<OT>?? email recipients

[Rick Bowers]

Quite some time ago, probably on this list, I asked about having a 
"general" email account rather than hundreds of individual accounts 
(I run my own mail server at the house using SME Server).

It was recommended/suggested that I could use my base mail ID, a 
hyphen ('-') and any other string and I would still receive the 
messages. So, I started setting up mail IDs for any company that 
asked me for an email address as Rick-companyname at mydomain.xxx

So, I have hundreds of email IDs like 
Rick-AmericanExpress at mydomain.xxx and Rick-Comcast at mydomain.xxx and 
Rick-linux-sxs at mydomain.xxx etc.

This has all (seemingly) been working fine. All the messages arrive, 
and I use message filters to direct the emails to individual mailboxes.

e.g. 	Rick-AmericanExpress at mydomain.xxx	-> Accounts/AmericanExpress
	Rick-Comcast at mydomain.xxx 		-> Accounts/Comcast
	Rick-linux-sxs at mydomain.xxx		 -> MailLists/linux-sxs.Org

It turns out this is only working because I have setup my DNS to 
forward any unspecified messages to a general email account 
(Catchall at mydomain.xxx). I hadn't noticed because the filters were 
handling all the incoming messages just fine. I assumed/understood 
that any message sent to Rick-foo at mydomain.xxx would be automatically 
delivered to Rick at mydomain.xxx

I recently added a new domain name and use a different DNS provider. 
For that provider I haven't/can't setup a "catchall account". So mail 
messages to Rick-foo at newdomain.xxx get bounced while 
Rick at newdomain.xxx gets delivered.

Did I completely misunderstand the Rick-yyy at mydomain.xxx philosophy 
or have I setup something wrong? Is there a way to do what I want 
without specifying rules at the DNS?

The old DNS provider charges, while the new DNS provider is free. 
Also, I have several legitimate email accounts (for family members, 
etc.) so managing them is more difficult than providing functionality 
similar to what I described above.

Any thoughts? recommendations? Hits on the head?

~Rick