A New Phone System?
As my consultant life moves on, I have been very busy trying to promote my business so that I can be more successful and have a flourishing company.
As I mentioned last month in my Tech Talk column, I have expanded my business to installing phones as well as networking. Because of this, I have had little time trying to input all those names to our e-mail system. Besides, our Membership Chairman and I have been waiting to collect more e-mail addresses before I spend the time entering all those accounts.
When I get that updated database, I will take some time and enter the addresses and we will start having an e-mail system again. Also, again, I would really like to thank Robert DuGaue from CalWeb for taking the time and finding us another e-mail system that will meet our needs. All I have left to do is get him to put in an alias at the Web site as email.sacpcug.org.
Now my attention has been turned toward the answering machine. As you might know, we have a phone number associated with the Sacramento PC Users Group, and an answering machine geared up to take any message that someone might have about the group. However, as I am writing this column, I took the time to call the phone number that is 344-PCUG, and found out how it is laid out. It is not bad; however, there are a couple of things I would like to expand on in the future. First it would be helpful to have more than one mailbox. It would be good to have different codes for those extra mailboxes so that the people assigned to retrieve messages from those mailboxes can call in and get those messages. It would also be nice to allow remote recording for those extra mailboxes so people like the Program Chairman (me) and the Meeting Coordinator (Ken Hopkins) can record announcements about upcoming speakers.
Well, we may be headed in the right direction in the near future. I just purchased, for my own business, a complete voice mail system with 24 mailboxes, and it has plenty of features.
I could set up a mailbox for people who are interested in joining the group and who would like someone to contact them about membership. Then the Membership Chairman can call in once or twice a month to the appropriate mailbox, collect the messages, and return the phone calls, without having one person forced to do the work of handling all messages.
Then I can create a couple more mailboxes for the answer guys, allowing them to check their messages at their convenience as well. I can create a message tree to announce the upcoming meetings as well. And last but not least, I can create a mailbox for companies to call in and request an appearance at our general meeting to show off their products. Ken and I can answer these at our own convince as well.
The whole idea sounded great to the Steering Committee when I suggested it last month. The only problem is that I am moving soon. I am not sure where I am moving as of this date. Since I have property up in Rescue and would like to build someday up there, it will probably be close to Folsom or El Dorado Hills to get me closer to my area when I get ready to build. So the plan might not make the transition, unless we use a hidden phone number and just forward the number we have right now.
Of course there is nothing wrong with the system we have right now, other than the fact that some messages don’t make it to the right people. In other words, someone might have a question about membership and the Membership Chairman might not get that message because there are two people involved here: one for membership and one who takes the messages.
If we had a system in place like I described above, we could have the system page the appropriate person’s pager and that person can call in remotely and retrieve the messages right away.
It is just my idea for better communications for the group and improving the way for members and non-members to be able to reach the appropriate people in our group. It can help increase membership and improve the service we offer to members at the same time.
E-Mail Again
Well, I just spent a whole week entering all those names again into the new e-mail system we now have thanks to Robert DuGaue from CalWeb. I used the same scheme that I used last time, with the first initial of everyone’s first name and their full last name combined. For example, "Robert Smith" would be "Rsmith." I only entered names from the membership list that already have an e-mail address. Otherwise I would have no way to contact them to tell them what their e-mail password was. So if you have told our membership person your current e-mail, then you now have another e-mail address with the Sacramento PC Users Group as part of the membership benefits. One note here is that if you use a hyphen in your name like "Joe Adams-Smith," your sign-on ID would be jadams-smith@sacpcug.org. Please be aware that I can only go by the way you have your name entered in the membership database.
The new address to sign on and setup your e-mail is http://email.sacpcug.org:81. Notice that there is an ":81" at the end of the address. This must be included to get to the SacPCUG e-mail system. Because they sell e-mails to customers, you have to include the ":81" after the email.sacpcug.org to get to our section. This is very important.
After clicking on the page http://email.sacpcug.org:81, you will see a User ID box and a Password box. Your User ID is your first initial and your full last name plus @sacpcug.org. For example, "Robert Smith" would be rsmith@sacpcug.org. You will be e-mailed your password by me: the postmaster, postmaster@sacpcug.org.
Once you get into your e-mail account, I would suggest two things:
1. Change your password right away. Since I used a generic password, it would be easy for someone else to figure out. I suggest you use one that is easy to remember, but that would be difficult for others to guess. If you lose your password, you can always e-mail postmaster@sacpcug.org and it can be reset to the default.
2. Redirect your e-mail to go to your regular external e-mail address. This is only a suggestion, not a request. This whole system is just another way for you to receive e-mail besides the ISP mailbox you have. You may choose not to use it at all. However, if you do choose to use this system, please be careful not to recreate the problem we had before, when you have an automatic reply set up and then you subscribe to a list. This can cause a huge amount of e-mails being bounced back and forth between your automatic reply and the list you have subscribed to. I would not recommend using automatic replies at all.
I hope this system works for a long time and that we do not have any problems like the previous one. Good luck, and I will look forward to hearing from you about how you use the system. You can send comments about the system to emailcomments@sacpcug.org.
