ActiveSync is Almost Open Source

We've recently discovered how to sync from our Google Apps calender directly to our iPhone using the services provided by Google. What's really cool is that Microsoft has also shared documentation on the ActiveSync Protocols - and that's allows us to implement a Contact Sharing tool from our Imperium Accounting Software to our iPhone. Hooray!

Google Calendar - New iPhone Features & Quick Add Broken

We love the Google Calendar App, no kidding. The mobile interface on the iPhone keeps getting better and better. When it first was launched it was not possible to edit or delete events and we were forced to write our own interface (using Zend Framework). Now that feature is added! Hooray! We've since taken down our iPhone Google Calendar editor. Nice work.

The web-interface however seems to have lost a feature recently. The Quick Add feature used to accept events entered as 1500h Meeting as a Meeting at 3pm. It now appears that Google Apps don't understand 24h style times. We've tried all the variants 15:00, 1500, 15:00h and they are never read as 3pm. Other time variations work such as 3pm, 3:00. Regardless of format settings, 24h time formats don't seem to work any more.

Comcast, SpamHaus, Google Apps and Failed Messages - Part 2

To recap - Comcast has added many of it's IPs to the SpamHaus PBL, which block messages originating directly from a Comcast client system (ie at home). Comcast blames the hosting companies subscribing to the SpamHaus list and refuses to acknowledge thy have done anything. The SpamHaus PBL is managed by the owners of the netblock (Comcast)

I've confirmed the issue mentioned in the comments. If you send a message from anywhere, that contains a link or URI pointing to a host in the PBL the message will be block. Nice.

Half-Assed Solutions!!

The first step might be to sign-up for Comcast business class. That will cost an additional $15/mo (for us it was $45/mo now $60/mo). Ok, $15/mo additional to Comcast to undo the damage they have created. Oh! But there is a $250 install fee, unless a three year contract is signed.

I called Speakeasy but then remembered they now owned by Best Buy which I hate.

I could use Clearwire but that is the worst service in the world.

I really wish the government would step in here and allow other carriers on the Comcast lines, like they allow multiple carriers on the copper installed by Qwest or the Bells back in the day. It seems odd that one set of lines has competing carriers and the Comcast lines have only Comcast service available - wasn't that they type of monopoly that the Gov't broke up so many years ago?

So, is it worth an additional $250/otc + $15/mo so I can send emails from my billing program? Nope, I'll simply move the program onto another server I operate and send from there so that neither my sending host or link destinations are suspect.

As for links that I still need pointing back to my "suspect" host I've created a nice rule on my primary domain. So instead of linking to the blacklisted IP or a hostname that resolves to this blacklisted IP I can link to my primary site, and rewrite the URLs to my blacklisted host.

This simple Apache trick does it.

RewriteRule ^/carbon/(.*) https://carbon.edoceo.com/$1 [R=301,L]

So now I can send clients to my blacklisted IP/host (carbon.edoceo.com) by sending links to my primary host, sample below.

http://edoceo.com/carbon/edoceo-graph-paper.php

carbon localhost # curl -v http://edoceo.com/carbon/edoceo-graph-paper.php
* About to connect() to edoceo.com port 80 (#0)
*   Trying 216.162.208.161... connected
* Connected to edoceo.com (216.162.208.161) port 80 (#0)
> GET /carbon/edoceo-graph-paper.php HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.18.2 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.18.2 OpenSSL/0.9.8j zlib/1.2.3
> Host: edoceo.com
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
< Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:32:11 GMT
< Server: Apache
< Location: https://carbon.edoceo.com/edoceo-graph-paper.php
< Cache-Control: max-age=1296000
< Expires: Sat, 02 May 2009 15:32:11 GMT

Done!

Comcast, SpamHaus, Google Apps and Failed Messages

If you use Comcast as your ISP and then Google Apps to manage your companies email you may have seen this message when sending to some of your clients:

554 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content (state 18)

This message is returned by the recipients email server, when passing your message through their spam filter. The reason it's rejected is because your IP address shows up in a SpamHaus Blacklist. This is the IP address given to your home/office by Comcast. In fact, Comcast has requested that many of their IP addresses are added to this Policy Black List. See here http://www.spamhaus.org/pbl/query/PBL191981 for one example. (Our office IP is in that subnet)

Sending via Google Apps web-interface is OK, but sending from applications (Outlook, Thunderbird) or from other automated billing systems (Imperium) will fail because the message originates from an IP in the blacklist.

If you try to call Comcast and resolve this issue they will first point you to a form to remove your IP from their blacklist. As if you were restricted from sending into the Comcast network. Clearly the don't understand the issue. It's outbound mail and it's related to "Outbound Email Policy of Comcast for this IP range" as indicated by the link above.

Subsequent calls to Comcast will only serve to frustrate you. They will try to look at Outlook settings, reset the modem and other things that are completely unrelated to SpamHaus PBL issue.

After escalating the call you will speak with someone like Brandon who will say. "We aren't blocking you" - which is not true. Comcast is blocking us by putting a large set of their IPs on the policy black-list managed by SpamHaus (see link above). Then Brandon will ask you to contact the company who is blocking the message, which is any provider subscribing to the SpamHaus lists (a large number).

So, in short Comcast puts all their IPs on a Policy Black List (net-block owners are responsible for this). Then they will tell you they are not responsible for the blockage (lies!). They will point to others as the cause and their CSRs are unaware of what a PBL is and refuse to acknowledge that Comcast (the net-block owner) is the only party that can instruct SpamHaus to put such a large subnet on a blacklist.

The only solution is to send using the Comcast SMTP servers. That's nice in theory except when sending through the Comcast servers I have no record of the sent message in my Google Apps account. We need these sent messages in our Google Apps accounts for compliance purposes.

Once again Comcast has hurt their customers and their internal staff is a) unaware and b) not knowledgeable enough about network operations to assist. Mr Roberts please - do something!