On Wednesday, August 03, 2005 at 9:07:37 AM [GMT -0500], Thomas Fernandez wrote:
> IMAP is supposed to allow you access to the same message base from > different computers, but I have never used it and do think it would be > an overkill for your purposes. But then, the same policy as I > described for POP may work as well. Why would IMAP be overkill? This is what it was designed for. It was designed for those who wish to manage the same mail account from multiple machines/locations. Shoehorning POP so that one can manage the same mail from multiple machines is the overkill, and it doesn't work well for that purpose. Of course, there are those willing to work with the shortcomings and tedium of it but that's their choice, and whatever one chooses, the shortcomings with POP remain. Of course, tedium is relative and we get very accustomed to tedium. We are the ones watching others do repetitive stuff with their less functional clients and feel sorry for them. :) We introduce them to TB! or other similarly powerful clients and they love their increased productivity, though they were accustomed to what they previously did and how they previously went about working with their e-mail. In the same way, I sit and watch advice going around on how to use POP to manage mail from multiple locations. I did the same before and know what it's like compared to IMAP. I'm really happy I made the switch and my only regret is that I didn't do it earlier. In the past, one person/home having multiple machines was rare because of expense. Nowadays, it's quite common for one person or household to have multiple machines. I have 3 machines and there are 4 in the house. Another at work. In the past, server connection speeds were slow across the board. Now, broadband connections are very common and growing in frequency. Hard disk space is very cheap and servers now can offer large amounts of space for IMAP accounts. My Fastmail account has a 2GB limit. I remember when 5MB for an e-mail account was typical. Of course, I know that in some countries, broadband is very uncommon etc. No need to remind me of this. Anyway, all these factors/changes in the computing landscape are making IMAP take its rightful place where POP is really not appropriate. I mean, look at the complicated routines being recommended to synchronise machines and bases. The business of leaving messages on the server so that both machines can download the mail doesn't solve the issue of flagging (you reply/read to message on one machine, but the corresponding flagging isn't there on the other machine). With IMAP, there's no routine. You just use the client at whichever location you're at. You open any client and it's as though you were working only with that client. No synchronizing to worry about. The only thing making IMAP unattractive is the client support. TB!'s IMAP is still a problem for many. But from my personal experience and I can only recommend from where I'm sitting, choice of protocol takes precedence over choice of client. The protocol choice, except for the odd situation (your client has some killer feature that you can't do without), makes the more productive decision than the client choice. IOWs, decide your protocol of choice based on your needs, and Internet connectivity. I don't factor in the ISP since you don't need your ISP to support IMAP in order for you to use IMAP. My ISP doesn't support IMAP. After deciding the protocol, choose your client to work with it. ... and I say all this despite my being a TB! fan. :) RIT do realize the growing importance of IMAP and are currently working at improving IMAP. They've come a long way with it and do still have quite a way to go. Personally, I'm managing to use it and despite the problems, am managing to be productive and prefer using TB! compared to other apps with smoother IMAP support. -- -= Curtis =- The Bat! v3.51.10 System Specs: http://specs.aimlink.name -=-=- Nietzsche is dead. --God. ________________________________________________ Current version is 3.51.10 | 'Using TBUDL' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
