E-mail Changes Coming Soon
E-mail has become a vital, often mission critical function for all of our companies. Using professional e-mail addresses and maintaining responsiveness to e-mail is a basic requirement in business today.
A year and a half ago, we upgraded our e-mail servers to eliminate viruses from arriving via e-mail through our servers*. This was a tremendous success. We also added Spam Assassin to our servers and set it to label suspected SPAM in the subject line. This has helped many of our customers manage their SPAM more effectively, allowing them to set up a rule in their e-mail program to move labeled e-mail to a separate SPAM or Junk folder.
Unfortunately, SPAM, virus, worm, spyware and other malware e-mail have not gone away. It is estimated that today at least 70% of all e-mails circulating on the Internet are either malware or SPAM. We do not anticipate the level of SPAM circulating on the Internet to decrease. And, implementations of new e-mail protocols which may eliminate SPAM are still years in the future.
Recently, some of you have noticed delays in your outgoing e-mail and have seen some error messages when trying to send or receive e-mail. These situations are a result of the sheer volume of SPAM and malware emails our server is handling. We use the same e-mail server as our customers, so we too see the errors, experience the delays, and understand the frustrations they cause.
We have tried several techniques over the past few months to alleviate these problems. But nothing has produced the level of success we wanted. Recognizing we needed a new plan for tackling the problem, we decided to establish a new e-mail server with significant hardware and software upgrades. The new server is undergoing final testing and we will begin moving customers to it in the next week. We plan to have all of our customers moved to the new e-mail server before the end of the year.
What will this mean to you?
Our new e-mail server ? your e-mail server ? will continue to screen out all e-mail containing viruses, worms etc. and will not allow them to pass through to you. As now, you should not receive any e-mail containing a virus. In the event you do receive such an e-mail, please let us know immediately.
SPAM will be treated a bit differently. You should see a decrease in the SPAM, which arrives in your e-mail. (I would say you will see a dramatic decrease, but each of us has our own tolerance levels for SPAM and "dramatic" may mean something different to you than to me.) We will continue to keep you updated as we work on reducing the SPAM you see and making it easier for you to manage the SPAM, which gets through.
Barring "acts of God" or other unforseen circumstances, the investment we have made in this new e-mail server should make using your e-mail account hosted with Graphics and Motion the simple, reliable, and pain free experience it should be. That is our commitment to you.
What do we need from you?
Before we can move our customers to the new server, we will ask you to review a list of e-mail addresses. You will need to verify which e-mail addresses are being used, which can be deleted, and whether you need any new addresses to be set up. We will also ask you to provide us with passwords desired for ALL e-mail addresses. (You may not be able to keep the same password you have now - all passwords must have at least eight characters to include: at least one uppercase letter, at least one lowercase letter, and at least one numeral.) We will need these lists reviewed and returned to us within a day or two at most to meet our schedule.
When we are ready to move your e-mail accounts to the new server, we will advise you of the procedure and provide a list of the e-mail addresses with finalized passwords. You will only need to update your e-mail client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Entourage, etc.) with the new SMTP and POP server names and verify the username and password are correct. We will provide a link to online step-by-step instructions in addition to telephone support as necessary.
Don't worry, we will be there to help you with any problems you have with changing your e-mail setup.
*Note: The anti-virus software we have installed on our e-mail server is only one part of keeping your computer virus-free. We strongly recommend each computer in your office or at home run one of the commercially available anti-virus and anti-adware programs. To make sure these programs are effective, you need to maintain the subscription and confirm they are regularly updating their virus dictionary. See your technical support advisor for assistance with this.
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Betsy is Gone
Betsy Birdsell is no longer on staff at Graphics & Motion, so please remember to send any requests for support or service to support@gmotion.com. This will result in a quick response by the most qualified staff member. Immediate contact or a call back is always available by calling 901-795-1387 ext. 2 for Customer Care.
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Interested in Video E-mail,
Chat or Video on Your Website?
We have been introduced to a fantastic new service which makes video e-mail, video chat and using video on your website as easy as using AOL. If you are interested in learning more about this service, please send an e-mail to video@gmotion.com and we will be in touch with more information.
Interested in Offsite Backup?
Some of us keep our computers and servers backed up regularly. Daily and weekly backups are both recommended. The rest of us are risking the loss of significant data, our e-mail archives, document files and more in the event of a hard drive crash, fire, tornado, flood, or earthquake.
If you are interested in learning more about automatic, redundant secure off-site backup for your computers or servers, please send an e-mail to sales@gmotion.com and we will be in touch with more information.
Update Your Address Books
Graphics and Motion has a new FAX number, so take a moment and make sure your address book information is correct.
Graphics and Motion, Inc.
3125 South Mendenhall, Suite 301,
Memphis, TN 38115
Phone: 901-795-1387
FAX: 901-531-8240
E-mail:
support@gmotion.com
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During this holiday season, all of us at Graphics & Motion, Inc. want to take a moment to thank our customers for your business. Your website and e-mail service are an important part of your business or organization. We honor that responsibility and your trust, and are committed to helping you maximize your return on investment in your website. We want to hear from you whenever you have a question or are interested in expanding your use of the Internet for marketing, communications and distribution.