Plenty of native speakers make the same errors, and so do spell checkers.
I occasionally make those errors (and even "they're"), and I am a native
speaker *and* a college graduate
Usually, Thunderbird does include the message. I don't know why it
didn't. I likely didn't do something exactly right.
The reply was (to me anyway) obviously a tongue in cheek remark.
As to port usage, etc., and a particular port - - it's not uncommon to
have software use uncommon ports. The problem is to set things so that
"normal usage" occurs, and unusual usage gets flagged for attention, or
stopped.
My routers and P/Cs are setup such that known programs are usually
allowed access, and unknown ones get flagged. The biggest problems I've
had with this have to do with major content providers and all the
various add schemes. It's a never ending game for them to get the adds
through anyway. Occasionally, getting around port blockage by my IP has
been an issue. For an extra $100 a month or so, the IP will gladly
unblock all the ports, and incidentally include a fixed IP address
assignment.
