POP3 & IMAP mail server upgrade

We are transitioning POP3 and IMAP email accounts to new servers between May 26, 2015 and July 14, 2015. We will transition groups of customers throughout these dates, with all customers fully migrated by the end date. We launched our new email services for POP3 and IMAP at the end of December 2014, and some users may already be using these services.

This does not apply to Exchange users.

POP3 and IMAP services are not recommended email services for business users, firstly because today users invariably want to synchronise multiple devices with email accounts, and neither POP3 nor IMAP were designed for the eventuality that business users would commonly connect up to 5 devices to individual email accounts simultaneously.  Secondly, since Microsoft has moved its flagship Exchange email solution into a Cloud environment, Microsoft Exchange is available as a component of Office 365 at costs of as little as £2.50/mo. Microsoft Exchange is the solution of choice for public sector and corporate organisations, and provides reliable services that benchmark today’s expectations for email delivery. You can compare services here.

Although we are not actively selling the POP3 and IMAP solution any longer, we are providing support throughout customer renewal cycles until 2016 – 2017. New services include language translation, calendaring, and online address books.

Some preparatory work has already been undertaken, and migrations are now in progress.

You can continue to access and use your mailbox normally, but you may not have access to all of the data in your mailbox as it is being migrated (depending on your Internet Service Provider the DNS changes to our new email servers might take up to 48 hours).

How do I know if my services still have to be migrated?

POP3 and IMAP users who are not resolving to server address mail2.name-services.com are still in the process of migration. When services resolve to this new server address, migration will be complete. You can check the current status of your domain by entering your domain in the lookup field here and clicking “mxlookup” for the result.

Note: the DNS changes do not pertain to your domain; they are DNS changes pertaining to new email servers. However, some POP and IMAP email clients may need to be reconfigured should email clients fail to connect following substitution of services.

What kind of content will be moved to the new email provider?

Everything. All of your email (including IMAP folders), attachments, calendar events (including past and recurring events), contacts and other items such as autoreplies, filters, signatures and white lists.

Do I need to change any settings on my current email client or webmail?

Apple Mac users, IMAP accounts, and POP accounts that incorporate email forwarding or other customizations will need to change settings on their current email client. If you use webmail to access your email, you should continue to access your email via http://webmail.yourdomain.com/

In case it is necessary to amend email client configuration, customers should contact us for help. Alternately, IT managers and admins can update nameservers as follows:

[table id=BulkR_IMAP /]

WordPress update error

When updating to a new version of WordPress, the installation hangs and system returns the following message when users attempt to view the public web site:

Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.

In WordPress dashboard, the screenshot below shows how WP hangs at “copying required files” when updating to a new WordPress version:

wordpress update error

Cause of the Maintenance Message

During an automatic upgrade, WordPress places a file in the blog root directory called “.maintenance” to prevent visitors from being confronted with ugly, broken pages during the upgrade process. That’s a great little built-in feature, but if the upgrade gets interrupted or fails for any reason, that file doesn’t get deleted and nobody, including you, can access your blog. No worries, this is (most likely) the simplest fix on Earth.

Removing the Maintenance Message

Delete the .maintenance file from WP’s root directory. In this example, WordPress in installed in \public_html\:

deleting corrupt file

Email signatures in Office 365

Email signatures are included at the end of emails to disclose contact information like trading names, addresses, and other useful contact information. Signatures are created individually for email accounts. Users who rely on desktop clients like Outlook should create email signatures using Outlook. Users who manage email should create signatures in Outlook Web Access (OWA) should create their signatures in OWA. Users who use both Outlook and OWA should create signatures in both Outlook and OWA.

This article shows how to create a signature using OWA. Follow these steps:

– log into Office 365 at http://mail.office365.com

– open the apps dashboard on the left of the toolbar and click open Mail in the dropdown menu

dashboard mail

– next, click open the setting icon on right side of the toolbar, and click ope “Options” in the dropdown menu:

365 options

– look down the options in the next page and click open “Signatures”. Complete the signatures using the editing tools. Also, depending on the operating system you use, you may be able to copy and paste content from Word. Save the the signature when completed.

click open email signature

 

Exchange – room and equipment resources

A “Resource” is a “contact” in an Exchange/Outlook Calendar that represents a room or a piece of equipment. In the same way that a person can have an email address and can be assigned to meetings, rooms and equipment can be treated the same way in Exchange.

Equipment can include anything from a mobile phone to a fleet vehicle.

Resources are established by an Exchange administrator by creating a unique name and assigning an email address to the resource. Users who have access to Exchange can access a resource list to create a meeting and they can “invite” the resource to the meeting just like setting up a meeting with a person. Network administrators are needed to create and configure resource accounts because these kinds of accounts are created and managed in Exchange Active Directory, which requires expert knowledge.

If the resource is available for a “meeting”, it can be reserved by the user. That resource is then removed from the list of available resources until its “meeting” is finished. If the resource is already reserved for a meeting, it cannot be used. Values can be attached to resources, too. For instance, a limit can be set so that a room can only accept a maximum number of people at a meeting. Also, equipment limits can be set so that a laptop can only be in use once.

The system is scalable and can cope with large volumes and types of resources including equipment. Universities use Exchange resource accounts to manage their rooms and equipment distribution on campus.

Outlook’s includes a scheduling assistant which graphically charts availability of resources.

There are two kinds of resource mailboxes:

1. Room mailboxes –  A room mailbox is a resource mailbox that’s assigned to a physical location, such as a conference room, an auditorium, or a training room. After an administrator creates room mailboxes, users can easily reserve rooms by including room mailboxes in meeting requests.

2. Equipment mailboxes –  An equipment mailbox is a resource mailbox assigned to a resource that’s not location specific, such as a portable computer, projector, microphone, or a company car. After an administrator creates an equipment mailbox, users can easily reserve the piece of equipment by including the corresponding equipment mailbox in a meeting request.

Resources can be reserved in a calendar using Outlook Web Access or with desktop installed versions of Outlook. If other users need to see resource usage, consider shared calendars or group calendars. Once you have decided how to organize your calendar, follow these steps for OWA or Outlook client for desktop.

1. Reserving rooms resources using Outlook Web Access (OWA)

– log in to OWA at http://mail.office365 using your email address and password.
– click down the app menu, and then click on Calendar, as this screenshot shows:

1 OWA dashboard

– in Calendar, click “new” to create a new event:

2 _new_calendar_event

– Fill in the form, making sure the event is something that is meaningful when viewed in the calendar. There are two ways to reserve a location or a room. Firstly, you can click the “add room” button to display the room resource available. Secondly, you can click open the Scheduling assistant to find a view of resources that are already committed to meetings. The scheduling assistant is useful because it show what resources might already be reserved when you want to use it. You can add rooms using the scheduling assistant.

You can reserve rooms and equipment for one meeting. To add equipment, you must select it from the “attendees” button which sits behind the dropdown menu in the illustration below. When you have finished creating your event, be sure to click “save”.

3_room_resource

2. Reserving equipment resourcing using Outlook Web Access (OWA)

The process for reserving equipment resources differs from the method for reserving rooms. Firstly, there is not a button like the “add room button illustrated above. Instead, equipment is selected from the attendees button which you can see in the illustration below. Lastly, equipment cannot be selected in the scheduling assistant, although the scheduling assistant lists equipment which is being used. Unless you are sure the equipment you want is available for a meeting, you should always check the scheduling assistant to save work.

4_select_equipment

Note that in this example, a room resource has already been assigned to the meeting. The location reserved is Workshop 1, and the room is included in the “Attendees” field. Also, the “add room” button has changed to “change room”. When you select equipment, it will be added to “Attendees”.

When you have finished creating your event, be sure to click “save”. You will receive an email either accepting or declining the event. Events are usually declined because of conflicts, or because the reservation duration or date falls outside the scope of scheduling.

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