DeskLink Newsletter Volume #1

Welcome DeskLink Customers

This is the first e-mail newsletter sent to our DeskLink customers; it is intended to let those of you with support contracts know about new and planned features of DeskLink, along with a few tips on ways you can use the system you have which you may not be aware of. We will try to make this a regular feature (one issue every 1-2 months), while also trying not to take too much of your valuable time by sending too many issues.

Those of you with Internet e-mail addresses should receive this by e-mail, others will receive it via fax. If you get a fax but have an Internet e-mail address you would prefer us to use, please let us know. Those of you who do not want to receive any more notices (these are intended to highlight features you have already paid for; not merely plugs for additional products) may let us know and we will remove you from the distribution list. Note that we will also use this list to make you aware of important problems or bug reports if applicable, so I urge you to have someone at your site at least review these messages. Also - anyone who would like us to add other mailboxes to our distribution (others at your site that might be interested) you may also let us know.

Finally, if you have questions about DeskLink or any other 3k Associates product (NetMail/3000, PopServer, Gopher Server, Ftp Server, Fax Server) feel free to give us a call at +44 1480 492400 or e-mail us at sales@3kassociates.com or support@3kassociates.com.

Now that we're done with that...

In this issue:

  1. Getting updates via the Internet
  2. Recent FSC-related fixes to HPOpenDesk
  3. Using the new Directory Verification Feature
  4. Imbedded distribution list handling
  5. New anti-spam features in release B.06
  6. Return-address format options
  7. New API (CMC standard programmatic interface) add-on available

Getting Updates via the Internet

We (3k Associates, Inc) maintain WWW and FTP servers available on the Internet 24 hours x 7 days. We always keep the latest release of all our HP3000 products on these servers available as WRQ (R1) labeled format files with automated installation scripts. These extracts uncompress (they are PC .exe files) leaving an "install.rcl" script which you run from Reflection's command window; this uploads all the files and automatically performs all updates. **You do need to make sure no one is using the NetMail and the background job is stopped before updating though**

All your configurations and existing mail will be preserved. Updates take from 5-30 minutes (no including the time it takes to upload the files --use a network connection if at all possible --it is MANY times faster than a serial connection).

You may update as often as you like; new enhancements are documented in the "Features.doc.threek" file and fixes in the "netmail.fixinfo.threek" file.

Our web server is at http://www.3kassociates.com and our ftp server is at ftp.3kassociates.com. Look for the NetMail/3000 "demo" files; these will automatically detect that you are a licensed customer and update you without affecting your license status. **Be sure to get the product demos and *NOT* the freeware versions; updating with the freeware version *WILL* overwrite your license file turning your system into a 2-mailbox interactive-only system...

**The latest release of all our manuals are also available on our web and ftp sites as well. All NetMail/3000 manuals are also available on our web server in Adobe PDF format which can be viewed in your web browser with the free plug-in available from Adobe (details on our server). The best part of this addition is that you can browse, search, and even print the manuals to ANY local printer, preserving all formatting and graphics.


Recent FSC-related fixes to HPOpenDesk

We would like to send a public and very enthusiastic "Thank you" to Jeff Hendershot of Hewlett-Packard in Fort Collins, Colorado. For those that don't know him, Jeff's the engineer working on HP OpenDesk.

Despite the official announcements that HP OpenDesk will not be getting any new enhancements or functionality, Jeff has managed to both make several important fixes and sneak in several significant enhancements to OpenDesk in the past few months; especially in areas related to the FSC (Foreign Service Connection - the facility DeskLink and other third party gateways use to interface with HP OpenDesk). This has made the interface between HPDesk and the "outside world" notably more robust and flexible; especially for those customers using PC "clients" with HPDesk.

Some of the recent fixes and HPDesk patch ids are as follows:

Patch OD3016 - Foreign address of sender lost when a message was
               autoforwarded out through the FSC gateway.
               (This affected many sites who were "autoforwarding" some
                mail from Desk to external mail systems like Exchange and
                Notes; return addresses on the forwarded messages were
                getting mangled in some cases)
Patch OD3014 - Too much data in the X-To: field of an ARPA header causes
               the message contents to get dropped.
               (Incoming Internet/SMTP messages with very long distribution
                lists often caused Desk to drop or wipe-out parts of incoming
                messages)
Patch OD3021 - Enhancement to increase the number of content files (M-files)
               that may be imported in a single message from 64 to 1024.
               (A few of you receiving "digest" mode mailing list messages
                saw your messages getting lost and in some cases the FSCAREF
                truck would die)
Patch OD3017 - the subject of an item being exported from Desk is saved
               in a User Label so it may be displayed by Desklink.
               (This allows PC "client" mailers to attach files to an
                outgoing message, and the recipient's mail system would
                see the original attached-file name - with extension,
                allowing them to save/process these attachments)
Patch OD3022 - A patch that will allow messages coming into Desk from
                external mailers to also display the original filename
                of the attached file - so PC clients receiving mail from
                the Internet (or other SMTP/MIME mailers) will see the
                original filename of attachments they receive in messages;
                allowing them to "double-click" and launch the required
                applications in many cases. Jeff's waiting on the final
                sign-off from our engineers on this enhancement (which
                should occur by the time you read this).

Those of you considering plans to abandon your HPDesk investments can rest a little easier. Transitions are becoming much easier, and HPDesk is still a formidable e-mail system.


Using the new Directory Verification Feature

No longer does mis-addresssed mail need to drop into the "General Delivery" mailbox in HPDesk. With the new "desklinkverify" setting (which can be enabled via a job control word in your DeskLink job) incoming mail addressed to invalid addresses is automatically returned to the sender, informing them that the address does not exist. Notification is instant and completely automatic.

DeskLink (when this setting is enabled) scans the HPDesk directory to find the name of the recipient; all common HPDesk abbreviations/shorthand notations are supported. First and/or last names are compared, and qualified by location and sublocation if required. As long as the address identifies a *unique* mailbox, the message is delivered; if more than one potential match is found (i.e. a message sent to "smith" where there are several smith's in the directory) then a message indicating that the address "was not unique" will be returned to the sender (as opposed to just that the address does not exist).

Those of you who may be still running older releases of DeskLink, may find this feature alone (and the administrative time it saves) worth the effort to update. This feature is present starting in release B.06. of DeskLink.


Imbedded distribution list handling

Those of you accustomed to "forwarded" messages which came in via DeskLink having multiple body parts (containing distribution lists) will be happy to see the new enhancement - enabled via a job control word in the DeskLink job stream - which causes this information to be imbedded in the main (SMTP/ARPA) header for the message. This eliminates the "ugly" display of body parts in HPDesk which contained only original distribution lists for the messages.

The new option is enabled by default on new installations; to enable it on yours (you need DeskLink version B.06 or later) make sure the following line appears in your DeskLink job:

!SETJCW DESKPROCESSRESENTS=1

New anti-spam features in release DeskLink B.06

We don't have to tell anyone with an Internet-reachable e-mail box about the frustrations and lost productivity due to the proliferation of rude and pushy "spammers" around the world. Many of us are literally swamped by the masses of junk scams, get-rich-quick schemes, and pornography these "people" are dumping into our inboxes on a daily basis. Until some really effective legislation is passed, our only recourse is to ignore and attempt to filter out this trash. [Note; replying to be "removed" from many of these spammers lists often only confirms your address and gets you added to yet more lists, so beware responding in any way other than complaining to their Internet providers!]

We at 3k get bombarded by this trash as well, and have devoted many hours to tracking down and reporting spammers, as well as developing automated means of filtering out much of their trash. In the B.06 releases of DeskLink and NetMail/3000 you will find many new anti-spam features which you can easily take advantage of, as well as a constantly updated list of spam sites (in the form of a filtering control-file) which you can pick up from our ftp site (ftp.3kassociates.com in the ANTISPAM directory). These control files can be copied directly into the data.threek group and all 3k mail products will obey these filtering rules. You can even pick up the job stream UPDTSPAM in the same directory which you can stream any time you like -- it'll pick up the latest filter files from our server and install them automatically!

The "excludes.data.threek" file is a list of network addresses of known spam sites. Any address with a "-" in front of it in this file will cause ALL incoming network connections from these machines to be refused without notice to the spam site; in fact, we send back an error telling the spammer that the address they're trying to reach isn't valid - hopefully prompting them to remove the name from further mass mailings. The log file (errorlog) logs the intercepted spam, including sender and intended recipient(s).

The "refuse.data.threek" file is a list of addresses and domain names of known spammers. For those that move around (as they get kicked off one Internet provider after another) this will prevent any incoming mail with a return address listing any of these domains. Any incoming message with one of these addresses is refused before acceptance, with an error returned to the sender's system (again, tying up THEIR resources as their mail server must store the message and handle undeliverable-notices to the sender). The message is logged to "errorlog.netmail" (if you have built it) and the system console.

For sites that wish to take advantage of our free spam-filter update service (via the UPDTSPAM job mentioned earlier) you can also create a "local" refuse and excludes file (call them "REFUSEL" and "EXCLUDEL" respectively) allowing you to maintain local lists of sites or addresses you don't want to accept mail from.

Another feature can be enabled in the NetMail/3000 or DeskLink job via a JCW - verifydomains. If set to "1", then the domain name on the return address of any incoming mail message is checked to be sure it's a "real" domain; this gets rid of spam where spammers "forge" fake hostnames -- designed so that you can't complain to anyone about the message. Messages with invalid domains get refused - again forcing the processing on the senders machine - and attempts are logged to errorlog.netmail (if built) and to the console.

Together with some of the rules you can create, these filtering tools can significantly reduce the amount of spam that ends up in your mailbox!


Return-address format options

Those of you using DeskLink know that it automatically generates a "return address" for any HPDesk user sending outbound (via the gateway) mail, and likewise recognizes several formats for inbound addressing to HPDesk recipients.

Some of you that have been using it for some time may not have noticed that there are a few new options for address formats lately. There are now 6 (six) formats you can choose from for outbound address formatting (the inbound - into HPDesk- formatter will parse any of the formats).

The first three options use underscores "_" to delimit first and last names:
1) Firstname_lastname@gatewayhost
2) Firstname_lastname/location@gatewayhost
3) Firstname_lastname/location/subloc@gatewayhost
The other three, replace the "_" with a period ".":
4) Firstname.lastname@gatewayhost
5) Firstname.lastname/location@gatewayhost
6) Firstname.lastname/location/subloc@gatewayhost

Note that you only need use one of the formats which includes location (or sublocation) if you have cases where there ARE more than one person with the same name (first and last) in different locations (or sublocations). If not, you can stick with option 1 or 4 and your e-mail addresses will look more "normal" to other Internet users.

In addition, though the outbound addresses always list full names (first and last), incoming messages can be addressed to "lastname@gatewayhost" or "F_lastname@gatewayhost" (where "F" is the first initial) *IFF* the user's name is still unique (i.e. there's no more than one person with that same last name or first-initial+last-name).


New API (CMC standard programmatic interface) add-on available

Our standard messaging engine (which DeskLink uses) includes sophisticated scripting capability, but for those sites that truly want to integrate electronic mail receipt and/or delivery with HP3000 based applications, we are now shipping the only industry-standard programmatic library (written to the XAPI group's CMC -common messaging calls- standard).

With this library, easily called routines can be integrated directly into your in-house applications to retrieve mail messages or simply send report output via e-mail -- to a user's mailbox, another system, or to another mail-enabled application. Routines and sample code are provided (along with a copy of the full standard specifications) with routines you can call to retrieve a message from a mailbox, send a message (file), and verify addresses from within the mail directory.

Generate and transport your EDI data via the Internet standard SMTP and MIME formats, or mail-enable your legacy applications to integrate your HP3000 with your NT or Unix servers and applications.

For details or a demo, contact us at (800) Net-Mail or +1 646-820-7619.


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