MDaemon 15.5We've just put the latest major iteration of MDaemon Messaging Server live on our web site. Along with a long list of minor tweaks it includes some great new features for both admins and users alike. In this post I briefly highlight the new additions I think you'll find most interesting, including a real breakthrough for Mac users and further enhancements to the email encryption features. As always, this is just our highlights, a comprehensive list of all new features and enhancements can be viewed in the MDaemon Release Notes.

Windows 10Unless you've been living on a remote island for the last couple of weeks, and also covering up your Windows task bar every time you use your computer, you probably know that Windows 10 is now available to the masses. Yes, Microsoft's new flagship desktop O/S is upon us in all of it's glory. It'll take some time to see whether the hype was justified, and of course to discover the new features (and quirks), but if you've already upgraded or are thinking about doing so, you'll no doubt be keen to know how it interacts with our products. In this update I'll detail what level of support (if any) is currently offered for each of the products we distribute.

It's not often we promote events that aren't actually our own on the blog, however this particular one is national , it's free and it's aimed specifically at IT support companies and MSP's like you who want to make your business more profitable. It's also the brainchild of the highly acclaimed IT Marketing Agency and industry expert Richard Tubb, both of whom stole the show at our recent partner event so we have no doubt it'll be of the usual high calibre and well worth your valuable time. Visiting Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester and London, the specific aims of the roadshow are to help you: 
  • Use vendor partnerships to better meet the needs of your customers
  • Develop and execute a go-to-market strategy to help your business develop fast
  • Increase business with sales and revenue strategies for high growth

These days we all expect our email to work flawlessly when we're outside of the office, regardless of how we're connected. Occasionally though, a change of connection is all it takes to cause issues. In this post I take a quick look at why, if you connect to your own mail server using an SMTP connection (not applicable to ActiveSync users) from your mobile device, laptop or even desktop machine, you might experience problems with sending email. Oh, and what you can do about it of course!

With the EoL deadline for Windows Server 2003 fast approaching, decisions over operating system upgrades and in particular, whether or not to stick with Microsoft Exchange, are currently high up on the agenda for many small businesses. For alternatives to Exchange such as MDaemon Messaging Server (voted number one alternative by 'Spiceheads') now is the time to shine. With that in mind, we're running a flash sale for one month to give you a wee incentive to take a look at MDaemon for yourself and to download the free 30-day trial.

To the unfamiliar, the 'Reverse Lookup' might sound like something you'd see in one of Tom Daley's diving routines. However in email and DNS terms, it's an essential security check which can dramatically reduce the amount of spam you're seeing. It's also one of those many tricky DNS areas that causes confusion so I hope this post will help demystify it a little.

In order for any users to log in to email archiving software MailStore Server, a local 'MailStore' user account needs to exist. You could simply just manually create users, entering usernames and passwords individually. However for any installation with more than a handful of users, as you can probably imagine, that can soon end up becoming a pain. For this reason, MailStore includes the directory services feature to synchronise local accounts with an external user list which is what I'm going to cover in this post.

With the recent Panda Antivirus signature problem still fresh in my mind, and as a fair few of our support calls continue to be antivirus related, I thought you might find it useful if I share some of the antivirus issues we see regularly tripping customers up. Of course every software vendor professes their product incorporates the latest and greatest protection technology. When you're working out what to use as a Systems Administrator however, it's also important to think beyond that and specifically about how your proposed solution will interact with other applications in your network environment. These are a handful of the areas we find usually end up resulting in a support call.