andygrimm (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} andygrimm) wrote,@ 2007-01-30 22:25:00 |
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late-night pondering on mail service
So, I've realized that I have a love-hate relationship with gmail. I really do like the ease-of-use of their mobile client; other than that, I really am not a fan of webmail at all. Why? It simple:
- I almost always have my laptop with me (if not, I have my blackberry), so checking from multiple PCs is a non-issue
- I like to GPG-sign messages as much as possible (I was out of the habit for a while, but it's so darned easy that it's stupid not to)
- having webmail makes it too easy to trust someone else to take care of backups. there are several apps and libraries out there to let me back up my gmail, and I'll probably do that for now, but how often is often enough? also, if I use googles tagging functions to sort my mail, can I really duplicate that on my backup copy (maybe if I use zimbra?)
- gmail gets blacklisted more often than I'd like. that sucks, and I don't even know what they can do about it. they had a great idea early on with the invite-only thing, but then they gave away far too many invites, and it bit them.
Anyway, I've had several thoughts about my other options. I could make a Xen image at home an MX, but I'd need a backup to queue mail. My desktop is probably only good for two 9's, maybe three in a good year. Another option is getting some low-end rackspace, but anything reasonably priced will probably not have any better uptime than my home machine; maybe more redundancy on the power & network, but that's probably the only advantage.
Thoughts?
So, I've realized that I have a love-hate relationship with gmail. I really do like the ease-of-use of their mobile client; other than that, I really am not a fan of webmail at all. Why? It simple:
- I almost always have my laptop with me (if not, I have my blackberry), so checking from multiple PCs is a non-issue
- I like to GPG-sign messages as much as possible (I was out of the habit for a while, but it's so darned easy that it's stupid not to)
- having webmail makes it too easy to trust someone else to take care of backups. there are several apps and libraries out there to let me back up my gmail, and I'll probably do that for now, but how often is often enough? also, if I use googles tagging functions to sort my mail, can I really duplicate that on my backup copy (maybe if I use zimbra?)
- gmail gets blacklisted more often than I'd like. that sucks, and I don't even know what they can do about it. they had a great idea early on with the invite-only thing, but then they gave away far too many invites, and it bit them.
Anyway, I've had several thoughts about my other options. I could make a Xen image at home an MX, but I'd need a backup to queue mail. My desktop is probably only good for two 9's, maybe three in a good year. Another option is getting some low-end rackspace, but anything reasonably priced will probably not have any better uptime than my home machine; maybe more redundancy on the power & network, but that's probably the only advantage.
Thoughts?
