What OS & mail client do -you- use?

[mark at bitshift.org]

On Mon, Oct 27, 2003 at 08:49:15AM -0800, richard childers / kg6hac wrote:
> What OS & mail client do -you- use?
> 

Well, since you asked:

Mutt.  Pine.  Netscape 4.7.  Mac OS X mail.app.  cat
/var/spool/mail/$USERNAME.  Whatever the app is called on my cellphone.
And a host of WinCE and PalmOS apps.

Now, then.  Let's get to the point, which is:  How fast can these apps
receive the data contained in one 25-word plaintext email and render it,
versus how fast can these apps receive the same 25 words marked up,
flashing, bolded, italicized, in twelve different colors and 10
different relative page positions, with a vCard attached?

Did I mention that I use these apps in a variety of situations, from
home (cable modem) to work (T1), to out-and-about (19.2kbps, 802.11b,
56k, etc.) to field deployment (on the side of a remote mountain, in the
middle of a tropical island, with spotty connectivity to the outside
world?)

Did I mention that I use both POP and IMAP, and don't always have a
choice?

Now, then.  Given the variety of situations in which I must read mail,
and the variety of means I choose to read mail (or, in cases where I
don't have a choice (e.g., my cellphone), means I am forced to use to
read mail), I'll take the 25-word plaintext any day.  

Let's also not forget that cellphone data usage is per-byte metered in
most cases.  Your markup costs me money.  Start paying me to receive all
the extraneous crap that's incidental to the content(!) of the message,
and I might change my tune.  But not until then.

...and this doesn't even cover things like:  What about those not living
in the US, and not blessed with flat-rate, high-speed net access?



-- 
Mark C. Langston                                    Sr. Unix SysAdmin
mark at bitshift.org                                       mark at seti.org
Systems & Network Admin                                SETI Institute
http://bitshift.org                               http://www.seti.org