Mail Fail, This is Good AND Bad
Okay so the last game that got sent out has (I would guess) to have about an 80% chance it didn't make it to everyone. The problem lies in the fact that Google Apps does not allow me to send more than 500 emails per day. I knew this limit and never figured that it would make any difference. I never actually expected this site to have (almost) 500 members which would warrant me coming close to the 'quota' limit.
This is a good thing, but it also presents me with a unique and frustrating problem that I've been working on for several hours now. My problem is that I can no longer reliably send the games to everyone when I make them. So to solve this issue I've tried a couple different things and ideas, all of which have had some success and (one in particular) had none at all.
So I could really use your recommendations here. I need SOMETHING that can do what I need it to do. Here are some requirements:
- It must be able to send attachments.
- It must also have sending quota controls. Meaning I need to be able to tell it to only send a specific number of emails at a time. (With current quota limitations, there are 1440 minutes in one day, and I can only send 500 emails per day (from Google) so that's somewhere in the ballpark of 4 emails a minute. I really dont want to have software running on my computer 24x7 just for sending email though. That would suck. (Just FYI my webhost is NOT my computer.)
- Users must be able to unsubscribe from the mailings. Typically that means they just close their account here (or ask me to delete them). But according to my TOS for my webhosting I MUST have 'opt-in' mailings. (Which everyone who signs up for the website agrees to already.)
Also, if somebody can recommend a web service that can do emails to large groups that would be cool, but I'm not going to pay a ton of money for my small website. I'd like to keep the price to under $20 a year if possible. If not, maybe our users would be able to chip in and help reduce my operating costs!? (hint, hint)
Anyways, my third option that I've got sort of set-up and that's to use Drop Box. If you're not familiar with this, what it does is file sync across multiple computers. So if you've got family and friends that all want to have pictures shared no matter when/where they are they just all put Drop Box on thier computer and link em so when I put a new picture in my Drop Box folder it syncs to their computer too. So why am I telling you this? Because I can use dropbox (already in place actually) and just provide the Public Sharing links for you. This should allow you to download the games via the web quickly and without having to install anything on your work computers (or at home).
So if you've got any suggestions and/or help I would really appreciate it a whole lot. To throw an incentive out there, if someone suggests an idea that I wind up using on the site I will send you a free Spreadsheet Ninja T-Shirt!
T-Shirts are Here!!!!
I know it's taken almost 4 months to get all the resources together and place the order, and then wait for them to arrive. But I can tell you, that the wait was totally worth it! These shirts are AWESOME! I am totally going to order more when they start to run out. The manufacturer who made them did a really good job on them!
The only down side is that I only have a limited number of them for sale. The first order of shirts had to be a small order, so I've only got 36 t-shirts left as of right now. I've also had 8 people just at my job alone ask me if they could buy one. I told them that it would not be fair to you if I did that. So I'm going to give you guys a head start! I'm not going to tell them that they are available for purchase until this upcoming weekend! So grab your shirts while you can, because I know they will be going quick!
Here's the link to the page (or you can use the menu above)