2nd November 2000

Is your e-mail server slugging along slower than a snail? You're not alone. However, this little tip may just shave a few seconds off of transmission time. First, you'll need to find out what your POP3 and SMTP servers are supposed to be. This information can be found somewhere in your account settings. Let's say its MAIL.YOURISP.COM for the sake of argument. Drop to a command prompt and run the traceroute utility: "TRACERT MAIL.YOURISP.COM" (sans quotes). You're looking for the mail server's IP address, folks. Say it turns out to be 256.7.26.73 (again, for the sake of argument). Copy the number and use it in lieu of the original alphabetic designation. What good does this do you? It's possible that sending / receiving mail processes will be shortened due to bypassing the 'route' and jumping directly to the destination IP. NOTE: IP addresses aren't written in stone; they may change in time. Just adjust your settings accordingly. Don't understand a word I've written? Don't try this tweak.