[quote user="Ginhead"]Anyway, this little incident has forced me to somehow think more carefully about the organization of my emails ...[/quote]
And how about the protocol? I still have some POP accounts, but I feel far more comfortable with IMAP. It's not just that you can see the same mail on any machine: AFAIK, even accessing a POP mailbox from different locations is not really recommended. And, over and above that, what's on the IMAP server is a back-up in itself. (And you no longer have to worry about mailbox conversions, if you use different machines with different OSes that run different programs.)
As for backing-up, yes, I do it. On my main machine, once a day I have a back-up run automatically to an external hard drive, and once a week I run rsync manually to a different drive. That's besides keeping copies of files like address books, bookmarks, calendars, RSS and podcast OPML files, on the machine and on a little USB key. Never mind trust in your programs, I believe the average life of a hard drive is a mere three years -- and it's a "bathtub curve".
But those are on-site backups. What if your cold-water tank leaks and drenches your desk? What if you have a burglary? -- might not the thief take any external hard drives as well as the machine? Really, to be safe, one should back up to more than one external hard drive and take it off-site somewhere. Either that, or perhaps backup important files to an online service like Amazon S3.
But, if you use IMAP, you already have a copy of your mail off-site.
These days there are even free IMAP services. Fastmail has a limited free service; Bluebottle also offers free IMAP, as does AOL. And now Google's Gmail is using IMAP. (In fact, out of the main free services, only Yahoo and Microsoft's Hotmail are still not offering IMAP access.)
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Digression:
Unfortunately, Google hasn't got instructions for configuring Pegasus for IMAP, although it has several clients listed:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=12760
I can't see a contact email for Google there, but maybe one of us in the community here could find one and offer screenshots, because I think this is an opportunity lost for Pegasus, because potential users might think, "I'd better use one that's on the list".
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Anyway, I'd seriously suggest considering IMAP. I guess there's a worry for some about privacy issues with mail held remotely, but email is no more private than a postcard unless one uses PGP or S-MIME anyway.
I'm sure most people would rather use their ISP's mails service than a third-party provider. (Or at least most people who are using a real email client not taking webmail). But I really don't know how ISPs continue to get away with offering mail services that don't cut the mustard. Most ISPs are not only offering the older POP protocol but aren't offering a secure connection over SSL/TLS either. If you're using interval-checking that means your username and password are being sent in the clear every ten minutes or so: depending on the interval, that could add up to tens or hundreds of times over a day, and with open wireless access points it becomes an unrecognized and uncomfortable issue.
<p>[quote user="Ginhead"]Anyway, this little incident has forced me to somehow think more carefully about the organization of my emails ...[/quote]</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>And how about the protocol?&nbsp; I still have some POP accounts, but I feel far more comfortable with IMAP.&nbsp; It's not just that you can see the same mail on any machine: AFAIK, even accessing a POP mailbox from different locations is not really recommended.&nbsp; And, over and above that, what's on the IMAP server is a back-up in itself. (And you no longer have to worry about mailbox conversions, if you use different machines with different OSes that run different programs.)
</p><p>As for backing-up, yes, I do it.&nbsp; On my main machine, once a day I have a back-up run automatically to an external hard drive, and once a week I run rsync manually to a different drive.&nbsp; That's besides keeping copies of files like address books, bookmarks, calendars, RSS and podcast OPML files, on the machine and on a little USB key.&nbsp; Never mind trust in your programs, I believe the average life of a hard drive is a mere three years -- and it's a "bathtub curve".</p><p>But those are [B]on-site[/B] backups. What if your cold-water tank leaks and drenches your desk?&nbsp; What if you have a burglary? -- might not the thief take any external hard drives as well as the machine?&nbsp; Really, to be safe, one should back up to more than one external hard drive and take it off-site somewhere. Either that, or perhaps backup important files to an online service like Amazon S3.</p><p>
But, if you use IMAP, you already have a copy of your mail off-site.</p><p>These days there are even free IMAP services. Fastmail has a limited free service; Bluebottle also offers free IMAP, as does AOL. And now Google's Gmail is using IMAP. (In fact, out of the main free services, only Yahoo and Microsoft's Hotmail are still not offering IMAP access.)
&nbsp;</p><p>********************************
&nbsp;
Digression:</p><p>Unfortunately, Google hasn't got instructions for configuring Pegasus for IMAP, although it has several clients listed:</p><p>&nbsp;
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=12760</p><p>&nbsp;
I can't see a contact email for Google there, but maybe one of us in the community here could find one and offer screenshots, because I think this is an opportunity lost for Pegasus, because potential users might think, "I'd better use one that's on the list".
</p><p>******************************** </p><p>Anyway, I'd seriously suggest considering IMAP. I guess there's a worry for some about privacy issues with mail held remotely, but email is no more private than a postcard unless one uses PGP or S-MIME anyway.</p><p>&nbsp;
I'm sure most people would rather use their ISP's mails service than a third-party provider.&nbsp; (Or at least most people who are using a real email client not taking webmail). But I really don't know how ISPs continue to get away with offering mail services that don't cut the mustard. Most ISPs are not only offering the older POP protocol but aren't offering a secure connection over SSL/TLS either.&nbsp; If you're using interval-checking that means your username and password are being sent in the clear every ten minutes or so: depending on the interval, that could add up to tens or hundreds of times over a day, and with open wireless access points it becomes an unrecognized and uncomfortable issue.
&nbsp;</p>