Maxprog Help

MLM stands for Mailing List Manager. To make things simple let’s say it is the online part of MaxBulk Mailer. Indeed it does all what MaxBulk Mailer can’t do by itself. MaxBulk Mailer is a desktop application you run when you need it and quit once you are finished. MLM however is a script running on your web site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. MaxBulk Mailer takes advantage of MLM to perform tasks and to offer services that require full time availability. Imagine you were to maintain your computer with MaxBulk Mailer running indefinitely at home or at the office. This is simply inconceivable, hopefully you don’t have to do that since MLM run on a web server and web servers are always running!

MLM installation is optional, yet it adds two important services to MaxBulk Mailer. On one hand it offers the possibility to maintain lists on your web site allowing your visitors to subscribe or unsubscribe from any of them. On the other hand it adds the possibility to find out what happens to a message once it leaves your computer, if it has been opened by a recipient or if a recipient has clicked on a link.

MLM fully integrates with MaxBulk Mailer. Once you have installed MLM on your server and set your subscribe page, everything else is handled transparently. Actually if you did not have to install MLM to your server you would never have heard about it.

MLM installation is supposed to be easy but sometimes it can give problems. It all depends on your server settings. MLM represents a great improvement for MaxBulk Mailer so it is well worth the effort.

There are two ways to install MLM on your server, using the MaxBulk Mailer > Install MLM menu or manually by using you favorite FTP software. This tutorial explains how to install MLM on your server using the MaxBulk Mailer built-in installer. It is made of 5 steps:

Step #1 – MLM Settings

This step is all about MLM settings itself. There are 4 groups of settings numbered 1 to 4. Note that the data used in the screenshot above is just an example. You have to use your own.

1.- Your MLM User ID and Password: Choose whatever you prefer here! This data is to protect the MLM access. MaxBulk Mailer will need this data to access MLM. You will need this data if you decide to access MLM directly with your Web Browser.
2.- Default Language: This is the language that will be used by default by MLM to display responses, errors and so on. It will be the language used for sending emails to the recipient as well.
3.- Your data: It will be displayed on all MLM pages and added to all MLM email messages. In addition administration messages and errors will be sent to ‘E-mail Address’.
4.- Data storage: First select how you want data to be stored, mySQL or Plain Text. If you select ‘Plain Text’ then you are finished with this step, just click on the ‘Next’ button. If you select ‘mySQL’ you will have to type all your mySQL server data below, that is, the server host address, your account ID, your password and the Database you want to use to store your data. Note that you have to use a full access mySQL account, the one that allows you to create tables! If you don’t have any database created just select a name, MLM will create it for you.

Once you are finished click on the Next button.

Step #2 – FTP Server Settings

MLM has to be installed on your web server. The common way to transfer files to a web server is using the FTP protocol, the same protocol used by your favorite FTP client software such as Transmit, Fetch or Core FTP.

1.- Server address, User ID and Password: You have to provide your FTP server address, your user ID and your password. Most of the time your FTP server will be in the form ‘ftp.mywebsite.xxx’. This is the same address, the same user ID and the same password you are using with the FTP software you are using to upload your HTML pages to your site!
2.- FTP path and Web URL: On many servers your public HTML files must be placed into a special folder. It can be labeled ‘public’, ‘html’, ‘public_html’, ‘web’, ‘www’, ‘httpdocs’ or whatever. Perhaps there is no such folder and your public files are located at your account root level. You should know that actually since you already uploaded files to your server, right? Just check and type the public folder here if any. The Web URL is the web address of the site corresponding to your FTP account. Both the Path and the Web URL are used to generate and add the MLM URL to the MaxBulk Mailer preferences. Nothing else actually! If you make an error, that URL will be wrong. You can edit it anytime from the MaxBulk Mailer preferences, second panel. More information on this in step #5.
3.- FTP connection settings: Those settings are here just in case you need to use a different port, a secure protocol or active mode instead of passive. Default settings should be fine though.

Once you are finished click on the Next button. If all the data is correct you will get connected to your FTP server.

Step #3 – Destination folder

As soon as you are connected select the folder where you want MLM to get installed.
1.- Destination folder: You can see where MLM is about to be installed. By default it will be in a folder labeled ‘lm’, inside the folder you select if any. In this example we have created a folder named ’scripts’.
2.- Folder contents: As with any FTP tool, you will see the list of files on the selected folder. In this case it is empty since we just created the script folder and moved to it.
3.- Browsing buttons: You can use those buttons to go back and forward through your server folders.

You can also use the Open button to open a folder (same as double-clicking) and the New Folder to create a new folder in the current directory.

Once you are finished click on the Select button to select the destination folder and to start the installation.

Step #4 – MLM Installation

During the installation you will see the detailed progress and the FTP log below. All the MLM files will be uploaded to your server, then the ‘lm’ folder permissions will be set to 777. If everything goes well you will end with a blue ‘Installation complete’ message and a grey checkmark on each line. If something goes wrong you will get a red error message and a red cross on the line that has produced the error. You can try to install again clicking on the Back button. If the error persists you will have to install MLM manually as explained at the end of this tutorial.

Once you are finished click on the Close button.

Step #5 – Checking the MLM URL in MaxBulk Mailer preferences

Now go to the MaxBulk Mailer preferences, second panel ‘General’. Make sure the URL is correct, you can for example copy and paste it to your browser. You should get a ‘Error – You forgot to provide the command parameter: &cmd=command’ error. That means the link is OK. Also check the ‘Click-Through tracking’ option if you plan to do tracking.

Installation Errors

When you get errors during the installation the best will be to install the software manually. You can do that with a FTP software like Transmit, Fetch, CoreFTP… This how you have to proceed:

1.- Open the lm/lm_settings.php file with a text editor.
2.- Edit the script settings and save (each setting is explained in the file). [1]
3.- Upload the ‘lm’ folder to your FTP server (in your public folder). [2]
4.- Use your FTP software to CHMOD the ‘lm’ folder to 777 (or 775 or 755). [3]
5.- Enter the ‘lm.php’ full URL and your user ID and password to MaxBulk preferences.
6.- If you have selected to use mySQL run the script with the ‘Init’ command:

http://<script_path_here>/lm.php?cmd=init&pwd=password

[1] The lm/lm_settings.php contains all the parameters you can change to customize the script to match your needs. When doing a manual installation it is important to open that file with a plain text editor like Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on the Macintosh.

[2] Never upload MLM to your home root folder if you have a specific folder for public html documents like ‘public’, ‘html’, ‘public_html’, ‘web’, ‘www’, ‘httpdocs’. Just open the folder or any subfolder first!

[3] If you don’t know how to CHMOD a folder with your FTP software please read your FTP software manual. It is possible your server doesn’t like you to CHMOD the ‘lm’ folder to 777 (showing an ‘Internal Server Error’ when you try to run the script with your browser) so just try 775 or 755.

The lm/html folder includes a few sample pages for subscribing customers to your lists (to a fixed single list, a single list from a selection or multiple lists at once) and a sample page for uploading lists to MLM (despite you can do that from MaxBulk Mailer as well).

MaxBulk Mailer

MaxBulk Mailer already allows you to unsubscribe people from a list but what happens if a recipient is subscribed to more than one list and he explicitly asked not to receive anything else from you?

Well, you have the choice between processing each list separately and unsubscribe the recipient from each of them or use the Global Blacklist feature. In fact, the Global Blacklist prevents you from sending messages to given addresses whichever the list you have selected. In other words, you just need to add the address once to the blacklist to get it automatically blocked everywhere else!

As unsubscribed addresses, blacklisted recipients are automatically discarded by MaxBulk Mailer when sending messages.

Blacklisting an email address is very simple. Let’s see…

Blacklisting Al Capone

Select your list and highlight the address(es) you wish to blacklist. Then either right-click your mouse and select the "Add to Blacklist" menu or select the ‘Recipients -> Add to Blacklist’ menu from the top menu.

Al Capone has been blacklisted

Blacklisted addresses appear striked out* with a different icon so you can easily tell them apart. In addition the whole entry appears in gray*, unchecked and the card icon with a green check mark has been replaced with a card icon with a prohibition sign. Al Capone will never receive any more message from us!

* Note that MaxBulk Mailer v6 will show the entry in red with no strike.

Let’s check the Blacklist

The Blacklist is accessible from the List manager pull-down menu like any other list. Just select it. Here is Al Capone!

Since the Blacklist is similar to the other lists you can add more addresses to it by using the ‘+’ button, by dropping text with addresses or by importing files. To remove addresses from the Blacklist you just have to select them, click on the delete button ‘-’ and then on the ‘Save’ button. Yes, it is the same as with any other list. As a result It is really easy to maintain a blacklist. You don’t have to learn anything more.

Just remember that:

- Blacklisted addresses will never receive your messages whichever the list they are on.
- You can blacklist an address selecting it and using the ‘Add to blacklist’ menu.
- The blacklist is like another list you can select and open from the list manager pull-down menu.
- Everything that works with a regular list will also work for the Blacklist.

MaxBulk Mailer blacklist

When sending e-mail you have the choice between using your ISP, your web host or your own dedicated SMTP server (An SMTP server is a mailserver that you use to send email. It stores your messages and ensures that your messages are either delivered or returned to you with a failure message).

Your ISP usually will provide an SMTP mail server but most ISPs will not want you to send bulk email through their mailservers. Many have restrictions on the number of messages you can send per hour.

Your web host should provide you with a dedicated SMTP server. Particularly if you are a business and you have a legitimate need to communicate with your customers, then your web host should provide SMTP server service as well. They may also have sending limitations, but they are likely much less restricted than an ISP mailserver.

Your own dedicated SMTP server is also an option. You will need to make sure that your IP address is not on any listings of dialup or dynamically allocated IP addresses (Residential IP) and make sure the IP address you are using is registered to a domain name preferably with an MX record.

Note that MaxBulk Mailer has no SMTP server built-in because nowadays it no longer works well with most big ISPs. Some of them like AOL will bounce your messages as soon as they detect they have been sent from a residential IP, an IP that belongs to a range of IPs for DSL/Dialup connections, including static IPs, or that IP has no reverse DNS (PTR) or no domain assigned to it. Following our tests, using your own SMTP server or an application with a built-in server will cause between 20 and 30% additional bounces. The question is, can you accept that up to 30% of your customers will never get your messages?

In addition some ISPs like Hotmail and MSN are also using Greylisting. In short, greylisting is a method where a piece of email being relayed by a mailservers is initially deferred. This means that it is not accepted upon the first attempt, rather, the sending mailserver is told to relay it again at a later time. With standard mailserver configurations, such as those generally maintained by your ISP and free email service provider, the email will be re-sent at a later time, usually anywhere from 5-20 minutes. Bulk mailing software with built-in server however generally don’t operate like standard mailservers, and usually won’t relay their email again at a later time.

MaxBulk Mailer key advantage is that it fully respects and follows the SMTP protocol. MaxBulk Mailer is a conventional email client using the standard email delivery system. As a result the delivery bounce rate is extremely low.

MaxBulk Mailer

A new entry has been added to the MaxBulk Mailer Support Page about SMTP Server Response Codes. SMTP servers use to respond to commands using a defined set of codes. This page is a small guide to the codes mail servers may produce when you try to send mail along with their meanings. They are part of the SMTP protocol (the set of rules used to send emails).

MaxBulk Mailer

So you have lent an amount of money to a friend and you are interested in reflecting the exact transactions in iCash. It is easy but it requires several steps you need to understand well.

You have to create your lending account first, as a portfolio account as it is an investment. Once done you have to create a starting transaction from your checking account to that lending account. That transaction represents the money transfer between you and the borrower:

For this example let say the borrower will give you the money back in 12 months with an annual interest of 5%. First payment will be enterred that way:

where ‘Interests’ is an account of type ‘Incomes’ you have to create as well so you can gather the interests.

Why 2 transactions? Simple, just to keep track of incomes. You could simply create a single transaction from the borrower to your Bank account but if you do that you will end with a negative Borrower account and no trace of incomes. Note that you can group those 2 transactions together to match your Bank statement. Use the ‘Transaction | Group’ menu:

After payment 12th you will have the following balance:

- My checking account: +10,000.00
- My Borrower: 0.00
- Interests: 272.84

Note that the calculation has been made with our Loan Calculator Loan Calc
iCash is a Personal Finance Application available for Mac and Windows in 8 different languages. You can get iCash here.

iCash

If your messages look like regular private e-mails and you use tags to make them different and customized with recipient data, you will get much better results. You can also use ‘Bonded Sender’ https://www.bondedsender.com or ‘Habeas’ http://www.habeas.com so your messages will be recognized as legitimate.

Furthermore you can run your email through some of the spam filters available online, or install some end-user antispam applications on your own computer, and send an email to yourself before attempting to email end users.

There are some services you can use to test the spam quotient of your e-zines and e-mail offers before sending them out.

– SiteSell SpamCheck Report tests your message at no charge using SpamAssassin and sends you a report. Send your test e-mails to mailto:sales-spamcheck@sitesell.net Be careful, however, that you put the word TEST as the first word in the subject — and make sure it is capitalized. Otherwise, the system will delete the mail, thinking it’s spam. Following the word TEST, add the subject line that would appear in the email normally.

– Assurance Systems offers three functions as part of a paid service. (1) Message Checker rates your e-mail message for spam. (2) Mailbox Monitor checks test addresses for each of the major ISPs to make sure your e-mail is being delivered. (3) Blacklist Alert lets you know what blacklists you are appearing on so you can work to get your domain or IP number off the list. http://www.assurancesys.com

In addition current MaxBulk Mailer includes several documents about this issue well worth a read and v4 a built-in Spam checker.

MaxBulk Mailer

You have read over and over that it is less expensive to get an existing customer to make a purchase than to get a new customer to make a purchase. The most recent figures suggest that it is six times as expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain a customer. You have also read that the least expensive way to market to existing customers is via targeted e-mail.

Email Marketing is spreading around the whole world because of its high effectiveness, speed and low cost. If you want to introduce and sell your product or service, the best way is to use e-mail to contact your targeted customer. Targeted e-mail is no doubt very effective. If you can introduce your product or service through email directly to the customers who are interested in them, this will bring your business a better chance of success.

Read this interesting tutorial here:

- English: How to create and publish your first newsletter
- German: Beginnen Sie mit Ihrem Newsletter
- French: Comment démarrer votre propre bulletin d’information
- Italian: Come creare la tua newsletter
- Spanish: Como publicar un boletín electrónico
- Dutch: Hoe je eigen nieuwsbrief uitgeven

MaxBulk Mailer

You just need to gather all those subscribe and unsubscribe messages to a couple of folders applying some rules and using the scripts we wrote for adding or deleting addresses from a Mac OS X Mail (or Entourage folder). They are called ‘Adding recipients from Mac OS X Mail’ and ‘Deleting recipients from Mac OS X Mail’ (we also include Entourage and Powermail scripts). Those scripts come with MaxBulk distribution, inside the example/AppleScript/Mac OS X Mail import folder and are also accessible from both the import menu and import button. They are very easy to modify if you need to and automatically process a given Mail folder and take the From and Reply-To headers using their contents to add/remove the addresses from the currently selected MaxBulk list.

Also note that users may have several addresses and sometimes forwards so the e-mail used when replying will not always match the one used for receiving your message. The trick here is to add a [E-mail Address] tag to your unsubscribe link this way:

mailto:stanley@roche.org?Subject=Unsubscribe&Reply-To=[E-mail Address]

The [E-mail Address] will be replaced at delivery time with each recipient address so if one of them decides to unsubscribe the Reply-To header will contain the address you originally used. As my script process this header as well you will be 100% sure that you are removing the right addresses. If you don’t want to use that header just use the subject or the body modifying the script accordingly. An example could be:

If you decide to use the subject:
mailto:stanley@roche.org?Subject=Unsubscribe%20[E-mail Address]

If you decide to use the body
mailto:stanley@roche.org?Subject=Unsubscribe&Body=Unsubscribe%20[E-mail Address]

Note that you should never use spaces inside this URL but ‘%20′ codes to avoid breaking the link on recipient mail reader. Also the first mailto argument is always preceded with a ‘?’ mark and then ‘&’ for the others.

Hope this information will help you build a solid subscription system.

The scripts are available inside MaxBulk Mailer distribution: http://www.maxprog.com/shareware/MaxBulkMailer_X. dmg

MaxBulk Mailer

Selling products online gives you a chance at thousands of new customers but it is no simple task, and the past few years have seen many people trying their hand at it. Many of them walk away disappointed a few months or years later, but some manage to significantly subsidize their income. The reality is that having the perfect product to sell just isn’t enough, there are a lot of new challenges that come with selling over the Internet so it’s important to keep track of your sales and know detail-fully how your business is doing, how each product is performing over time and where your marketing dollars should be spent. After years selling online we have created the ultimate tool for handling your online sales and take decisions.

Transaction is an easy-to-use, full featured and multi-purpose interactive data analysis and reporting tool intended to help you control your online sales. Transaction can serve several small to medium management needs for either private users, software developers or small businesses making keeping track of online sales a snap. With a few clicks you can start importing your existing transactions and create reports and charts in minutes.

Transaction is versatil and user-friendly. Thru its all-in-one interface you can easily create new products and customers or add new transactions or expenses in a few clicks. But the best of it is the possibility to import your existing transactions and start creating reports and charts right of the box. Transaction uses a state-of-the-art fast SQL engine with user-defined smart lists so your reports and charts can be tailored to include all your products, user-defined product categories or only ones meeting specified criteria.

Transaction doesn’t use technical jargon making it much easier to be used by people with very little or no computing knowledge at all. Simply create or import your products and transactions and start reporting! Transaction also allows you to find out how each of your products perform, the impact of your advertising campaigns, the total refunds and chargebacks, units sold… and gives you a chance to take in-time decisions.

Transaction web page: http://www.maxprog.com/Transaction.html

Transaction for Mac OS X: Download
Transaction for Windows: Download

Transaction