Secure 5 Email Migration Information
August 3, 2010 by tracy · Comments Off
Due to time-sensitive nature of this migration, we have not been able to notify all clients ahead of time of the new server settings. While website data is backed up, email is not, and we wanted to make sure your email was transferred before the possibility of the server going down permanently.
For those of you having problems accessing your email today, you can try the following servers settings:
– Make sure to update your username to include the complete email address
– If the server your use is mail.yourdomainname.com or secure5.liveoakhosting.com WITHOUT SSL, use the following servers:
POP3 pop.yourdomainname.com port 110 or
IMAP imap.yourdomainname.com port 143
SMTP smtp.yourdomainname.com port 25
– If you use secure5.liveoakhosting.com WITH SSL, you will want to use the following servers:
POP3 with SSL secure.emailsrvr.com port 995 or
IMAP with SSL secure.emailsrvr.com port 993
SMTP with SSL secure.emailsrvr.com port 465
You can always go to https://webmail.liveoakmail.com and log in using your full email address and email password. Please bear in mind, some passwords had to be changed if they did not meet minimum security standards and we may need to forward those to your IT contact.
We apologize for the inconvenience and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us by emailing support@liveoakhosting.com or calling our toll-free number at 877.272.5743. Thank you for your patience!
The Scoop on Diskspace and Bandwidth
April 29, 2009 by tracy · Comments Off
We get calls from customers wondering “Why am I receiving these emails about my bandwidth/diskspace being over it’s limit? I only have a small site!”
The reality is, if you don’t have one of our premium email packages, your disk space and bandwidth are accumulated not only from your website, but from your email and databases as well. The types of files that can easily contribute to bandwidth and disk space overages are below:
- Zip files
- Audio files
- Video files
- PDF files
You’ll always want to check the size of the files you upload to your site, send via email, or offer for download on your site. These can add up quickly:
- If the disk space limit for your site is 512 MB, one 50 MB file is 10% of your disk space. It doesn’t take many of those to exceed your diskspace.
- Don’t forget when you send items via email. A 2 MB document attachment sent to a single email address might not be a problem. However, if you send that same 2 MB file to 250 email addresses, that equates to over 500 MB in bandwidth usage for that single mailout. Sent out regularly, usage like this can add up.
- How about a media file (audio or video) on your website that is regularly downloaded by your site users? It may only be 50 MB, but 20 downloads adds up to 1000 MB of bandwidth usage. If your site becomes more popular, it may only take 320 downloads for you to reach your bandwidth limit.
- How many files do you have on your site? A large number of smaller files can also contribute to site overages — you’ll want to keep unused files to a minimum.
You can always check your site’s usage by logging into your control panel, clicking into the domain and then on the Report icon. There are several helpful areas within this page that can help you diagnose where all that bandwidth and diskspace is going. Still have questions? Call us — we’d be more than happy to walk you through the reports and explain what they mean.
For Our IMAP Power Users (or those who just want to be)
January 7, 2009 by tracy · Comments Off
IMAP email has a lot of advantages. The main benefit being you can check your email from several different locations and then have it all sync up nicely at all the other locations.
In theory, this is the way IMAP should work.
However, we have seen a few settings and user habits that can cause issues when checking your email via an IMAP connection. The below recommendations can help you avoid the pitfalls of IMAP email and keep it a pleasant experience.
- Keep your Inbox folder cleaned out. The more email you have in your Inbox folder, the longer it will take to sync up with the server. The reason being that your local email software and server must talk to each other for much longer times in order to make sure that everything is there that should be. This can result in long download times for you, delays for other users on the server, result in corruption of your mail folders over a period of time, and even cause your email software to crash.
You will want to go through your Inbox folder regularly and either delete or move all emails into other folders; the fewer emails in your Inbox, the faster you will receive and download new mail and the less chance for folder corruption and crashes.
- Set your email software to check email no less than every 5 to 10 minutes. When too many users check their email at one time, it causes slow download times and even server connection refusals, creating an email nightmare for all users — especially if you keep large amounts of email in your Inbox folder.
You’ll want to set your email to check email once every 5 to 10 minutes — or longer — to keep the server load down while continuing receiving your email in a reasonable amount of time.
- Turn off the setting to keep your email software connected to the server. Some email software has a setting allowing it to stay connected to the server after downloading email. While this setting is great for in-house servers with few users, it does not work quite as well for remote servers with hundreds or thousands of users.
Please disable this setting for your IMAP connections and set your software to sync your email every 5 to 10 minutes.
By maintaining your email folders and settings, we hope to make the IMAP experience the best one possible. Should you have any questions regarding any of these settings and habits, we’d love to hear from you, so give us a call.
Email Password Security
December 23, 2008 by tracy · Comments Off
As hard as Live Oak tries to keep our servers secure from hackers and spammers, we are not able to oversee the passwords that our users select for their log-ins and email.
As a result, our servers are sometimes compromised by spammers able to guess our users’ email passwords. Bear in mind that if your email address gets compromised, you run the risk of exceeding your bandwidth, which can cost you or your company over-limit fees.
The most common guessable passwords are:
123abc
abc123
12345
54321
password
nopassword
However, they can also include words available in any standard dictionary. If you or any of your domain’s users have selected passwords that fit into this category, we recommend updating your passwords to something more secure.
The key is to create a password that you can easily remember, but is hard for someone else to guess. Below are some simple tips on creating more secure passwords for all our users.
- The longeryourpassword, the better.
- Always throw in some numb3rs, $ymb0ls, and/or punc.tua_tion marks.
- Mix cApItaL leTTerS with lowErcAsE.
- Create an acronym from a familiar phrase. An example would be to take a phrase “I live on 32nd street” and turn it into iL032st.
- Change your password often and don’t use the same password for all your log-ins.
Use a combination of the above methods and you should wind up with a secure password to thwart pesky hackers and spammers.
Email Troubleshooting Basics: Chapter 2
December 15, 2008 by tracy · Comments Off
Email Configuration Challenges
Not all networks are created equal. If you change networks a great deal (moving your computer between home, work, hotel, airport, etc.), you may find the email configuration you use for one network does not necessarily work for all.
The reason many networks restrict access to email is to prevent spammers from using that network and its and bandwidth to send out spam. But, as a result, it also keeps you from checking or sending valid email.
Live Oak email customers always have access to their email from any internet connection by going to http://webmail.yourdomainname.com. From here, you can log in using your email address and password to get past even the most restrictive networks. This method works well if you are changing networks constantly and don’t have time to troubleshoot configuration issues.
However, if you would like us to help you troubleshoot your new configuration, we would love to hear from you!
Email Troubleshooting Basics: Chapter 1
December 11, 2008 by tracy · Comments Off
A great deal of the tech support requests we receive involve email access issues.
And while we love hearing from our customers, there are a few things you can do before picking up the phone that can help us quickly find and resolve your issue:
- Close your email software (Outlook, Entourage, Mail, Thunderbird, etc.).
- Open a web browser (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.) and go to your standard search site (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.).
If you can get to that page, go on to #3. If you cannot, you may want to check your internet connection. It could be your machine, your router, your modem, or even your ISP causing the issue. Contact your IT department for assistance.
- Go to your domain’s webmail interface. It will be http://webmail.yourdomainname.com.
If you can get to that page, go to #4. If not, call Live Oak.
- Try logging into your email box within the webmail interface using your email address and email password.
If you get into the site, go to #5. If not, Call Live Oak.
- Open your email software and attempt to retrieve/send your email.
If you still cannot send/receive email, leave the error message on the screen and call Live Oak.
We understand this does not cover all the email issues that can happen, but perhaps will help our users better troubleshoot any email issues that arise from time-to-time.