Jim Cheetham wrote:
POP3 is fine at this leave email on the server concept. However, it is really cr*p when there are a lot of emails waiting for you to read... because historically all of your mails are waiting in a single file for you to read. This is great for the os ( well, *nix especially, which becomes really slow when there are loads of files in a directory ), but not for your email reader application.Roger Searle wrote:
[plucking up sufficient courage to post...] Is it possible to set something like that up with a standard pop.paradise account on a machine that needs to be able to dual boot? Similar in a way (but more versatile) to what I can currently do with Mozilla. I would love to be able to get my email in Mozilla when I need to be running XP, but also be able to use Evolution in Linux. (I'm still only able to run Lunux about 50% of the time at the moment.)
POP isn't very good at "leaving email on the server" scenarios - you can easily get confused between "new mail" and "mail previously seen but not deleted".
In general, I don't use an ISP-provided mailbox for anything except talking to the ISP itself ...
If you want to experiment with IMAP mail (which is the "correct" way to do what you want) take a look a http://imap.cc - FastMail, a freebie service that will at the very least let you play, and at the best will be your "hotmail" replacement.
> Guest > 10 MB storage space > 40 MB bw/month > IMAP/Web access > 45 day no activity period > Taglines on emails > FREE
(I have no connection with them, just found the service to be "exactly as advertised")
-jim
So, if you manage the emails sensibly, it is perfectly ok to use a pop3 server to manage them. *especially when your isp does it for you!* At the moment, this is what I'm doing with ihug, 'cept the gf keeps downloading everything and clearing it down ):
Because if your ISP offers an IMAP service, then it's up to him to look after all of your emails, whereas with a pop3 service, the default is to download it all. Passing the onus on an isp to look after your email is a massive task if you are of any size. I built one platform for freeserve uk, and looked after a part of their client base. But that part was larger than the number of Kiwis on this planet, and took 3 dedicated servers and 8 DLT drives ( with a silo of 400 tapes at > $100 each! ) just to keep it backed up!
I'm in the process of building up an IMAP mailer for myself so I can get my email ( and, even more important, separate it from my girlfriends email! ) wherever I am, courtesy of ADSL, dedicated software, and ihug getting their act together at last. I'm looking seriously at the courier package. Has anyone used it? We use sendmail/procmail/squirrelmail at work, but I would like to get away from pop3 if poss. I enjoy the challenge, sad git that I am.
As I intimated earlier, I reckon this is one question where you seriously look at what your isp offers, before you go through the learning curve of building up your own replacement. It's handy knowing how to build all this when you're in dispute with your ISP and they stop your email feed, thinking it'll bring you to your knees, but then British Telecom knew about as much as Xtra do (:
$0.02
Steve
