Wolfgang_Naegeli.ED_TSRS@QM01.CTD.ORNL.GOV (Wolfgang Naegeli) (02/08/90)
Reply to: RE>Yet another Mac E-mail ques > What is Mail link*SMTP? Is it hardware or software or both? > Are there any good alternatives to this product, Gatormail/Q? Mail*Link SMTP was developed by Starnine and is now marketed by Cayman under the name GatorMail-Q (for QuickMail) and GatorMail-M (for MicrosoftMail). It is software only in the format of a "Bridge," i.e. a gatway software module that runs as guest code under QM Administrator. (I have only used the QuickMail-version of Mail*Link; we threw out Microsoft Mail and InBox in favor of QuickMail some time ago.) This means, to use GatorMail-Q, you need to have a Macintosh running the QM Administrator application continuously. We are running it in the foreground on an AppleShare server and in the Background under MultiFinder on a non-AS MacPlus, both without any problems. The same machines also are running QM Server and NameServer, which are background processes installed by INIT/CDEVs and independent of MultiFinder. > Do I need to buy a gateway for each Localtalk net? No, one machine running QM Administrator with GatorMail-Q can serve up to 100 QuickMail mail centers in different zones, each of which can serve up to 254 users in the same or different zones. The QuickMail software is extremely flexible. You can create up to 32 mail centers on a QM Server. Of course, those are maximum numbers, and unless there is only little e-mail usage per user, your practical numbers are likely to be much smaller. The QM Administrator can run on the same machine or on a different machine, and it can serve mail centers on multiple machines. A mail center can be served by more than one QM Admini- strator if you need redundancy or if you need multiple serial links. In addition to running the GatorMail-Q bridge, the same QM Administrator can also handle users dialing in through a modem to access their mail, run a "Printer Bridge" for printing messages to users who do not have a computer, and run other bridges to provide gateways to various online and e-mail services, such as MCI mail, AppleLink, Compuserve, INET, etc. Thus, one copy of GatorMail-Q can serve a large number of users, but for redundancy and to reduce traffic accross multiple zones, you may want to run copies at multiple locations long before it gets saturated. I understand that a GatorMail-Q site license for universities is on the order of $2000. > but we are short on disk space. Will QM run on an AUFS server No, QM Server, NameServer, and QM Administrator only run on Macs. Also, you need to have enough disk space on the startup volume of the machine that runs the QM Server. A copy of each message and each enclosure is kept on the disk until both the recipient deletes them from her/his mail list or files them in a QM Folder on his/her own machine _AND_ the sender deletes the entry from the mail log. Particularly if your users send large enclosures (e.g. HyperCard stacks, applications, or 300 page MS Word documents, etc. and delay housekeeping chores for a long time, you will need a substantial amount of disk space. Version 2.2 of QM will also have the option to send digitied voice messages. If you plan to use that nifty feature, expect a hefty increase in disk space requirements. > The auto-connect is important as users do not want the hassle > of any manual connection to servers. Autoconnect to your mail center is a settable preference in QM. Since GatorMail-Q is set up as a mail center that is served around the clock, and since it uses the QM store-and-forward mechanism, you will be notified of incoming internet mail as soon as it arrives or as soon as you boot your Mac (or as soon as you connect to your mail center if you have not set the autoconnect option). The existence of the GatorMail mail center is mostly transparent to the user, except if he/she needs to create a special address for sending mail to someone whose address has not been loaded into the mail center or the NameFinder database by the administrator. > is there any control over mailing Mac format documents (eg. a > MacDraw II document) to a user on a non-Mac host? Enclosures are automatically encoded in APPLESINGLE format, then uuencoded by GatorMail-Q. C source code for a SINGLE utility is provided with GatorMail-Q so that recipients on non-Mac machines can decode such enclosures. If there is a GatorMail-Q bridge at the other end, it will automatically decode the enclosures. If a message includes a single enclosure in BinHex format, i.e. of type "TEXT" and creator "BnHq", GatorMail-Q will not perform any encoding. There is also a settable option to prevent GatorMail -Q from encoding any single enclosure that is of type "TEXT", regard- less of creator. I have no connection with Starnine or CE Software other than being a very satisfied customer and beta tester. Wolfgang N. Naegeli Oak Ridge National Laboratory Internet: wnn@ornl.gov Bitnet: wnn@ornlstc Phone: 615-574-6143 Fax: 615-574-3895