01 in uk.telecom.broadband, Deano
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>I really don't want to rely on plusnet for email! I'll take a look at
>Claranet, thanks.

Why?

I'm just moving to plusnet so am rather anxious to know!
--
Jim Macleod

"Jim Macleod" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In article <430d888d$0$97113$(E-Mail Removed)> of Thu,
> 25 Aug 2005 10:06:01 in uk.telecom.broadband, Deano <(E-Mail Removed)>
> writes
>>I really don't want to rely on plusnet for email! I'll take a look at
>>Claranet, thanks.
>
> Why?
>
> I'm just moving to plusnet so am rather anxious to know!
> --
> Jim Macleod

youll rgeret it

"Boss" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:YVrPe.3178$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Jim Macleod" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> In article <430d888d$0$97113$(E-Mail Removed)> of Thu,
>> 25 Aug 2005 10:06:01 in uk.telecom.broadband, Deano
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>>>I really don't want to rely on plusnet for email! I'll take a look at
>>>Claranet, thanks.
>>
>> Why?
>>
>> I'm just moving to plusnet so am rather anxious to know!
>> --
>> Jim Macleod
>
> youll rgeret it

Such a vague answer as "youll rgeret it" (sic) suggests either that Boss
can't be bothered to justify his answer or else he's being deliberately
controversial.

I've been with Force9 (part of PlusNet) and I'm generally very happy with
the service that they offer. There have been (I think) two occasions in the
four years I've been with them when their email servers have been down for
more than a few minutes: on one occasion it was for several hours. But other
than that I can always connect to their POP server using Outlook Express and
there's rarely a delay of more than a minute or so between email being sent
from elsewhere and it being downloadable from the POP server.

Their news service is less good: I find that once or twice a week OE fails
to connect to the news server and the feed of incoming news from outside
into their news server seems to be lumpy: sometimes I see postings that were
made only a few minutes previously; at other times I can download news and
get postings with a wide variety of timestamps that vary over a few hours,
suggesting that their infeed goes in fits and starts. But generally the
service is acceptible.

The webmail interface is very poor: it is grossly overengineered and takes a
VERY long time to load (5 mins or more) over a dial-up line. About a year
ago they introduced a new webmail server which looks great but takes several
times as long to display the email as the old one did: such is "progress"
:-(

Jim Macleod wrote:
> In article <430d888d$0$97113$(E-Mail Removed)> of
> Thu, 25 Aug 2005 10:06:01 in uk.telecom.broadband, Deano
> <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>> I really don't want to rely on plusnet for email! I'll take a look
>> at Claranet, thanks.
>
> Why?
>
> I'm just moving to plusnet so am rather anxious to know!

In the time I've been with them there have been far too many problems with
e-mail. Subsequently my main domain is with Freeparking and I forward that
to Gmail. I simply can't trust Plusnet e-mail.

Usenet has been bad but I've haven't had that many problems recently. They
definitely don't have a solid news platform but that's no big deal for me.