We're OutlookPower, so, of course, when thinking about server-side solutions the answer always has to be Exchange. Except, well, yeah. Not so much.

In response to my single-minded concentration, reader Jason Janes wrote in:

I think you overlooked the easiest solution (and its free). A simple auto-responder would work just fine for your readers situation. They are simple to set up and included with just about any reasonable hosting plan. By far the most common hosting control panels are cPanel and Plesk and this task would literally take about 30 seconds to setup.

Yeah, what Jason said.

Keep those cards and letters coming, and thanks, Jason, for keeping us on track.

David Gewirtz is the author of How To Save Jobs and Where Have All The Emails Gone? For more than 20 years, he has analyzed current, historical, and emerging issues relating to technology, competitiveness, and policy. David is the Editor-in-Chief of the ZATZ magazines, is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and is a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He can be reached at david@zatz.com and you can follow him at http://www.twitter.com/DavidGewirtz.