E-mail relay

I use a laptop for work in and out of the office. In recent days, I was not able to send out e-mails but I was able to receive. When I did a little research my ISP told me their outgoing mail server can no longer send out e-mails that is originated from another network. In technical terms my ISPs outgoing mail server can no longer be used as an open relay server, that is, the server that is configured in such a way that it can send out e-mail virtually for anybody or rather from any e-mail. Part of the reason they ISPs don't configure outgoing mail server to do unauthorized relay is to reduce the abuse by spammers who took advantage of open configuration of outgoing mail server to send out millions of e-mails.

Despite the fact that I am different ISP at home and at work, I was able to resolve the mail relay problem by asking my home ISP to give me credentials that would let me use my regular work e-mail to send out e-mails while am at home.

What I did to resolve e-mail relay problem is to configure and reconfigure my e-mail every time I wanted to use it to send e-mails from home or work. Here is how to configure under Microsoft Outlook/Outlook express e-mail clients

• Double click Microsoft Outlook Express shortcut
• Click on tools menu, select accounts
• Click on mail tab Highlight the account you want to make changes on
• Click properties button
• Click on servers tab In outgoing mail (SMTP) type in: smtp.outgoingmailserver.com
• At the bottom of the screen check my server requires Authentication
• Click on Settings button
• On outgoing mail server window, make sure logon using radio button is selected/clicked
• In account name text box type in: user name; Type in the password
• Click OK
• Exit out of all setup windows
• Send out test e-mail, If you are still not able to send out e-mails, go through the setup instructions one more time just to make sure you got every thing right. Again send out another test e-mail just to make sure it works

Please note that your second ISP, (in my case my home ISP) will provide you with outgoing mail server, Username and you will probably choose your own password

Since I do not have exchange server in-house, once in while I was able to bypass the hassle of configuring and reconfiguring my e-mail client by just accessing my e-mail through the web. The down side of it though is that I will not be able to access all of outlook's functionalities while I am using the web and there fore I have to use both of them at the same time.

Please post your comments or the best possible solutions of my situation.