[quote user="Hilbrand"]Thanks for this great discussion! As I understand it, the solution we've used until now may still be the best there is. I may even continue working with stand-alone Pegasus versions on our individual machines, even in a well networked office. The thing is, and it seems difficult to imagine, I do a lot of work in airplanes (still no internet access at all) and in low-income countries (uncertain internet access). I just need to have my full Pegasus mail database on my machine, just as Thomas' colleague, as we cannot be dependent on uncertain internet connections. Thanks anyway!
[/quote]

 I've setup Mercury/32, Apache,  PHP and SquirrelMail on my home system (DSL, my own domain with fixed IP address) and find this works quite well from most everywhere.  When in the back country in Tanzania, Mexico, Peru, etc. I did not try to open my folder with ~20K messages but in many cases I've found internet cafes in the strangest places with relatively good connections to the internet.  That said, I do copy Pegasus Mail and all my current folders to the laptops local hard drive before going on the road and setup a transfer folder for everything that I want to put on the main system with I get back.  This is a one way transfer of folders always.  I find, at least in my case, there can be too many problems with lost mail when you transfer the whole thing back and forth.
 

For some 5 years my co-worker and I have been using Pegasus mail as stand-alone packages on each of our computers and we absolutely love it. I am frequently travelling to places and before I leave I copy my full mail directory from my desktop to my notebook, where I have an identical Pegasus installation. This allows me to continue mailing while on the road, with my full Pegasus mail data set of the past 5 years available. After coming back I do the reverse and continue mailing from my desktop. There may be better ways to do this, but we have been quite comfortable with this method. Obviously, it does not allow me to mail from both machines at the same time, but that has not been a problem so far.

But this all has to change now. We will set up a server in our home office and I guess we should start using Pegasus in a multi-user mode from the server? My question is whether I can still continue ‘synchronising’ my notebook before and after my travels, for the reasons mentioned above. In the places where I work fast internet connection is a distant dream and I often connect to internet through slow telephone lines. Connecting to a mail server at home is not an option.

A related question would be whether we should completely move to a Mercury setup, but for now I cannot see whether that would allow me at all to synchronise my mail between two machines before and after travel. 

I'd suggest switching from POP to IMAP.  Really IMAP comes into its own when you have multiple machines accessing the same account. While with a POP account, your mail is downloaded to the local machine, with IMAP the mail lives on the server.  So it's always the same wherever you are.  (Of course, if your mailbox allowance at your service provider is getting filled, you can create a local mailbox and copy older mail to there on one or more machine, then delete it off the server.)

http://www.imap.org/imap.vs.pop.html 

Likewise, wherever you log on, you should see the same message flags: seen, answered, flagged, deleted, draft, recent. In the future it's likely that mail clients will implement user-defined IMAP keywords that can be set on the server and read in any mail client, too:

http://deflexion.com/2006/05/server-side-message-labels

In short, I'd say server-side is the way to go with mail.

Obviously, paid accounts offer more, but there are even free IMAP accounts to be had: fastmail and bluebottle are both IMAP-based services.  AOL now offers 2GB of free space that can be accessed over IMAP, too -- and over SSL at that:

http://members.aol.com/adamkb/aol/mailfaq/imap/

[quote user="Hilbrand"]But this all has to change now. We will set up a server in our home office and I guess we should start using Pegasus in a multi-user mode from the server? My question is whether I can still continue ‘synchronising’ my notebook before and after my travels, for the reasons mentioned above. In the places where I work fast internet connection is a distant dream and I often connect to internet through slow telephone lines. Connecting to a mail server at home is not an option.

A related question would be whether we should completely move to a

Mercury setup, but for now I cannot see whether that would allow me at

all to synchronise my mail between two machines before and after

travel.
[/quote]

If you don't have a fast internet connection from outside, Mercury and IMAP would be not a good idea, because all mails and folders are located on the server.

I do not exactly understand why you want install Pegasus to run in multi-user mode from the server, but I think you nevertheless can synchronise your laptop. You must start with an empty Pegasus Mail installation on the laptop and copy all files from your servers user mailbox directory into the mailbox directory on the laptop.  Before you start Pegasus on the laptop the first time you have to modify pmail.ini on the laptop. All lines pointing to directory and path names must be changed so that they match to the mailbox structure of the laptop, e.g.:

[Pegasus Mail for Windows - Run Info]
Working home mailbox location    = C:\PMAIL\MAIL\<yourname>
New mailbox location             = C:\PMAIL\MAIL\<yourname>

To syncronise later, you can copy all files from server / workstation to laptop, but NOT pmail.ini. To synchronise back after you come home from your travel it would be better to copy only mail and folder files from the notebook to the server (all .cnm, .pmm, .pnm, pmi - files), but never the pmail.ini

Greetings
Thomas

[quote user="Thomas Richter"]If you don't have a fast internet connection ... IMAP [is] not a good idea[/quote]

That's not true.  That would only be the case if a mail user agent implemented the IMAP protocol badly by downloading and caching more than is necessary.  It should fetch no more than necessary - at first only the headers - and I'd expect that's what Pegasus does. People have actually measured in properly controlled tests with Pine, and found it far faster with IMAP than using POP3 where everything is downloaded. The reverse of what you suggest is true.

IMAP is the only sensible protocol if you want to  access the same account from multiple machines, and in fact you can cause problems by accessing the mailbox from two locations with POP even if you don't try to do it simultaneously. It was simply not designed with that in mind.

[quote user="Mike"]

[quote user="Thomas Richter"]If you don't have a fast internet connection ... IMAP [is] not a good idea[/quote]

That's not true. That would only be the case if a mail user agent implemented the IMAP protocol badly by downloading and caching more than is necessary. It should fetch no more than necessary - at first only the headers - and I'd expect that's what Pegasus does.

[/quote]

As expected Pegasus mail fetches no more then just the headers, if you want to. The settings are configurable to all your needs and wishes. From headers in your inbox only to fetch all there is in the mailbox, including messages in nested sub folders. And the periodically check of your inbox can be set, and...

However: the question is: does TS wants to rely on mail just available on the server? (Of course you can always make copy's to your local folders)

Cheers, 

Toab and Mike, you are right, that IMAP is the best method of accessing to the mailbox from anywhere. The problem I meant is, if you have a mailbox with numerous folders and subfolders und many thousands of saved mails inside. When you are on the road and you often need to access to old mails, a very slow connction to the IMAP server can be very nerve-racking.

I know this problem from one of my colleagues, who is often on business trips. Some years ago we installed Pegasus on his new notebook in that way to access mail by means of IMAP and I convinced him of the advantages of IMAP. After only 2 business trips (where he had only access to the internet through slow telephone lines) he came to me and demanded to switch back to the configuration he used with his old notebook - POP3 access an local copies of his mail folders.

Yeah, I know, it's seem to be somewhat antiquated, but if it works better for him - why not ?

Regards
Thomas
 

Thanks for this great discussion! As I understand it, the solution we've used until now may still be the best there is. I may even continue working with stand-alone Pegasus versions on our individual machines, even in a well networked office. The thing is, and it seems difficult to imagine, I do a lot of work in airplanes (still no internet access at all) and in low-income countries (uncertain internet access). I just need to have my full Pegasus mail database on my machine, just as Thomas' colleague, as we cannot be dependent on uncertain internet connections. Thanks anyway!