ASP FormMail, Part VIII

This post picks up where
this post left off:

ASP FormMail, Part VII

I have to say I've been
acting like someone who
is in a stupor.

I don't know why I've had
the idea that you can
use a mail server to relay
mail without authentication.

For some reason, I have developed
the strange illusion that you
can do this. I've had the illusion
that you don't need SMTP
authentication when using a FormMail
program.

A lot of mental errors work like this.

Because I typically have access to
the control panel for a website, I
typically set up an email address
for myself there.

Currently, I've been working on a
website where I don't have access
to the control panel. Therefore,
I've been trying to use my own
email address which, of course,
is native to another mail server.

I've written to the client and
asked him to give me an email
address on his server which I
can check.

I figure that is the minimum that
I need to get by.

Instead, I'm having to write to
him to check the email for me.
In other words, I write and ask,
Did the form arrive OK?

Not a great way to work, I can
assure you. I won't be working
this way again.

However, I must say that working
in this way has forced me to
dispel some silly illusions.

My primary illusion has been
that formmail programs do
not need to do SMTP authentication.

A silly illusion, for sure, but
an illusion I've let slide just
simply because I left it unexamined.

Illusions are like that. They
don't stand up to the light of
day for ten seconds. Yet, they
continue to exist in the dark
only because they are unexamined.

Just submitted a form to the email
address that the client has supplied
me with. It seems to have submitted
just fine.

However, I won't know until the client
tells me that his email address received
my form submission OK.

What a dumb way to work!

By the way. The formmail program, ASP
FormMail, in fact needs no SMTP authentication.

However, that's because the email I sent
is native to the system itself. That is
to say, the website knows the email address
as one of its own.

Because I'm now using the email address the
client supplied me with, I need no SMTP
authentication.


I continue my investigation into
ASP FormMail here:

ASP FormMail, Part IX

Ed Abbott