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During August 2001 I made several changes to the site, most of which were to make people aware
of the disabling of the sendmail option on the CGI-BIN server. I also added a free Web-based
email account service using the SP-Aces.com (Spaceports Aces) domain.
New Ad Policy
A newsletter was sent out by Spaceports at the beginning of July describing a new advertisement
policy that was to come into effect (which it now has).
If you missed this for some reason, a copy was posted in the Comments from the Dev Team
section of the Spaceports Forum.
Sendmail Disabled
I'm not sure exactly when this happened, but I think it was late June or early July that the
sendmail facility of the CGI-BIN server was disabled due to abuse by certain users.
I'm afraid that this seems to be another case of a few unthinking users spoiling things for
those that do act reasonably.
Whether the option will be enabled again will likely depend on how reasonably the remaining
services are used (or abused).
Sendmail Alternatives
There are several alternatives to using sendmail, depending on your needs. Here are a few
suggestions for alternatives to contact forms:-
- Use a remotely hosted form script
- Use a mailto: link
- Ask visitors to contact you directly via email
- Adapt a guestbook script so that the message is stored (somewhere protected) rather than sent
via email
Update: I have updated the tutorials for installing the BNBForm script so that
it can be used to send messages to a file instead of via email. I have been unable to test it
myself, so any feedback from those that have managed to get it to work after the modifications
would be appreciated. See the Script section for more
info.
If your needs are more complex, you might want to consider using a remote CGI host. There
are many that offer remotely hosted ready made scripts, and several that host scripts of your
own.
You can find lists of these at Hotscripts and CGI Resource Index
Now the good news...
Although recent events have made me a little warier of offering such a service, I am making free
Web-based email accounts available to Spaceports users. Others can use the service too, but
an @sp-aces.com email address would obviously be less meaningful for them.
For more details, see the Free Email page on this site.
You can now also access this site using the URL of
www.sp-aces.com, as well as www.sphelp.com and io.spaceports.com/~wysardry/ - which may save you some
typing if you have not bookmarked the site for some strange reason.
New Pages
Other than the email pages mentioned above, I have also added three new pages to the Web section:-
- Spam
- What spam is, and how to avoid sending or receiving it.
Traffic- A look at the alternatives available for getting extra traffic to your site -
legitimately.
Honesty- The importance of honesty for site owners.
Next Update
I'm not sure when the next update will be, but I'm hoping to add several articles to the Web
section, and possibly go into more detail about the alternatives to using sendmail.
I will also let people know how well the new email service is working out.
If anyone has a specific topic they would like me to cover in the future, let me know.
There is a link to the contact page at the bottom of every page.
Please bear in mind that it is not easy for me to install new CGI or PHP scripts as I'm still
not online very often.
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