Everyday Use of IMP

only for RuBoard - do not distribute or recompile

Everyday Use of IMP

Now that you have IMP working, you need to consider how to use it. You might wish to customize IMP to some degree. You might be wondering what to do next to deploy it in your office, or on the Internet. Let's explore these possibilities.

Customizing IMP

The quickest and easiest way to customize IMP is to change the images horde /imp/graphics directory. These are gif images that provide embellishments to the IMP Web page.

You can replace any of these images with your own. The IMP logo can be replaced with your business logo. This is permitted under the GPL license. Changing these images is very easy to do, and very low risk. In other words, it will be hard to break IMP by changing a gif image. Feel free to experiment!

To change the operation of IMP, go to the horde and horde/imp directories and edit the files in those directories. All the files in these directories that end with .php3 are editable with a text editor. You can make changes to these files once you understand the PHP language.

If you are businessman, you will want to hire PHP professionals. You can join the PHP mailing lists at http://www.php.net, and probably find someone to help you there. An excellent place to look for help would be on mailing lists hosted by http://www.horde.org. These folks are actively involved in IMP and PHP, and would be able to make modifications.

The best course of action in modifying IMP is to set up a server that won't be in production. You can then change the code and operation of this server to your heart's content. After you like your changes, you can migrate them to the server used by your customers, the one that is in production.

Email Inside an Office

The most common use of IMP in a small office will be to provide an intra-office email system. If so, you are ready to go. If you already have a network, all you have to do is put your server on a battery- backed UPS, and plug it into the network. Assign unique IP addresses to all the machines on the network.

If you don't know how to set up a network, find a friend who knows . Even if she don't want to set it up for you, she will be invaluable to you as a resource to check the work of someone you hire.

After you have the server on the network, with all of your office machines able to ping each other, you are ready to set up users. Set up a user account for everyone who will be logging in to IMP. Assign passwords that are hard to guess. Test getting into users' user 's accounts from each computer. Send messages between users, and verify they were received.

Next, have a training session. You will find that the interface is very intuitive. In my experience, any secretary who can use a word processor can use IMP without formal training.

That's it! You now have a very useful email system. You should have about 10 megabytes of disk storage for each user you place on the system in this environment. This level of storage will allow for years of typical email message storage. You can support as many as 1000 users on a 300MHz Pentium-based system, with a 10GB hard drive, and 64MB of memory.

Email on the Internet

To place your computer on the Internet, serving customers at large, you should hire professional help. Many options and possibilities are available. I will cover the outline of what you need to do to use IMP to serve your business employees or customers in this fashion.

Step 1: Obtain a Domain Name

To do business on the Internet, you need a domain name. You can register your domain at many locations. The first registrar that handled all the registrations on the Internet was http://www.internic.net.

Competing companies now offer registration. It is best to get help to get this step done. The main problem you will run into is that most of the good names are already spoken for.

Step 2: Get an Internet Connection and IP Address Set

This next step requires a lot of consideration and communication with an ISP. Because I own an ISP, I have definite opinions , and they are presented here.

You can choose to leave your server at the ISP's office. This is called co-location. You typically get one Internet IP address, and a very fast connection to the net. This can sometimes be the least expensive choice, and can range from as little as $50 a month to several thousand a month. However, physical access to your machine is limited.

You can choose to get a DSL link to your office. For businesses, this can be an inexpensive choice. You will find that business DSL rates are about 10 times the consumer access price. Expect to pay about $300 a month for acceptable access speeds. The connection is brought to your office, if you are close enough to a telephone company's central office. Generally, all non-phone company DSL installations for business are done incorrectly, and require a lot of complaining to the DSL provider to get the bandwidth that you are paying for.

You can choose to get an ISDN link to your office. This is typically the least amount of trouble, and with DSL competition driving costs down for alternative services, it can provide you with a very reasonable cost-to-speed ratio. You can get full-time ISDN connectivity for as little $45 a month per line.

Finally, you can get a T1 or better connection. The costs range from about $1000 a month on up to $28000 a month, depending on the speed required.

I recommend either the DSL or ISDN connection. Within the next few years, DSL will dominate and prices will come down. Also, the installation and service problems will be worked out, leading to a very reliable service.

Step 3: Set Up Your Server

This step most definitely requires professional help. Even if you have some experience, you will have to coordinate with technicians on the other side of your connection. It is best to pay to have this done because the problems involved can be very difficult to solve. Most ISP's are running on shoestring budgets , with minimal help. If you don't know what you are doing, you can have trouble explaining the problem to the support person on the other end. This always delays a proper turn up.

During the setup and installation of your server, be sure to have a security expert look over your system. You do not want to hang a "Welcome to Crackers" sign on your computer! If you have ever been cracked, you understand what I am saying. If you haven't been cracked, think of it as someone who comes along and drives your car while you are asleep, and leaves it parked in the driveway in the morning. This is not a good experience.

Step 4: Go Live!

At this point, you are ready to add users and go on the air! If your business model depends on providing this service, you need to hire someone to set up customers. They will have to be trained to set up users on your server.

You should also work with someone who can create software to automate your customer sign up so you don't have to it all by hand. In the meantime, written procedures can be used to train your staff.

only for RuBoard - do not distribute or recompile


MySQL and PHP From Scratch
MySQL & PHP From Scratch
ISBN: 0789724405
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 1999
Pages: 93
Authors: Wade Maxfield

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