[blu] oh wow it's gmail

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

On Fri, 8 Oct 2004, Eric wrote:
> Ben Jackson wrote:
> | Also, I see you you use comcast.net, why don't you run your own mail
> | server? Eh? Eh? :)
> 
> I did have a mail server up and surprised myself that it actually
> worked.  Then, can't even remember what now, caught my attention and off
> I go.  And I'm just a lazy ass who's currently having a beer on this
> beautiful fall afternoon.  But so what about the memory, I check my
> email often and never store anything at my comcast account and never
> worry about the limit.

That's because you are missing some of the main features of gmail.  The 
concept of gmail is that you save EVERYTHING.  Gmail offers incredible 
filtering, searhcing, and sorting.  It categorizes things on the fly.  You 
can send mail from multiple email accounts to gmail and it melds it all 
together however you want it.  It even vacuums your carpets for you.

I know a few people at Google and tried it while it was still in beta, and 
was impressed.

Why I don't use it:
1) Privacy.  I don't care what their policy is, I want my email on my 
server and off public networks as soon as possible.
2) Most of the searching/sorting/filtering tricks it can do can be done 
with a suitably splufty IMAP client, which I have.  And I always have the 
option of grepping though my mail.
3) I already have squirrelmail on my server for webmail, but usually I 
just ssh to it and use pine.  Or if I have X on the computer I'm on, 
tunnel X and run thunderbird remotely.  It's all good.
4) Even their generous amounts of storage would not cope with the hundreds 
of emails I get a day.
5) I want to have precise control over what is considered spam and what is 
not, and what actions are taken on spam.

For the record, I run postfix and uw-imap at home, and have a static IP 
address through DSL.

-- 
DDDD   David Kramer         david at thekramers.net       http://thekramers.net
DK KD  
DKK D  And I'm alive, and I'm alone, 
DK KD  And I never wanted to be either of those
DDDD                                                       Chemical Brothers