Lee.org

After having a come-to-Jesus discussion with Dreamhost tech support (I said, “Pretty please help me fix this or I’m leaving.” They said, “It is unfixable Google Workspace might magically fix it”) I moved my gmail account to a paid Google Workspace account. The hope is that for $6/month, they’ll fix my intractable spam problem (whenever I send email to a new person from @Lee.org, it falls into their spam folder for unknown reasons). It’s kinda exciting seeing all my gmail email being migrated to my new account. All 62,000 emails going back to 2011! And I might just fold in my Outlook email going back to 2002 and my RFDMail and Eudora going back to 199-something!

(previously)

I’m still trying to make it so my emails from lee.org don’t fall into people’s spam folders. When I send email to new people it often goes to spam. I’ve checked headers carefully and it shouldn’t but gmail receivers see a notice “emails from lee.org have been spam in the past”. Ugh.

Dreamhost tech support suggested that I move my mail to Google Workspace. They have a 1 month free trial and it’s just $6/month/user. Maybe if it’s hosted locally, they will show more love for the domain. And there’s a bunch of tools available with the suite. Maybe I can go back to Dreamhost after a few months.

The data migration tool would only let me pull in the last year of gmail from my old gmail account. Bah! So I turned on the import feature in gmail and did it that way instead Go to admin.google.com | Apps | Google Workspace | Gmail | Setup | User Email Uploads. Set to “on” Then go into the new gmail account and go to Settings | Accounts and Import. Do the import!

Here are the tools I’m using to analyze email:

Google Postmaster Tools

Google Admin Toolbox

MXToolbox Monitoring

Google Admin for Workspace

Let’s say my computer was stolen today. I would want to recover a snapshot of my files from yesterday’s backup. As part of that, if a file of mine was deleted 5 days ago, I don’t want it in my snapshot. IDrive isn’t capable of that :-(

I spoke to 3 IDrive representatives over the past 3 weeks and they all admitted that this was not a feature of the system.

This is totally unacceptable because recovering from a lost/stolen computer is half the reason I pay for backups. I’m now shopping around for another backup system.

Here’s an example of IDrive failing at the task:

Just leaving this here for the 35 AH AGM lead-acid battery I use for my CPAP.

AGM Charge State
12.9 100%
12.3 75%
11.7 25%
10.5 0%

————————————————–
And here is the charging info for a flooded lead-acid battery
Charger voltage
Bulk 14.4v
Absorb 13.6v
Float 13.2v

Flooded lead-acid battery charge state
12.6-12.7 full
12.1 half
11.6 20%
10.5 flat

Just got an MPOW Bluetooth USB Dongle, Model BH519A
It does Bluetooth 5.1. :-)

There’s no manual for it, just drivers on the XMPOW.com site

I got a pair of Mpow Flame Solo Wireless Eardbuds, model BH503A recently. I’m really happy with them!

Here’s the Mpow Flame Solo User Manual

I did a comparison recently between them, Tozo T12, Jabra Evolve T65, and Anker Soundcore Spirit X, and these came out on top!

Main features:
— $40 inexpensive on Amazon
— They “just work”. It has taken a little effort to figure out how to switch between my now multiple audio-out options on my computer, that isn’t the fault of the earbuds. Syncing is easy, turning on and of is easy.
— audio quality for music is nearly as good as my wired earbuds, I use them for music and Zoom sessions a lot
— The over-the-ear design means they stay on my head and I don’t have to rely on squeezing the earpiece into my ear to stay on (like the Tozo T12)
— The volume and sound response (highs vs lows etc) is sometimes a little bit less than my wired earbuds. But, as Ultron said as he prepared to destroy earth, “I got no strings on me!”

Update 6-26-24: Shokz Bone Conduction headphones are awesome!

For a long while I’ve been forwarding my @Lee.org email to my Gmail account. One problem I’ve had is that some valid email falls into my Gmail spam folder. This is probably because those forwarded (actually, pulled via POP3) emails always softfail SPF in Gmail. It stands to reason since gmail isn’t lee.org. But ugh!

I’m tired of wading through my spam folder for obviously valid email!
I think the only way to fix this is to get a Google Workspace (formerly G-Suite) account and have Google host my mail fully. Does that sound right?

[Update 12-30-20: Fixed!! See below]
Can you help fix my domain’s spam reputation problem? I’m happy to pay for professional help.

Whenever I send email to a new person at gmail from my domain name, Lee.org, it falls into their spam folder. After they mark my email as “not spam”, recipients can receive further emails.

This is probably happening because, until July 2018, my domain was being used by spammers to send junk mail. I have since fixed the email settings (SPF, DMARC, DKIM, Google Postmaster Tools) to keep spammers from spoofing my domain but the reputation damage has been done! Mail hosts apparently still don’t trust me! My domain (Lee.org) is definitely not generating any spam and the volume of email sent is very light, there is only one user, me!

Do you have any suggestions as to how to fix my email reputation problem?
I found some random coders on fiverr.com that might help but I’m reluctant to give all my passwords to random people on the internets!

Update 12-30-20:
I wrote to Dreamhost and they responded, essentially, “Sorry about that, we fixed the thing that you couldn’t have possibly known was broken. You’re good now”

Some time ago, we started using a service called MailChannels to help us with our incoming and outgoing spam filtering. It looks like for some reason, your SPF record hadn’t been updated to authorize MailChannels, so, considering your DMARC settings, normal messages being sent from DreamHost were being marked as spam. I apologize about this, I’ve taken the correct steps to fix this and it should help with your outgoing messages not being marked as spam in the future.

I sent a few emails to friends (thanks Kayte and Carol!) and yeah, lee.org is now sending emails to not-spam-folders again! Hurray!

This will make it so your microphone doesn’t pick up all the clicky-clacky while you’re on Zoom calls. It uses a little CPU to do the audio processing but works pretty well.

Turn on keystroke suppression on your computer’s microphone. This works for the Lenovo Thinkpad T470s and maybe other computers.

Tap the Windows key. Type “control panel” and hit Enter. In the search bar in the upper right, type “audio” and hit Enter. Click on “Manage audio devices”. Double-click on the “Recording” tab. Click on the “Microphone Array” icon. Click on the “Enhancements” tab. Click on the “Keystroke Suppression” checkbox.