changing MX and provider recommendations?

I have a few questions regarding mail routing. I've never messed with changing an MX record to route mail elsewhere but I have a project coming up that may require it. Which leads to question #1: How exactly do you forward all email traffic to another email service provider?

#2: Is there a reason that all of Dreamhost's kbase-like stuff makes it sound incredibly scary, is this due to difficulty level or simply overzealousness due to people's crankiness level when the email is broken?

#3: Can anyone recommend a good 3rd party email provider? The scenario we'd like to have for mail is just "automatically" pointing it to the third party (regardless of whether they require email service or not) then if they'd like to purchase email service send them to said provider to sign up... Is there any service out there like that, or am I causing them unwanted traffic by pointing mx records at them?

jason

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#1: How exactly do you forward all email traffic to another email service provider?

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I recommend *not* forwarding email because it is likely you will have problems spam-filtering the forwarded email.

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#2: Is there a reason that all of Dreamhost's kbase-like stuff makes it sound incredibly scary, is this due to difficulty level or simply overzealousness due to people's crankiness level when the email is broken?

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I had problems when I switched the MX record of my Dreamhost domain so, to me, it *is* scary to switch an MX record at Dreamhost. I've switched MX records at other providers with no problems, i.e., no lost or bounced mail. At Dreamhost they stop accepting mail for a domain as soon as you change the MX record. At all my other providers there was a period of time during which both the new and old MX host accepted mail for my domain.

Maybe this has now been fixed now at Dreamhost?

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#3: Can anyone recommend a good 3rd party email provider? The scenario we'd like to have for mail is just "automatically" pointing it to the third party (regardless of whether they require email service or not) then if they'd like to purchase email service send them to said provider to sign up... Is there any service out there like that, or am I causing them unwanted traffic by pointing mx records at them?

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I've done a lot of research about this and documented it here:

http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/imap/isps/

I'm mainly using http://www.tuffmail.com/ and I'm happy with them. If it doesn't seem like they do what you're looking for, I recommend that you email them and ask. I know they do customized systems for some of their customers.

Good luck with all this!

Infinite Ink ~ http://www.ii.com
Deflexion & Reflexion ~ http://deflexion.com