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Email Benefits and FAQs

Email Packages and Pricing

Email Benefits and FAQs

Click here for information about our packages and pricing

Benefits

Plenty of space (upto 1GB), so your mailbox shouldn't fill up
Large files can be emailed (although we recommend [Pando] for >8MB)
Easy to access from any Internet connection (POP3, IMAP and Webmail)
Secure (all our mail works with SSL password protection)
Stripped of confirmed spam
Redundant systems ensure safety
Guaranteed 99.9% uptime

What is an email account?

An email account is an electronic post box. You get a username (which is similar to the number of a post box) and a password (the key to your post box). All email sent to your email account can be collected using any email program or web browser. Email addressed to you is delivered to your account and stored there until you log in and check it either on-line or download it to your computer.

An email forward is the equivalent of a real life forwarding address. When you change your PO box and leave a forwarding address, any email addressed to your old address, gets re-sent to your new address. An email forward is similar in that all email sent to the forwarding address just gets forwarded on a real account (i.e. like a real world forwarding address, one cannot collect your mail from there as it's been forwarded). i.e. an email forward is not an email account, and it's a free service offered with any domain names

What is an email address?

An email address is made up of two parts. The first is the name of user that the address belongs to. The second part is the domain name of the ISP that the user has signed up with, or another domain name that the user owns.

In the email address: johndoe@vanilla.co.za, johndoe is the user's name and vanilla.co.za is the domain name. The @ symbol, which stands for 'at', means exactly that. If you register your own domain name, you can setup an email address to forward all mail that goes to johndoe@yourdomainname.co.za to be re-directed to your account, e.g. johndoe@vanilla.co.za. Read about Vanilla Domain names.

What is an email alias?

An email alias is not a real email account.

Instead it's an address that forwards all email it receives to another email account. Another name for an email alias is a forwarding address. For example, if you establish an email alias called jd@vanilla.co.za to go to johndoe@vanilla.co.za, then all email sent to jd@Vanilla.co.za will be automatically forwarded to johndoe@vanilla.co.za (In this case, 'jd' is called an alias of 'johndoe'.)

You can setup an email alias so that email is forwarded to an account outside of your domain name as well. For example, you can setup jd@Vanilla.co.za to go to johndoe@yourcompany.co.za. You can have several email aliases all send mail to the same account.

How much does an email account cost?

For a Vanilla email account:

R20 (incl VAT) per month

R228 (incl VAT) per annum

To learn more about how Vanilla bills you, click here.

How do I set up my computer to get email?

I want to setup my email account to use with one of the following email programs:

What is spam? How can I avoid it?

Spam is unwanted or unsolicited e-mail messages from someone you do not know or with whom you do not have an established business or personal relationship. Spam is the electronic equivalent of junk mail that you get through the post. It is also known as "unsolicited commercial e-mail" (UCE), "unsolicited bulk e-mail" (UBE), "gray mail" and just plain "junk mail,". Spam is usually used to advertise products or to broadcast some political or social commentary,or to trick you, for example asking for your personal details by pretending that you have won a lottery.

Like viruses, spam has become a scourge on the Internet as hundreds of millions of unwanted messages are transmitted daily to almost every e-mail account. Unfortunately for users and fortunately for spammers, as an advertising medium, spam does produce results. Even if only an infinitesimal number of users reply, it is still cost effective since e-mail is a very inexpensive way to reach people.

Vanilla blocks approximately 90% of spam messages using our spam filters.

Can my computer get a virus from email?

What is a virus?

A computer virus is a program that invades your computer.

Can you get a virus from just opening an email or do you have to open an attachment within an email?

Up until a few years ago, opening an attachment was required before you could get a virus through email on your computer. However, this has changed due to more 'clever' virus writing, and more functionality being added to certain software programs. Opening certain types of messages can infect your machine.

Can you get a virus just by reading email?

Some users think they are always safe to open email as long as they don’t look at or open attachments. This is no longer necessarily true. Some viruses can infect users when they read email. They look like any other message but can contain a hidden script(program) that runs as soon as you open the email, or even look at it in the preview pane. Scripts can change system settings and can cause your computer to send the virus on to other users via email.

Always have:

An updated anti-virus program installed on your computer.
Always keep your operating system and virus definitions up to date.

When I try to get my email I get an error message. What does this mean?

These are some general errors that can appear while using an email client, email program on your computer like MS outlook.

POP3 Error	Could Not Connect To Remote POP3 Server. Make sure that you have the correct server name. In Outlook Express, click tools and then click accounts. Click on your Vanilla mail account to highlight it and then click on Properties. Under the Servers tab, make sure that the Incoming Mail (POP3) is the correct one as supplied by your ISP. Click on OK if changes were made and then Close.
SMTP Error	Host not found Make sure that you have the correct server name. In Outlook Express, click tools and then click accounts. Click on your Vanilla mail account to highlight it and then click on Properties. Under the Servers tab, make sure that the Outgoing Mail (SMTP) is the correct one as supplied by your ISP. Click on OK if changes were made and then Close.
Modem Hangs Up After Sending/Receiving Email	In Outlook Express go to the menu-bar, click Tools and then click Options. In the Options window click on the Connection tab. Remove the check-mark next to Hang up after sending and receiving. Click on OK.
The connection to the server has failed	This error occurs when your Vanilla email account attempts to connect to incorrect servers. This either happens because you are not connected to the internet, or because one of your email account settings are incorrect.
Server 'Time Outs'	This usually happens with a dial up account because you have been disconnected from Internet. If someone is trying to send you a very large email, probably with an attachment. In Outlook Express, click on Tools and then Accounts. With your Vanilla email account selected, click on Properties. Under the Advanced tab, change the Server Timeouts slider to Long (5 minutes). Click on OK and then Close. Alternatively, close your email program and log on to Webmail to retrieve, read, save the attachment if desired, and then delete the email (The attachment must not be bigger than the limit set in Web Email). This should remove the offending email from the Vanilla mail server so that when you re-open your email program it will not be there anymore, and so your email program can move to the next email.
Mailer Daemon (Mail Delivery Subsystem messages	If an email returns to you after sending it you may encounter a 'mail daemon' message. Usually these error messages give the reason why the email was return. The most common reasons are an incorrect email address or, the inbox of the person you are trying to send to is full and they cannot accept any more email.

What server settings should I use?

Server settings are instructions that you put into your email program so that it know where to fetch mail from and how to send mail.

Have a look at Email key settings.

What is Email ettiquette

Many users are not aware that email has its own set of rules and that violating those rules increase the probability of filtering your email not only by anti-spam filters but by filters in other corporations (many corporation are using various spam filters to protect their user form the flood of spam). For your reference here are a typical e-mail etiquette rules:

Refrain from using all capitals LIKE THIS when sending email. This is considered to be 'yelling'.
Include your full name and email address in the body of every message. Many email programs help you to do this with a signature file.
Use the subject line to provide a meaningful synopsis of your message, especially if you are sending business-related email or email to a stranger.
Take a moment to delete extra lines and text from replies and forwards, to reduce the size of the message
Do not use email to criticize other people's grammar and spelling. Email is informal and criticisms like that are called flames. Remember that everyone makes mistakes.
Always check your own email for readability and spelling, before you click Send
Double-check the email address of the person to whom you are sending your message to is correct.

Can I Save messages on the server

Normally when you download your email to your computer, it is removed from your account mailbox on the Vanilla mail server. But there are means of saving the messages onto the server

Leave your email on the server.

This is useful if you are going to check your email whilst away from your computer using Vanilla webmail.

My Mail is Getting Delayed

People may tell you that they have sent you an email but you haven't received it.

Click here for the most likely reason for this.

Check Email on the World Wide Web

You can check your email anywhere in the world using Vanilla webmail. All you need is a computer connected to the internet.

Click here to go to our webmail page.

Access mail from Webmail and email program

What happens when you try to access your mail from the web and an email program such as outlook express.

When an email is deleted from Webmail a D flag is placed next to it, to show it has been deleted. This allows a user to see what has been deleted. Simply click on Folders in the top left corner, and then on Inbox, and you will notice that the messages that have been deleted will no longer appear in your inbox.

So, if you are deleting messages from the Webmail, and you are downloading them at the same time in Outlook Express, an error will occur. You could wait a minute or two after you've deleted them off the Webmail and logged out, and then clicking on send/receive in outlook express.

We suggest a refresh in your webmail:

After deleting emails in your Webmail, click on folders in the top left corner, and then on Inbox. Then you may click on send/receive in outlook express.

Setting up an auto-response

Open up your favorite web browser and go to mail.vanilla.co.za or Click Here.

Log-in in to your mail account. Your username will be ******@vanilla.co.za

Once you are logged in, click on "Edit Autoreplies"

In the Create new autoreply box, type: Vacation response

Type your message in the box provided and click save

The following is an example of a vacation response message:

Dear Sir/Madam

I will be out of the office from 6 June 2007 - 13 June 2007

Your message has been saved until my return.

Should you need immediate help, please contact:

John or Jane Doe at (434) 555-5555.

Kind Regards

John Doe

Now click on "Edit Mail Filters:"

In the Rule name box, type Vacation

For the Condition section select: Any message

For the Action section select: Send an autoreply and in the drop-down box, select Vacation Response

click submit

click save all changes

For email ettiquette reasons, we recommend that you unsubscribe from any mailing lists for the time that you will be away.

Why are my webmail attachments coming through as xxxx.dat files?

Please remove any spaces from your file name before attaching it. In some cases Microsoft proprietary systems treat spaces differently to other open systems which creates this problem.

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