The Aldridge Company

Home Company Client Services IT Services Internet Solutions FAQs Contact Us

FAQs

Please click on any topic listed below for more information about it.

If you have a technical question that you'd like to see explained here, please email us.

The Layman's Explanation of Email
Demystifying Some Internet Services: Differences between Connectivity, Email, and Web Site Hosting
Can I get my mail on a web browser?
Someone else is using my email address (Spoofing)
I'm not getting email that is sent to me
I am getting my mail just fine, but I can't send it
Undeliverable Mail
Virus Protection in emails

The Layman's Explanation of Email:

Here's the way one person explains what is happening with email. "I don't know if this is technically accurate, but it helped me to understand what is happening with email and therefore to be able to know what to put in each blank when I am setting up email.

"A user of any computer in the world that is already connected to the Internet can cause that computer to identify a server which is also connected to the Internet. And, if the user has an account name and password valid on that server, the user can access that server.

"That's what you are doing when you get your email. The server you get your email mail from is always the same server. Therefore, you will always use at home, at the office, and anywhere else the name of the Incoming Mail Server provided by your email provider. (It will look something like: mail.aldridge.com) Specifying this server allows you to GET your mail.

"Then think about this. To send mail from a computer which is connected to the Internet, the mail has to go through some server to get out to the Internet. The first server it goes through is the one that provides you the connection account to the Internet, right?

"Therefore, the SMTP (Outgoing Mail Server) has to be the server of your Internet connection account - therefore you need to use your ISPs SMTP server."

In most instances, when you have obtained your dialup, ISDN, or DSL connection from The Aldridge Company, the Outgoing Mail Server will be the same as the Incoming Mail Server.

In addition to offering Internet connection and email accounts, The Aldridge Company offers network support, managed outsourcing, server co-location, and other services to aid in your computer use at your office. Please contact us if we may be of assistance.

Return To Top

Demystifying Some Internet Services: Differences between Connectivity, Email, and Web Site Hosting

The Aldridge Company provides Internet and networking services from the simplest dialup analog connection account to managing servers hosted in our Network Operating Center for individual companies and for ISPs with thousands of dialup customers.

Many times people do not understand the difference between connection accounts, email and websites.

Connectivity
A connection account is what connects your PC to the Internet. You can be connected via a modem and a dialup phone line or by broadband connectivity like DSL, cable (RoadRunner for example) or by T1 or higher bandwidth. If you obtain your connectivity from The Aldridge Company, we will have given you a user name, password, and telephone number to put in your computer or your broadband equipment configuration. A specific server connected to the Internet keeps all the information it needs in order to cause your computer to access the Internet. That's why you have to be precise with your user name and password.

Email
Email, on the other hand, is the electronic mail that you write to someone or that someone writes to you. Email that has been set up by us comes in to a server managed by The Aldridge Company and waits there until your computer connects to that email server over the Internet.

The connection to our email server is completed by using a user name and password combination that we gave to you for email (sometimes the username/password will be the same as your dialup username/password). Also, you will have been given a server name (the POP3 server or Incoming Mail Server). When you connect to that Incoming Mail Server, your email is accessible. If you don't have the server name (like mail.aldridge.com) AND the user name AND the password correct, you cannot access your email because the Internet doesn't know where to go to get it.

Website Hosting
The hosting of your website may be on an entirely different server. The mechanism that makes sure that when your domain name is typed, the visitor is presented with your website content is called Name Service, also known as Domain Name Service (DNS). When name service is not present, your website content cannot be displayed. The Aldridge Company sets up DNS when you hire us to do website hosting and that's what makes your site visible to the rest of the Internet. No user names and passwords are required to see your website content unless you have specifically set up authentication for all or some part of your site.

Both email and website hosting are completely independent of your connection to the Internet. That is, you can have an email account and/or a website even if you don't have any internet connectivity. Until you have an Internet connection account, you won't be able to see your email your website, but it is still there.

So! Let us know how we did. Does this clarify these three kinds of Internet Services?

We welcome your questions or concerns. Just email or give us a call!

In addition to offering Internet connection, website hosting, and email accounts, The Aldridge Company offers network support, managed outsourcing, server co-location, and other services to aid in your computer use at your office. Please contact us if we may be of assistance.

Return To Top

Email: Can I get my mail on a web browser?

Getting email via a web browser
When you have email services with The Aldridge Company we want it to be as seamless and trouble free as possible. However, there are times when you leave your computer behind and still want to check your mail. Or perhaps you travel with your laptop? If you need to check your mail out of your office or home, you may do so using a web browser.

So long as you have a connection to the Internet, now you can get your mail from a web browser.

For Web Based Email go to http://webmail.aldridge.com

Note: There are other servers on the Net that do this as well - it doesn't have to be run through ours, but this is how you get to our web mail site.

Fill in the three blanks with the information requested.

Your user name is also called Account Name in Outlook. The password is the password given to you when you set up your account. The server is the Incoming or POP3 Mail Server given to you when you set up your account.

Click on Log In at the very bottom of the page. If email is in your box, it will display a list on the screen. Click the underlined subject to open the email and follow the rest of the options to reply etc.

The Aldridge Company strives to make Internet Services "forgetable." We don't expect to hear from you because we expect things to be working correctly for you. However, if you experience difficulty with your email or connectivity provided by The Aldridge Company, please call us right away.

Our experienced technical staff will be happy to try to identify your problem, provide assistance over the telephone if possible, and, if not, arrange for a technician to visit you to get you back up and running.

Please let us hear from you if you need assistance.

Return To Top

Email Spoofing/Someone is using my e-mail address

Email spoofing occurs when someone uses your email address in the "From:" field of their email. There is nothing you can do to stop spoofing from occurring. If you'll notice, when you set up your email, you could just as easily appear to be bill gates or bob or mickeymouse just by changing the identity that shows up on the "From:" line in your email program. That's spoofing.

Most of the time, this occurs when spammers want to send out email to a huge list, but they don't want to get rejected email messages for the bad addresses. They use one of your email addresses so those rejected emails will come to YOUR inbox.

There may be a way to keep those non-useful email addresses from coming to you. If you have had email serviced by The Aldridge Company for a good while, it is possible it was set up so that "anything"@yourdomain.com is a good email address.

Now that spammers are learning more and more about taking advantage of email, this setup can actually increase the amount of spam you receive. If you wish, we can eliminate the master email account and set up only those addresses that you need to use. Then junk mail that was sent to miscellaneous "wrong" addresses will be rejected by the server, and you'll never see it. If you'd like to check on your email status, please call or email support@aldridge.com.

In addition to offering Internet connection and email accounts, The Aldridge Company offers network support, managed outsourcing, server co-location, web site hosting, and other services to aid in your computer use at your office. Please contact us if we may be of assistance.

Return To Top

I'm not getting email that is sent to me

Email: Why isn't my mail getting to me ?
The Aldridge Company filters email for the most egregious spam. Spam is the unwanted "junk" mail that is unsolicited and often offensive. Each day, servers operated by The Aldridge Company reject about 150,000 spam email messages. We have rejected as many as 700,000 messages in one day.

To reject spam we rely on one or more lists used on the Internet that keep track of spammers. The spam filters that we use reject messages that:

are coming from servers that have been known to be used for spam,
are coming from servers that are open relays which allow spammers to use their servers, and
are from spam sources themselves.

Thus, if mail is being returned to your correspondents as "Undeliverable" and your email address is accurate, spam may be the reason.

The reality is that some improperly configured servers allow spammers to use them without meaning to and sometimes without knowing they are allowing it. However, all the legitimate business people using that same server for their email accounts are affected.

Thus, if mail addressed to you is being rejected and spam is the reason, it behooves the sender to contact their ISP or system administrator and request that their server be fixed to eliminate the spam problem. This usually means they must request their ISP to take the steps necessary to be removed from the realtime blackhole list (which is a list The Aldridge Company) uses to filter email.) Your correspondent (or his ISP or system administrator) can go to the headers in the email and locate the list that is blocking their mail.

We can point out the specific language in rejected email that should be used by the sender (who is attempting to get mail sent to you) so they can notify their ISP. If you would like help, please call us. We will ask you to forward to us the exact message that your sender received notifying him that the mail did not get delivered to you.

Possible Solutions
One way to receive mail from an "offending" sender is to set up a free email account on, for example, yahoo or hotmail. These servers, as of this writing, do not test for spam the same way we do. Your correspondent can probably send their messages to such an email account without a problem.

Alternatively, you may request the sender to send the "Undeliverable" or "Returned" email message to abuse@aldridge.com. If you request assistance in this way, please call our technical staff at 713-403-9150 to notify them that you have done so. He'll make sure that you hear from us once we have determined what the solution is.

Other ways to "fix" the problem are from our end.
We can set up a new email address for you to use without any spam filtering on it. Then when a correspondent can't email your primary account, you can give them the email address that all email can come to. If you are judicious in your distribution of this email account, you may be able to keep it relatively clear of spam for a good while. The other option The Aldridge Company can do for you is to take your email off the spam filter list. We'll do this for you for free, however, making this change will allow any and all email messages coming to you (including all spam) to be delivered to your inbox. If you select this option and then change your mind, there is an email change fee to put you back on the list that rejects spam.

And finally, if you have had email serviced by The Aldridge Company for a good while, it is possible it was set up so that "anything"@yourdomain.com is a good address. Now that spammers are learning more and more about taking advantage of email, this setup can actually increase the amount of spam you receive. If you wish, we can eliminate the master email account and set up only those addresses that you need to use. Then junk mail to miscellaneous "wrong" addresses will be rejected by the server and won't affect you. If you'd like to check on your email status, please call or email support@aldridge.com.

There is no way to eliminate spam altogether, however, The Aldridge Company is dedicated to keeping its servers configured in a way to minimize spam as much as possible.

Please advise if we can be of assistance with your email or the other services that we offer.

Return To Top

I am getting my mail just fine, but I can't send it.

Email: Why can't I send email?
Email is composed of two parts. The incoming server holds your email until you check it. The Aldridge Company provides your incoming mail server.

When you send mail, the mail departs your system through the ISP from whom you receive Internet connectivity. The Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP server) is provided by the company from whom you get your Internet access such as Road Runner, SWBell DSL, ev1.net, Hic.net, The Aldridge Company, etc.

You must check your records or check with your Internet provider for their SMTP server. Once you have their server name, make sure their server is listed in your email program under SMTP-Outgoing mail server.

If The Aldridge Company provides your Internet connectivity (either an analog dialup account or ISDN logon account), then your SMTP Outgoing mail server can be the same as your Incoming mail server.

For example, in Outlook Express, you would go to Tools, Accounts, Mail, and then after highlighting the email account, choose Properties and the Server tab. Type the Outgoing mail server in the blank provided. Close and exit, then close Outlook Express. If that does not work, we recommend rebooting your computer, and trying again. If it still does not work, call your Internet Service Provider and verify the SMTP settings with them.

If your email stops COMING to you, then call The Aldridge Company for assistance.

We appreciate your business.

Return To Top

Undeliverable Mail

If you have attempted to send email to one of our clients and received a message indicating Returned Mail or Undeliverable Mail, look at the message for a reason for its return.

If it says "Please contact The Aldridge Company for help," please forward that Undeliverable email as an attachment to abuse@aldridge.com. Once we receive your email, we will contact you and our client to explain the solution.

The message may look something like the following.

-----SAMPLE----
>>> 05/15/03 09:41AM >>>

The message that you sent was undeliverable to the following:

Linda@theircompany.com (550 5.0.0 ...

Mail
from 209.248.157.210.nw.nuvox.net 209.248.157.210 Refused (triplecrown)
- Please contact www.aldridge.com/undeliver.html for help.)

-----END OF SAMPLE----

Return To Top

Virus Protection

The Aldridge Company is pleased to offer virus protection.

The climate of international electronic terrorism within which we are all forced to do business is unlike any that we have seen in the eighteen-year history of The Aldridge Company. Consequently, we have implemented a significantly higher level of virus protection, which we call the Virus Interception Program (VIP).

Our Virus Interception Program (VIP) is a gateway-level email scanning solution. It is designed to protect individuals and corporate networks from email-borne computer viruses by sending all incoming email attachments through the industry's leading virus scanning packages.

Email messages sent from the Internet to your company are first directed to the VIP server. When messages arrive at the server, they are analyzed to see if they contain a virus. If a virus is detected, VIP quarantines the original email message and sends a notification to the sender and the intended recipient. The recipient can retrieve the original message from the quarantine site or leave it for automatic deletion after 14 days.

The Aldridge Company Business website hosting accounts offer our virus interception program which:

Intercepts email viruses in email attachments before they get to your computer.
Scans for viruses based on virus definitions which are updated.
Twice daily.
Notifies you that an incoming mail has a virus.
Displays the message on a web browser without downloading to your computer.
Notifies the sender that he has sent a virus.
May require a one-time configuration of the POP3, incoming mail server, on your computer(s).

Customers using the Virus Interception Program understand and agree that:

VIP cannot decrypt encrypted email (PGP or other) to scan for viruses.
The VIP firewall won't prevent viruses if you are the first people to get the virus (i.e. the virus is brand new and no defense is yet conceived).
The firewall won't prevent viruses for which the virus definition is not yet available to our servers.
The firewall has no effect on viruses introduced in any way other than email.
Either party may opt out of the program at any time.
The Aldridge Company will notify the customer prior to terminating the service.
Customer will advise The Aldridge Company if they wish to terminate.
The Aldridge Company offers this service without any guarantees.

If your email accounts are not being scanned, please contact us for more information.

Return To Top

Home Company Client Services IT Services Internet Solutions FAQs Contact Us Site Map