Messages

1

General Help & How-To / Daily mailing process kicks off, then hangs and waits

« on: December 16, 2008, 09:17:11 am »

About 2 weeks ago, maybe a bit longer, I noticed this issue. I have 2 lists that go out from ListMailPro on an AUTOMATED basis (the others are all 100% manual) On the AUTOMATED lists, one is DAILY (Mon-Fri) and the other is EVERY WEDNESDAY. The same issue is occuring with BOTH of these. I have a daily CRON job that runs 7 days a week, from my web hosts server where my site lives, that basically kicks off the ListMailPro mailing. And from what I can tell, the CRON is doing it's part, because every morning when I notice that my mailings have NOT landed in my inbox, I log into my LMP and they are hung, right there at the top of the screen, waiting for me to hit RESUME. If I hit RESUME, all emails go out in less than a minute, without further problem. NOTE: The number of emails that it says are waiting to be RESUMEd is always the same as the # of addresses on that list. On Wednesdays, both lists are hung, waiting for me to hit RESUME. Any idea why it's not just going automagically?

2

General Help & How-To / Weird... 187 did the trick...

« on: August 08, 2006, 12:25:04 pm »

Dean, Very strange, but simply dumping 187 on top of 185 and reloading the page did the trick... setting it up now. Thanks again!

3

Testimonials, Feedback / HAPPY SINCE JANUARY 29TH, 2003

« on: August 08, 2006, 12:01:16 pm »

I just went to my archived email folder to confirm the dates...
Back on a cold, wintery day in January 2003, I made up my mind on which mailing list software I was going to use. I had read up on 7 different packages, downloaded the 4 most promising for what I needed back then and emailed questions off to the creators for items I wanted to ensure would work the way I wanted them to.

Dean got an email containing TWELVE (yes, 12) questions in it. And he answered all but one of them within 48 hours. I figured, why not give it a shot? Over the next week, he helped me (dare I say it, free of charge) figure out the last item (cron job scheduling that didn't work on my provider the way he was used to it)

I have used ListMailPro for 3 1/2 years now, 5-7 times weekly, and just this morning bought another license for my company to use for it's mailings. It's extremely powerful for a $200 program, it's easy to install, it's easier to use, it does anything you need it to... and if it doesn't, tell Dean what you want it to do and within a few weeks or months, it likely will.

Simply superb customer and technical service!!! Dean certainly has put his heart into this project, so reward him (and yourself) by buying a copy.

4

General Help & How-To / PHP vs. SMTP

« on: August 08, 2006, 11:45:03 am »

Stefaans - This is all depending on how your provider / host is set up, but here's what I know about the two sending methods. PHP is often faster because it's simply generating a bunch of emails and doing one of two things with them:
A) Sending them all directly to the recipients email server, which is hard to program and I don't believe how ListMailPro handles it, or
2) Handing them all over to the SMTP server on your end, but all at once or in groups of preset amounts

The problem is, depending on how your provider treats large amounts of email, it's queue rules, etc. it is a considerably safer idea to use SMTP. With SMTP, you're establishing a connection and handing off the emails INDIVIDUALLY. Yes, you can set ListMail to hand it off slower, in groups, then pause, another group, pause, but it's still technically saying to the SMTP server (mind you, very quickly), here's an email, here's an email, etc. The point is, if SMTP can't deliver one instantly, it moves it to the back of the line and continues, but still only has to technically handle one at a time. With PHP, it's true that assuming the SMTP server can keep up, it'll get done much faster, but if it lags, you may actually lose a bunch of emails or they get pushed off for 8, 12, 24 hours if the queue is filled up with other people's mail. Again, it all depends on the settings your provider uses, but yes, PHP will appear faster, but is not what I'd recommend.

5

General Help & How-To / Cron setup

« on: August 08, 2006, 11:13:57 am »

David, I remember back when my hosting company (SuccessfulHosting.com) changed their servers over, I had a heck of a time getting this to work again. My currently working method is VERY similar to what Dean just posted, so I wanted to provide it as guidance for you as well.

Here's what I have running (preceeded by '0 6 * * *' for timing):

/usr/bin/curl -o /dev/null http://example.com/mail/dailymail.php?pw=******

What Dean's last reply showed:
curl -o /dev/null http://example.com/mail/dailymail.php?pw=****** 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null

6

General Help & How-To / Installation troubles...

« on: August 08, 2006, 07:15:59 am »

I am having trouble installing this on a new server. Here are the steps I've taken so far and what is happening. I registered a domain name, set it up on my hosts server and created a folder under the root ( http://<mydomain>.com/abcmail ) I then created a SQL Db. Next, I  uploaded all folders and files from the unzipped ListMailPro download (v_185) and put them into my /abcmail folder.
When I went to mydomain.com/abcmail I got an error about not being able to find or access the MySQL Db, so I checked and found that it happens to be on a separate server, but they gave me the path as sql02.<host>.com so I replaced localhost with the path in the config.php file. It now gets passed that, and I get the following whenever I try to access the login.php script, which leads me to believe that my config file, path and user info are good, it's finding the Db, etc. Anyway, here the message:

admin-61-Table 'mailing_listpro.lm_config' doesn't exist

I did call the hosting company and they did say to ask what version of MySQL is needed. This is v 5.0. If I need to be set up with 4.0 they have it on another server. They do not offer 4.1, so hopefully that's fine. So, what did I do wrong or do I need MySQL 4.0?

7

General Help & How-To / Licensing question...

« on: July 26, 2006, 11:18:05 am »

Dean - I completely understand and appreciate your very fast response. What made this tricky is that while it is technically a different "company" (because it has it's own D+B number and pays taxes separately) it's still the same owner, the same administrator (me), same staff, etc. It will also be separate URLs/domains, but on the same server. So, I just wasn't sure how you'd feel about it. Anyway, thanks!

8

General Help & How-To / Licensing question...

« on: July 25, 2006, 11:47:14 am »

I am currently a licensed user of LMP (for my own personal web site). I have been for several years. The small company I work for has a need for the software as well, so I am setting up a separate hosting environment for them, as well as 2 domains, which I'll get into in a moment.

Obviously, I am not going to use my licensed version for the company; we will purchase a new package for $195. The owner of the company has two separate 'divisions' within our organization, because each sells to a different type of customer (one sells to end users, the other to resellers) and to those customers, we are seen as two separate companies.

The question is this... I will have one company server, but two domains, each with their own CGI-BIN and PERL environments. Am I allowed to use / will it work if I use the same LMP install files on both of those domains, as long as they're on the same server. Said another way, is the licensing for LMP per company, per user or per site?

NOTE: I've set it up before and understand that I'll have to install and configure everything twice if I plan to use 2 CGI-BINs, but I also want to ensure that Dean doesn't stop by my place with a baseball bat if it's not technically legal. I also don't want to spend $400 if $200 will suffice.

9

Development, Suggestions / "Contribution System" for new features?

« on: December 09, 2005, 06:09:06 am »

Two cents from a very loyal, very long-term user of LMP. Some very great comments and suggestions so far on this topic, so here's my take as well. I work closely with a great guy who writes the code and manages my company's web site. He also hosts and writes several other companies sites, and has recently run into the same issue you have. His "shopping engine" started a year ago as a one-size-fits-all, and as he added awesome functionality, everyone would get to take advantage of it. Now, certain clients (myself included) want certain things faster than others, and don't care much about some of the features other companies may want. Now, in this case, you'd be giving the new stuff to ALL, but the bigger problem is, if another customer pays more than I would for something, OR if their project runs long, I lose out because nothing else is getting done in that time.

I am perfectly willing to pay more money than my originally agreed upon price IF I ask specifically for something, but as a past loyal customer, I also expect "regular updates and feature additions" that I may not even have ever considered. If the people who would choose to pay extra for faster implementation of specific features could support you hiring some help or justify working more hours, I'm all for it; and I'd probably even cough up some bucks for a couple features myself every now and then. *BUT* - I very firmly believe your primary focus should be spent on trying to determine what makes your product better for the masses. And that's true for multiple reasons.
1) If the product meets the needs of the masses, you sell more copies to NEW customers just because it's that much better a program
2) You lose less existing customers to other applications
3) You're not constantly torn as to what direction to be going in

I say the key should be focusing on the majority, and as time allows, make some money on the side... but not the other way around.

10

Development, Suggestions / Forgot your other question... List "0"

« on: November 21, 2005, 04:31:28 am »

You also asked about the email addresses in question. They were both email addresses using my domain @funehumor.com - one was signed up on 11/16/05, the one I noticed first was on 11/18/05 (coincidentally, my birthday) - both addresses included a 'dictionary' word (6 or 7 letters) followed by 4 numeric digits. That does not MEAN it was an automated process, but that's what I thought of first. Could just be a person trying something twice in 2 days...

As much as I like to think it is sometimes, my site is not large or all that popular (yet) compared to others and I'm wondering if I'm the only one being 'targeted' or if other LMPro users have seen this behavior - either way, it seems like a very recent issue that you'll want to look into more, so keep me updated please.

11

Development, Suggestions / List "0"

« on: November 21, 2005, 04:22:40 am »

Dean, thanks for the speedy reply!

I do use LMPro for 7 or 8 separate mailing lists, as I have several different "levels" of subscription for my web site, and I set up a couple small lists to make sending baby photos to family and co-workers that much easier. There is only one web site however that has a signup form anywhere online (to my knowledge anyway) and no I am not using any other scripts / programs / modified forms to interact with LMPro.

The only (six) locations on my web site (and the internet for that matter, and again, to my knowledge) where the signup form even exists are as follows: (and if I'm not mistaken, they all use the exact same set of code)

http://funehumor.com/<index.htm>
http://funehumor.com/index.html
These are both home landing pages

http://funehumor.com/updates.shtml
This page is a hard-coded 'link' from every single page on my site, to drive people to a description of my 'levels' of lists

http://www.funehumor.com/right.htm
http://www.funehumor.com/right_cj_ads.htm
http://www.funehumor.com/right_google_ads.htm
One of these three "pages" gets included as an SSI on every single page throughout my site other than the 'landing pages'

12

Development, Suggestions / How did somebody subscribe to List "0"

« on: November 20, 2005, 10:38:49 am »

I just backed up my ListMail subscriber database, and I noticed two email addresses @mydomain.com - it caught my eye because, except for my wife and parents, I don't issue email addresses to others. The other REALLY strange thing is, they were subscribed for List "0" - I have never had even a web robot accidentally sign up for list "0" - any ideas? Should I be concerned?

As a sep. note, I did get an administrator alert a month back regarding a filed login attempt, but I changed my password to something longer right away, just as a precaution, and there doesn't appear to be any settings changes anywhere, so I'm sure it's nothing, just wanted to mention that too.