Remail: Send and Receive E-mail Through Google App Engine for Free
Sending e-mail from Rails applications is a common activity, but not all application servers are running a reliable SMTP daemon.. and setting up a server to receive e-mails is a real pain. A common solution is to use GMail, but now there's a slicker RESTian alternative in the shape of Remail (or GitHub repo) by Alex MacCaw.
Remail is an attempt to bring RESTian practices to the world of sending and receiving e-mail from Rails applications. In this short "how to" guide, Alex demonstrates how to get it all up and running, but effectively it relies on deploying a "Remail engine" on to a free Google App Engine project (which you can create) and then sending and receiving your mails over a REST interface through the Google hosted app. The e-mail handiwork is then managed at Google's end.
Limitations? Google App Engine only lets you send 2000 e-mails a day on free accounts (this shouldn't be a big deal to most users, though) but with the reasonably priced paid-for accounts, millions of e-mails per day can be delivered reliably. The ability to receive e-mail also makes this a must-see.
