Mail2World Blog

Green IT & You

Hello World,

Every industry has environmental initiatives to reduce carbon footprint, waste, and use energy more efficiently. The IT industry achieves these initiatives through the use of Green IT. Mail2World and its customers received the benefits of Green IT daily through the use of Mail2World’s energy-efficient data centers, optimized hardware infrastructure, and by having the most efficient messaging solution available. 

There are many things a company could do to become “greener,” including implementing Mail2World’s green email services. Today I’ll be talking about our energy-efficient data centers, optimized hardware infrastructure and efficient mail application. Point is, by using Mail2World messaging services instead of an energy and hardware intensive in-house email systems, your company can reduce costs, consume less energy, and improve messaging experiences.

How are we Greener?
First let’s talk about servers, we wouldn’t be able to run our business without servers... yes, we love ours. Here at Mail2World, we use Dell’s latest servers with virtualization to maximize the server utilization and reduce power consumption. By keeping our hardware current we are able to ensure we’re always using the most efficient hardware which reduces energy consumption. When necessary we send old equipment to our business partners so they can recycle them in the most eco-friendly way possible.

Next, let’s discuss data centers. Mail2World has one of the most energy-efficient data centers around. The data centers we utilize are designed to operate at top performance per watt of power. Our data centers also promote cloud computing and virtualization, which all assist in reducing carbon footprint. Our data center utilizes hot and cold aisles to minimize cooling efforts and ensure equipment stay cool. The data center also provides free covers for open spaces between equipment that are placed on the front of equipment racks to maximize cold air to equipment. Our data center is over 100,000 square feet, so maximizing every square foot to efficiency is very important. The overall effect is a data center with very efficient cooling while minimizing carbon footprint.

Next, let’s discuss the data center’s high-tech lighting system. Mail2World’s data center has been equipped with a lighting system that operates with a timer and  motion sensors. Depending on the day and time of day the lights throughout the data center will be turned off automatically. During this time if someone is working within the data center they can go to a light control panel and turn the lights on for their work area.  The lights will stay on as long as there is motion detected within the area. There are several benefits to this system because less energy consumed by lights and cooling systems don’t have to work as hard to cool hot lights. It also ensures that lights are on only when and where needed.

Lastly, let’s discuss our messaging solution. Mail2World’s messaging solution uses optimized code to ensure fastest possible load times when viewing messages in webmail or downloading them via an email client. This means that our servers and network equipment are transmitting the least amount of data to your computer possible for you to have a rich user experience when using our solution. Ultimately your computer is consuming less energy because it processes less data when viewing messages.

Implementing the practices discussed above will ensure companies are protecting the environment and reducing the cost of doing business at the same time. Finally, because Mail2World already employs these practices, our customers can rest assured that their email provider is actively practicing “Green IT.”

Best,
Julian Tang
Sr. Network Manager

Safe Email Sending Practices

Hello World,

Today I wanted to discuss safe email sending practices. These are practices that will help prevent spam, the spreading of viruses, and help maintain your privacy. Some of these practices are essential for email users to employ so they aren’t flagged as a spammer by service providers or black listed by specific sites. Being identified as a spammer or black listed can prevent important messages from getting to the appropriate contacts. Not to say also bring you a lot of headaches in trying to get your services back online.
Safe Sending practices include:

Practice #1. Attachments- Always be cautious when downloading an attachment to your computer, attachments are one of the easiest ways to spread virus infected files to friends and colleagues.  Always ensure that you know who the sender is and that you were expecting an attached file from them.

•  Even if the user personally knows the sender email addresses can be spoofed via the address book of an infected computer. So be sure to let your friends know to expect an attachment from you and what it is.
• Be extra careful of zipped files or executable files (*.exe, *.inf, *.do*, *.bat, *.com, etc) that automatically download and run without your permission when you innocently click on the files for viewing.

 Practice #2. Preview- Some users prefer to use email clients such as Windows Mail to manage their email. The preview function within these programs can sometimes unwittingly run the code of an infected email message.

• Therefore, turn off automatic preview of attachments in a message so as to not risk infecting your computer. Mail2World provides a feature full Web-based email interface that can offer everything a mail client can.

Practice #3. Avoid Bulk Mailings- Mailing the same message to multiple recipients can trigger spam filters that will disable a user’s account. Mail2World recommends that emails being sent to multiple recipients be limited to anywhere from 10-15 recipients at a time.

Practice #4. Timing- Even if users were to limit bulk email messages to a low number of recipients, they must also allow enough time to elapse between mailings so that they are in no risk of triggering any spam filters that can tag a message as spam.

Practice #5. Provide a legitimate subject- Many spam mail clients (bots) send out mass, subject-less emails that trigger spam filters. These filters direct subject-less messages directly to the user’s spam folder (a.k.a “The Junk folder”). So be sure to include a descriptive subject title that is unique with every message you send out.

Practice #6. Suspicious Subject lines- Subject lines that are extremely short or vague are often tagged as spam if they go against some of the other guidelines mentioned above. Subject lines that offer something to good to be true like your two-million dollars or a letter to the family of the late Mr. “Whoever,” it usually uses the user’s last name. These types of subject lines trigger spam filters and may cause account deactivation. It is recommended that you avoid using similar subject lines.

The above suggestions are easy and simple precautions that users can take to avoid being tagged as spammers when using the Mail2World system. You can also use the above guidelines for all email systems.

What additional Safe Email sending practices do you use? Share them with us. Leave your comments below!

Best,
A.B.

Vacation-Set-Go! With Mail2World’s Auto- Responder

The month of April is now upon us and that means a few things: warmer weather, longer daylight hours, spring breaks and vacations. You all may not know this, but vacations are an important part of a healthy life balance, they help recharge your battery and in return you are more productive at work, school, or at home. But, to have a real vacation you need to get away from it all—all of it… including cell phones, email, and television.

Well, we can help you in at least one of those areas. Mail2World offers a world class auto-responder to answer messages that arrive in your inbox while on vacation. This will provide you with peace of mind when you can’t or won’t have access to your email every five minutes while on vacation. The Mail2World auto-responder offers the following features:

• Allow you to send a message to everyone who sends you a message.
• You also have the option to send the message only once per recipient.
• Send an auto-respond message to a pre-defined set of email addresses (recipient).

All you need to do to set up the auto-responder is:

1. Click on Options in the upper-right corner.
2. Under Mail Management, click on Mail Preferences.
3. Click on the Auto-reply Message link under the Mail Sending category.
4. Select your auto-reply message preferences mentioned earlier in the article.
5. Type your message in the appropriate field.
6. Click Save.

And that’s it, your auto response is now set up. Now, everybody go out and put it to good use. Let us know what you did or what your planning for your vacation in the comment section below.

Best,
-A.B.