[Gllug] ISPs (was RE: My dad)

[Nix]

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, Simon Wilcox moaned:
> Unavailable mail. Mailservers are frequently not available, returning
> AUTHFAIL to my fetchmail.

For values of `frequently' equal to `once, on Nov 20th--21st'. That was
because mail was being delivered to the wrong domains, and it was the
*only* such failure since Demon started.

Demon have many problems --- mushroom management of customers, appalling
PR, dismal business sales, constantly dicky routing --- but their email
has been good, except for this one SANFU.

> Incorrect mail ordering. Sounds trivial but it really upsets me. I think
> it has something to do with their multiple mail servers but I definitely
> get mail not in the order it was sent. This is really annoying on lists.

This is unavoidable. No ordering is defined over email messages, and in
fact always-receive-in-sent-order is not even avoidable in theory (this
falls straight out of a fairly basic theorem in queueing theory).

Get a better mail client. Any halfway decent client reorders mail in
Date-header order. (Hell, even Outlook can do it --- it just can't do
hardly anything else sanely).

> Trouble is, no-one seems to be able to recommend anyone better that can
> offer me a fixed IP address on dial up.

I hear uklinux can do that now.

-- 
`Mmm... Maybe I just like strong women that can hurt me?'
     --- Vadik, on female throat-cutting doctors

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