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**Duncan Rounding** · 20-Jun-2006, 03:18 PM

Have you checked your script ID number?

**Sally Dickson** · 20-Jun-2006, 05:02 PM

cgi code ok

Yes, the CGi code is fine.

What happens is I get an error 404 and a blank page appears.
Whta should happen?

**Duncan Rounding** · 20-Jun-2006, 07:06 PM

That link should show the Contact Us page in your catalog. Which of your sites is it for?

If you want people to sign up for a newsletter then the contact us page may be not be well suited anyway. You'd be better off with a self contained newsletter package or service. Personally I use Dadamail (free) which I find works fine for me.

**Sally Dickson** · 21-Jun-2006, 01:28 PM

1&1 and Newsletters

Thanks.

Yes the contact us page would not be ideal.

I wanted to put this newsletter functionality on the miffyshop (www.miffyshop.co.uk) but as this is a live site, I think I will experiment with www.talesofmidnightshop.com).

I have GRoupMail5 to send out newsletters, and that works fine.

I have a small hiccup in that my broadband provider NTL does not allow me to send more than 50 emails per hour (in theory) I have edited the settings so the emails go out 5s apart and so far have managed to send upto 400-600 emails per hour. I could upgrade to a business package with NTL, but that will cost �24.50 a month plus �99 set-up fee,... expensive given that its not a major problem to run the newsletter programme over 24 hours.

I use 1and1 as a server and I really hate the standard forms they provide. I have one loaded into the wookieshop see Subscribe http://www.wookieshop.com but the look is just not right for the other shops. Also using the 1and1 standard forms it somewhat fiddly to transfer the data into groupmail. You end up with .csv files, from one source (1&1) which you are trying to GroupMail5 to read .

The problem with having to fiddle around transfering .csv files from one place to another, is that my sites can see upto 700 people sign up for a newsletter or competition over the weekend. So you have to be confident you have a robbust solution.

I have looked at a number of third party providers:
Email Reaction are excellent (I used them in a previous life when I was employes an internet manager) .
Obviously they are quite expensive for a small business.

So I keep coming back to two solutions:

1) change host - nightmare (I have about 10 live domains.)
2) talk to 1and1 about alternatives to the standard forms
3) bite the bullet and use a third party company

So that's where I'm at with it....

Can anyone help with the following queries...

Does anyone know whether you can use GroupMail 5 to create forms?

How do I get 1&1 standard forms to talk to GroupMail 5?

Should I just stop digging?

**Duncan Rounding** · 21-Jun-2006, 01:41 PM

NTL ,as well as most ISPs, will limit the number of emails out to try and stop spam. I think you should consider using a newsletter service or, like I mentioned earlier, something like Dadamail which sits on your host server and does not use your host ISP. There were a few threads not too long ago regarding options for newsletters that you might be able to dig out. (I have Dadamail working on 1 and 1)

**Sally Dickson** · 21-Jun-2006, 01:48 PM

Thanks

That's sounds good. I look at Dadamail.

In the interim, I got the newsletter sign-up to work on Tales of Midnight.

The correct code was: <td colspan="3"><a href="http://www.talesofmidnightshop.com/cgi-bin/mf000180.pl?ACTION=SHOWFORM">Sign-up here for newsletter</a>
 </td>

so add "http://"

I am quite happy to pay to upgrade to the NTL business package to send out emails, but business-wise it does not add up right now. I expect to be forced to upgrade within 3 months.

FWIW all of my sites have Privacy Policies that state that when people signup for either competitions or newsletters they are signing up for mailings.
I try to be asiduous on managing the database.

**jont** · 21-Jun-2006, 02:31 PM

You can also use a local SMTP server utility to handle the email distribution - I have even used one to mail out using Thunderbird via AOL as the ISP (AOL are extremely rigid on allowing the use of external mail programs using your domain but their servers)

**pinbrook** · 21-Jun-2006, 02:39 PM

See http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=21721

to see the discussion about managing mailing lists to both send (and receive bounces) it is one of my personal missions at the mo to educate people how to manage email

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