Mail Management

[Bill Ballard]

At 2:26 AM -0700 2/17/04, Phillip Ford wrote:
>Bill,
>I'm not sure how you'll receive your beloved OT posts (such as posts 
>about Dale's Porsche) if you use the archive in this way.  Will you 
>occasionally do searches on random terms, such as Porsche, 
>Kevorkian, Phil's latest recipes, etc.?

The same way I find them in my Eudora mailbox. In the directory table 
on both, posts are listed author/date/subject and must be opened to 
find out what sort of oregano PhilB's recipes call for, or whether 
Dale found out yet that his creme-puff Porsche for $1500 was stolen 
from a DEA impoundment parking lot. It's all there.

I spent some time with the archives last night, and at this point 
have to report that navigation is far easier (and more sensible) in 
my own email client app. (I did email Andy Rudoff a set of questions 
which may clear up whether the clunkiness I experienced amongst the 
for sort modes was a case of operator error or not.)

I remember in the past people complaining about the preview panes of 
the email apps crashing their computers. But the preview pane was one 
of the first things I missed, suing the archives for daily PTx 
business. That plus the fact that it was never designed  for daily 
business and as such has no provisions for streamlined quoting and 
writing. Also, downloading individual threads doesn't work. (I had 
all of a week's experience  with newsgroups back six years ago, but I 
do remember it was possible to download any combination of posts 
(entire or edited threads) to the newsgroup app on my computer.)

So bottom line, if hard drive space was really that precious (say, 
because my 'puter was 6-8 years old), then probably my access to the 
archives would be equally out-dated (ie., a dial-up connection with a 
14.4kb modem). At that point, the time spent during daily PTx 
business while on-line and incurring phone-call charges might outrun 
the cost of hard drive storage of downloaded PTx. I figure that the 
cost of reading all (or as much of the day's new posts you want) and 
replying on-line, will always be greater than the cost of getting 
everything downloaded and then doing your replying off-line.

But that's without Andy's replies to my questions, which I've invited 
him to post here.

And yes, Phil, I do love my OT posts!

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"Round here we don't talk unless we can improve on the silence."
     ...........Ron Rude, local Public Radio Commentator.
+++++++++++++++++++++