eAction

So there I was with this highly touted SuSE 9.3 as my only operating system on my computer, and yet the email was not sending as it should. After my niece and her little girl left I decided that I had been long enough on this steep learning curve, and I needed some balance in my life. I went back to my usual work schedule, doing my writing in my writing hours, and my web design in it’s hours, and when it came to my usual email hours in the afternoon, I went through a convoluted process of extra steps.

I would download the emails, and then go online to each address’s (out of 22) web mail interface, copy and paste the body or at least the paragraphs I wanted to answer, and reply to them there. To make sure I had copies of them to file on my computer, I sent myself Blind carbon copies. Bcc.

You can be sure I was picking and choosing which emails to answer, as I felt obligated to take care of business ones first. Through my blogs/ezines I had notified most of my friends that I was too tied up, and would be neglecting to answer their personal emails for a while.

Another frustration was that the font on the web interfaces was too tiny for my eyes. It caused no end of eyestrain to see what I was typing there. It got to where my daily prayers were mostly sighs and pleas for a solution to my KMail problem. I had checked out so many things, and was still sneaking moments to look up this or that on the internet, which might be the cause.

I became convinced that it was going to turn out to be a very small matter, and that a solution WAS coming, and when it did, I would gasp with astonishment at how simple and tiny the hindrance was.

On the afternoon of October 10, my prayers were answered. I found that tiny hindrance almost by accident. I had a feeling that I’d just seen one of my “holding to send” emails disappear when I hit the send button by mistake. It occurred to me that I had tried the first few email identities I’d set up and found them not sending, but I hadn’t tried all 22. What if some did work?

Very quickly I dashed off a short email from each identity to see which ones were really NOT sending. 15 of them were sending! It was mainly the top 7 that did not.

O-ka-y! What’s different about these?

Soon I had it pinned down; all of the non-sending ones had in their setup screens in Identities -> General - > Advanced tab, the Special Transport down, “mail.mydomain.com” down instead of the name of my account for that identity. That account was where I had entered my login and password. Now it couldn’t get at that vital info.

As soon as I changed that to the name I’d assigned to the account, and tested each one, the mail DID send! All 22 of them work now! I was almost caught off guard - but I did exclaim aloud and praise God! Hallelujah!

The whole messy problem was solved in a matter of minutes. Because it took so long, I learned a lot about email set up, and about using web mail online, and oh-h, many little things that I’ve long taken for granted.

Maybe the best pass-along messages in this adventure is to work methodically to follow instructions, and seek out advice, and to take breaks from it all and get the bigger picture again, and then, to re-check your steps when you come with a fresh mind.

Don’t forget also to pray. I’m convinced God understands computers and software far better than we do, and if we get quiet and calm enough to listen, God can show us what to do next.