Running a mailing list on the net is becoming more and more popular, but while demand has been increasing, the quality of the tools to run/manage a list have pretty much stayed the same - but that's all about to change with AnalogX ListMaster Pro! LMPro makes it easy to manage large lists (it should support lists well in excess of 1,000,000 if you have enough memory), and in the future it will also work in conjunction with any mail server to create a super-powerful ListServer as well!

    :::Configuration:::
Setting up LMPro for your list is very simple, just go into the config menu and specify your email address (the password isn't required yet, but will be when the ListServer component is completed). Then fill in your DNS IP address; if you're running Win95/98 this can be found by going to Start->Run and typing in WinIPCFG, click [More Info] and you should see your DNS Server IP address.

    :::Checking email addresses:::
One of the most powerful (and only for v1.0) features is LMPro's ability to load a large list of email addresses and verify whether or not an account is still valid. It does this a number of ways, but all of them are passive so the user never is bothered by a verification email - but because there's a wide variety of servers out there (each configured differently), the results aren't 100%, but they're still VERY useful.

To check a list, simply load it into the program - once that is done select 'Verify all addresses' in the 'List Management' menu, then just site back and enjoy the show! The main limitation in how long it takes to process is the speed of your Internet connection, but a good ballpark is that it can check about 6-8 emails per second on a cable modem. Once it has completed, each email address will be given one of the following result codes:

    Completed Results:
                    Verified            The address appears valid
                    Bad format          The address contains invalid chars
                    Invalid user        The address cannot receive emails
                    Invalid domain      The domain appears invalid

    Partial Results:
                    No MX record        No MX (mail server) was found
                    DNS error           A DNS error was encountered
                    Unable to connect   Unable to connect to mail server
                    SMTP failure        SMTP failed
                    SMTP syntax error   A SMTP command was garbled
                    SMTP timeout        Timeout occurred waiting for response
                    Sender blocked      The sending address is blocked

The completed results code means that it now considers this email address to be checked to the best of it's abilities, where the partial results will be checked again the next time you run 'Verify all addresses' (completed results are skipped). If you would like to search the entire list again, then just simply 'Reset all addresses' before performing the verify!

    :::When to delete and when not to:::
It's important that when you get an 'Invalid User' result that you don't just delete every one of them - many of these are simply errors such as the email box is currently full. Another common error is that relaying is not supported; this doesn't necessarily mean that the account isn't valid, it just means the mail server is not currently viewing that email address as local, so it's normally not a good idea to delete these.

Also, when you get a 'Invalid Domain' error, with no actual error message that means it was rejected at the DNS level - it was unable to even get a valid MX entry back! Now, this may mean it's not a valid domain, but it may also mean their DNS servers have just moved and haven't updated properly, or that they have the DNS entries removed temporarily for some reason. Just exercise good judgement when removing emails, and you should be good to go!

    :::File formats:::
Currently LMPro supports three types of file formats; .LMP, it's internal format which saves all the additional information, and then .LST and .TXT which store only the addresses. The main difference between .LST and .TXT is the formatting; a .LST file will expect a new email address on each line, and nothing else. The .TXT file expects to see the email address contained within a <> (ex; <[email protected]>) followed by the username, which is ignored and written back out as the email address when saving.

When you would like to merge in new email address to an existing project (.LMP), just load up the .LMP file, then load the list with all the current and new addresses. Now, choose 'Eliminate duplicates' from the 'List Management' menu and voila! You've merged the lists and the project now has the new addresses.