Re: Bulk Email [solution found!]

on 17/08/02 12:22 PM, Jason Wong (php-general@gremlins.com.hk) wrote: > It's a bit harsh to say it's not a real solution just because it relies on > some specifics. There's no harm in taking advantage of your situation and use > whatever resources you can to complete your job. True. Point taken :) > I run a qmail server. When I send out newsletters, I run a query and extract > the mailing addresses I need. Then I build a .qmail file (similar to > sendmail's alias file), and finally I send mail to that .qmail (alias). The > mail is queued once and all recipients listed in the .qmail file gets a copy. > It is a solution that works for me so don't tell me that that is a virtual > solution :) nice!! > The fact is that a solution that relies solely on PHP would probably be too > slow, unreliable and messy. True. >> Simple fact is that a LOT of PHP >> programmers are on shared servers, and their hosts would NOT want 50,000 >> emails queued up on disk. No way!! > > But you would have 50,000 mails going out anyway regardless of what solution > you come up with. You mentioned sparklist in previous posts. Assuming that > they allow customised mailings, how would you get 50,000 pieces of info to > them so that they can perform the mailing? The difference with sparklist over running something on a shared host is that Sparklist is a dedicated mailinglist company, so their servers are geared up for this one task. The problem with aiming to achieve this is on a shared server with 100-200 other websites is that the server is geared towards hosting sites, not bulk mail. Given a dedicated server, all is well, but my *guess* is that many of the developers on here are on shared servers (at least those in the newbie-beginner-intermediate levels). I haven't looked into sparklist too heavily... US$50/month is a little steep. Their minimum per month is 50,000 emails, and i'm likely to only send 1000-2000, but they do offer customised emails. >> I'd expect doing this frequently on a shared server would be the fastest >> way to get your account shut down. > > I would recommend getting a dedicated server. They start from USD100/month and > can easily cope with 10-20 sites so cost per site is only $5-10. Of course > that opens another can of worms because you would have to deal with server > administration etc. This will be something i look into over the next year. I have about 15 sites hosted on a reseller account... it'd be nice to move them into my own server when the $'s add up... (haven't seen much in the way of dedicated servers for under US$300 though...). Justin French