Carl Tyler's Blog

1 - We've all done things we're later ashamed of.

I got arrested for urinating against a tree in Cirencester town square (QA training course..). Then the car got towed.

However, despite all of the late night parties, debauchery, broken toes, kilts and strange dutch substances, even I would have difficulty that..


God. I cant even say it.

Even I would have difficulty that I used lookout excess as a fricking mail client. For even testing.

As you've found, using a crap product like this and thinking that years of service is just being plain lucky. And unfortunately your luck ran out...

I would honestly admit to being a piano player in a whorehouse before admitting that I used outlook for storing mail...



---* Bill

2 - Oh dear, Carl.

On the one hand, I'm very sorry for your loss. Emails from friends and family, order confirmations, newsletters, and that very special offer from the Nigerian businessman - it's hard to lose these things.
(Well, maybe not the latter... )

But this is what I've been afraid of for a while now. My Email client series had somewhat stalled, but you've reminded me of why I chose to move.

I hope you've not lost anything too important, and that you find a better mail client soon. (I'd recommend Thunderbird, by the way.)

3 - There's this little setting for POP labeled "leave copy of emails on server" -- provided Yahoo! has that capability. Checking, I see that you have to pay to upgrade to get POP mail on Yahoo!. This is another reason I use GMail, which lets you do that for free.

Actually I stopped using Thunderbird altogether now that GMail also connects to my POP server so all my mail is in one place, with one UI. And if GMail ever loses that, well it's still on my POP server because I set GMail up to... wait for it... wait for it... leave a copy of e-mails on server. In fact you can set it up as a POP client to Yahoo! for maximum redundancy.

Having said all that to hose you, I feel your pain. Losing a chunk of mail is never any fun. Multiple Notes replicas have saved me many times for work e-mail, but I did have one loss when I rebuilt a PC and forgot to change Thunderbird's default, which is to NOT leave a copy of e-mails on the server.

4 - You are right, admitting I use Outlook Express does feel a bit like telling complete strangers that I use to work for IBM

5 - I was writing something about mail client selection tonight anyway - a background piece - and I dedicated it to you and your loss.

http://www.not-so-rapid.com/philipstorry/s3blog/not-so-rapid.nsf/archive/MDOZ-75LSZL

It seemed appropriate, if slightly coincidental timing!

Arthur's suggestion is a good one, but be aware that you may hit a limit or two eventually. 1Gb mailboxes are what they advertise, but there's often also a limit on how many messages you can have. That can be in the tens of thousands - which sounds low, but you'll hit it in a few years if you try, believe me!

6 - Outlook express....... when you have all those old perfectly good notes clients lying arroung doing nothing.

Hard luck, next you'll be asking everyone who has sent you anything since Jan to re-send it!

Rupes