MH1 Web Design Blog

Many of you using MH1 Web Hosting are receiving false emails disguised as support emails generated by our technical staff. Do not click on the enclosed link or reply if you receive one of these emails.

If you click on the link you will verify that you are a live email address and they will send you more spam on a regular basis. The link could also download harmful spyware or viruses to your computer. Please delete these malicious emails immediately.

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Dear user of the mh1webdesign.com mailing service!

We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service your mailbox (yourname@mh1webdesign.com) settings were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings click on the following link:

http://mh1webdesign.com/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=mike@mh1webdesign.com&from=mh1webdesign.com&fromname=mike

Best regards, mh1webdesign.com Technical Support.

Letter ID#491173EN5DYG6U2BE2F

by Mike Hallaron, owner, MH1 Web Design

Just a quick update on the recent service interruptions some of our hosting customers have experienced lately. My hosting technology team is working on a solution to prevent this problem from reoccurring. I apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your steadfast patience.

While the issue is not directly related to your email accounts, it certainly affects your email service. Most of you with this problem are not able to login to the MH1 mail server and receive incoming mail. This is evident in your email program requesting your “network password.”

In the meantime, as we continue to work with our hosting technology provider to solve this persisting problem, please ask everyone on your team using a POP3 mail account and 2003/2007Microsoft Outlook to recheck their personal account settings, as follows:

For Outlook 2003/2007

1. Click Tools then E-mail Accounts…
2. Select “View or change existing e-mail accounts” and click Next
3. Select your MH1 email account and click Change
4. Click on “More settings”
5. Select “Outgoing Server” tab
6. Tick “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication”
7. Select “Use same settings as my incoming email server”
8. Click Ok
9. Press Next
10. Lastly, press Finish

Once these steps are done, try to send/receive again. Please contact us if you experience other problems. 1-877-354-5898 or (281) 362-2884.

Thanks again for your patience.

Internet Message Access Protocol (commonly known as IMAP or IMAP4) allows a local client to access e-mail on a remote server. It is one of the email protocols offered with MH1 Web Hosting, although rarely used. IMAP supports both connected (online) and disconnected (offline) modes of operation. E-mail clients using IMAP generally leave messages on the server until the user explicitly deletes them. This allows multiple clients to access the same mailbox. Outlook and most popular e-mail clients support either POP3 or IMAP to retrieve messages; however, fewer Internet Service Providers (ISPs) support IMAP.

What’s wrong with IMAP?

Nothing. It just depends on what you require from your email client and whether your host has the storage and bandwidth resources to support IMAP. E-mail messages are usually sent to an e-mail server that stores received messages in the recipient’s e-mail mailbox. The user retrieves messages with either a web browser (aka webmail) or an e-mail client (MS Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora) that uses one of a number of e-mail retrieval protocols, such as POP3 or IMAP.

The biggest drawback with using IMAP is that because emails are stored on the host server instead of downloaded locally to your hard drive, your hosting account storage/disk space quota can quickly fill up. This can cause your account to freeze up and temporarily disable other business email accounts using the same domain. IMAP users need either Enterprise-level hosting with massive amounts of available disk space storage or great self-discipline about deleting old emails.

In almost all cases, MH1 Web Hosting customers will be better served using POP3 and or webmail to manage business email accounts. Of our POP3 customers, more than 90% use MS Outlook or Outlook Express. Many clients are now choosing to use alias or forwarder email addresses in combination with Google’s excellent, free Gmail webmail service. Yahoo’s free email while still popular lags behind Gmail in the breadth of easy to learn and use services. And Yahoo’s spam filtering haphazardly routes emails you want into the spam/bulk folder too frequently for our taste. When using an alias email address, any incoming email is instantly routed to your Gmail, Yahoo or other email account of choice. Most programs let you select the email address recipients see when you send or reply to emails, so your clients only see your business email address. This is easier than it sounds to set up and in most cases, MH1 Web Hosting staff help walk you through the process and set up required. Just ask us for help.

MH1 Web Hosting is used almost solely by our business customers as opposed to a large number of anonymous general hosting customers. Bulk hosting is not a part of our business model. Host plans are fitted specifically to your needs. Maintenance and set up support are handled one-on-one with a telephone call. This kind of personal hosting customer service is very rare these days and something treasured by most of our clients.

Please contact MH1 Web Hosting with questions about IMAP, POP3 or webmail options.

by Mike Hallaron, MH1 Web Design

Email scams are as old as the Internet. Recently, we have received another round of a familiar phishing scam under the guise of a Google AdWords customer billing email. Those of you operating an AdWords account need to be aware before falling prey to this trick in the confusion and turning over your credit card or other vital financial information.

Here is how it works

You receive an email from “Google AdWords”, the popular pay-per-click tool. The subject line reads something like “Your AdWords Google Account is stopped”.  The email message reads like this:

Dear Advertiser,We were unable to process your payment.
Your ads will be suspended soon unless we can process your payment.
To prevent your ads from being suspended, please update your payment information.Please sign in to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login,
and update your payment information.Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords.This is a common “phishing” ploy. Simply defined, phishing is a fraudulent email claiming to be from PayPal, eBay, Google, Youtube or online banks that direct the recipient to a fake Web page in an attempt to trick him into entering sensitive account information or credit card details.

If you are uncertain, skip using the link provided in the suspect email and go straight to the Web site in question (google.com in this case) and login as normal. You might change your password and contact customer support about the mysterious email request to update your payment information.

Bottom line, if you get a link in any email asking you to update credit card or bank information, you should NOT click it no matter how real it looks or whose email address the notice appears to come from.

Phishing can be used against you in many ways and if successful can devastate your private finances and personal security. Be careful and contact MH1 Web Design if you are in doubt about any curious email request.

If we are managing a Google AdWords account for you, contact us with any related issues.

Houston/The Woodlands (713) 429-1746

MH1 Hosting customers can easily check email using one of the available web mail clients.

What is web mail?

Web mail is a web-based mail client you can use on any browser to access all your email. This is a great method for checking your business email when away from your office computer because it can be opened and read on any computer with Internet access. Email is typically checked using a desktop mail application such as Outlook or Outlook Express. MH1 Hostinf offers both Horde and Squirrelmail as available web-based mail clients. We prefer the Horde webmail interface but you can choose either program.

How to open your web mail account

1. Open a browser and in the address bar type your website address/webmail — e.g. www.billshardware.com/webmail.

2. You will be prompted to type in your login and password. Your login is your MH1 business email address and your password is the same one used in Outlook for your email account.

3. When the page loads, you will have the option to use either Horde or SquirrelMail as your web based email client. select “Horde”, then click “login”.

To learn about the Horde web based email client, visit the web site at http://www.horde.org/.