[conspire] he.net woes --> seeking ISP recommendations

[Eric De Mund]

All,

Well, he.net, with whom I have my domain, is now rejecting all email
from yahoo.com; it claims--perhaps rightly so--that yahoo.com is not
supplying a proper mail envelope. But it's cutting me off from vital
email communications.

And it's not the only he.net straw I'm carrying. A long-time straw
is their random killing of my interactive ssh processes; I do all my
emailing in a shell account up at bear.he.net, using VM under Emacs
running in a Zsh shell that I connect to via ssh. And I'm tired of
having my work interrupted by their indiscriminate process reaper.

So I'm inquiring into two things, areas in which folks here have
abundant experience and expertise:

1.  A new ISP, where I can host my domain, that provides shell accounts.

Or:

2.  A "new way of doing things" regarding my email. I'm not attached to
    having a shell account, but I am attached to being able to send and
    receive my email:

    2a. Securely. I might be at home or I might be at a client site, and
        I don't want to be sniffed.

    2b. Consistently. I don't want my mailbox(es) to go out of sync
        because I've read mail "remotely" versus "locally". By the same
        token, I don't wish to be forced to read any emails twice, nor
        do I wish to have to read or compose emails differently depend-
        ing upon where I'm sitting.

    2c. Via Emacs+VM.

    2d. With (incoming) spam processing completely and totally under my
        control.

    2e. For my entire domain.

Regarding point number 2, I believe I'm ready to step up to handling
mail for my entire domain on my own. (Previously, I've had all my ISPs
dump all ixian.com email into my personal mailbox.) Does this require
me to have my own dedicated mailserver at home? If so, what MTA do folks
recommend? I'd be running it under Debian 4.x stable system if dedicated
is required.

As far as reading and composing mail, I've heard you, Rick, and one or
two other folks here describe their use of ssh and screen to connect in
to a home system to read and send mail. This is perfectly acceptable to
me. I, too, am largely a text-based person.

Cheers and thank you,
Eric
--
"By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I
mean." --Mark Twain

Eric De MUND   | Ixian Systems           | Jab: eadixian at jabber.org/main
ead at ixian.com  | 650 Castro St, #120-210 | Y!M: ead0002
ixian.com/ead/ | Mountain View, CA 94041 | ICQ: 811788