I can't sent mail from my holiday house in Spain. My provider here won't allow sending from a different ISP. I don't have an emailaddress on the foreign ISP. I wonder if it would help if I sent mail directly from my own smtp server on my laptop. If my provider at home doesn't allow sending from a different ISP will it allow me to send from my own server?

You should still be able to use your regular provider. The problem is that if you are not on their network you need to be authenticated. The procedures differ depending on which email client you use, but somewhere in the "advanced" configuration for your email account in your client there will be a place to set the authentication. In Outlook (not Outlook Express), which is what I use, go to Tools<Email Account. Then select "View or change existing e-mail accounts". Select the account to be modified, and click the "Change" button. On the next window, select the "More Settings" button. Then go to the "Outgoing Server" tab. Put a check mark in the box "My outgoing server requires authentication". Then use either "Use same settings as my incoming mail server" (Which should be fine), or use "Log on using" and enter your username/password in the fields provided. If all that fails, you could always check to see if your ISP provides web access to your email, and you coud send from that. But, I have been able to use the feature above in many situations without fail. Michael J

You can either send through webmail as Michael suggested, or if you are wireless you can do what I do when I travel and that is use JiWire hotspot helper from www.jiwire.com what this does is send all of your e-mail through their servers. Since I have been using it I no longer have problems sending e-mail from different hotspots. It also secures your laptop from would be hackers. I know this works because if I leave it on when I am at my SOHO I cannot access my own secure network. I do have to turn it off but! Check it out.

I know all that but that is not an answer to my question. I hate webmail and I am trying to send email directly from my own smtp server which I installed on my laptop. Works from here but I am not sure if that will work abroad.

Have you not tried the first solution I provided? There is no reason to run a mail server - and doing so will result in your mail being flagged as SPAM by a lot of mail servers because there will be no reverse DNS lookup. If you set up your mail client to use authentication when sending mail you shoud be able to send mail using your regular ISP's mail server even when you are connected through another network. that is EXACTLY what that option is there for. No need to try and build a more complex solution when one already exists. Michael J

My provider does not allow smtp authentication!

Your provider sucks. I've used that option for 10 or 20 different providers (for me and others) and have never had a problem. I wish you luck on a solution, but I think trying to run your own SMTP server will result in many of your messages being bounced as the receiving servers will not see your server as valid email server. At the very least you should complain to your ISP. It probably won't change their policy, but if they never get any complaints they have no reason to change. Now that I think of it, you *could* use a different email account for sending email - but make them appear as if it is coming from your regular email address. Just set up a free email account with gmail (or another service that supports POP3). Then create another email account within your email application. When creating the new email account you set the Login information according to the new account, BUT you set the email address and return address to be the same as your main account. Then when sending email you just need to specify to use that account when you are not on your ISP's network. You will be able to send email from your regular application and it will appear to be coming from your regular account to the recipients. Michael J