Re: [A/S] clipping posts was Spring is here and The weather is glorious

[Rick Kunath <k9ao@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Since someone else brought the issue of wasted cell phone minutes and 
long download times up, I have a suggestion that I've used for years on 
the road.

I suspect that many of you are using POP3 mail services. This is pretty 
much the standard for Internet service providers these days. It's 
proven, reliable, but you actually download every message in its 
entirety during the process of looking at your email. On a home 
connection, even a dial-up connection, it's not a problem. With paid-for 
minutes and cellphones, it is. Web based mail is even worse for cell 
phone use.

Anyone that has been on any sort of email list for long knows that there 
are some threads that either you take a quick look at and don't find 
particularly interesting, or find have not been properly trimmed by the 
poster. If you're using POP3 email, you've already downloaded all of the 
messages and paid for messages you really wouldn't have downloaded given 
the choice. (I realize that Hunter probably has to download them all, 
but not everyone might.)

The simple solution is IMAP email access. It's been around as long as 
POP3 access, is just as reliable, and differs from POP3 mail access in 
one very useful way. With IMAP mail, you don't automatically download 
all of your email messages when you check your mail. Using IMAP just the 
subjects and headers are downloaded. This gives you sender info, message 
size, lists any attachments, the same kinds of info you get displayed in 
your message list on POP3 email access, except none of the messages are 
downloaded. You can go offline and select up the messages you want to 
see, delete the ones you don't and go online and download and delete 
them in a batch. Once downloaded, they are mirrored locally on your 
email client, and stay there until either deleted locally or moved from 
the inbox (so they're available offline.) The mailboxes are synchronized 
the next time you go online and check your email, and messages are 
deleted from the IMAP server, outgoing mail is sent (you've probably 
written your replies offline and saved your minutes.) Operation is 
transparent, and you'd never know you weren't using POP3 email access... 
except that your client will perform like it's on rocket fuel.

Any decent ISP should provide IMAP email access, and any email client 
will be able to use either POP3 or IMAP access. If your ISP does not 
provide this service, find a real one that does.

Another neat thing is that if you check email from several machines over 
the course of doing email, the messages that you leave in the inbox are 
still there next time you use any IMAP machine to check your email. As 
long as you don't delete them, they'll be there. You also have the 
capability of creating an archive or other folders on the IMAP server 
and any messages you move into these folders you create on the IMAP 
server will also be accessible from any machine you use to access your 
email account.

Rick Kunath
WBCCI # 3060