Gmail or Thunderbird problem?

[Karl F. Larsen]

CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:
> Bart Silverstrim wrote:
>   
>> Karl F. Larsen wrote:
>>
>>     
>>>     Yes that may be correct. I am still learning how IMAP works. There 
>>> is not very much information on IMAP that I can find.
>>>       
>> What about IMAP is confusing?
>>
>> Primarily IMAP is a way of keeping email on the mail server instead of 
>> your computer so you can access it from a number of systems without 
>> losing your mail, and as long as the provider does decent backups of 
>> their data you won't lose data.
>>     
>
> It's not "their" data. It's their client's data. In our hosting
> operation, we don't back up client data unless they expressly want us to
> do it and then we bill for it accordingly. Even if your hosting provider
> says they back up your data, what would you do if their machine died and
> their backup turned out to be not restorable, or if they went bankrupt
> as the first hosting provider we used did about 13 years ago(*)? You can
> scream, you can vent fury at them and you can even threaten to sue (but
> not prevail if you did) but you'll still be without your data. The
> prudent thing is to make sure that you always have a local copy of any
> remote data that is valuable to you.
>
> (*) The hosting provider that we used about 13 years ago provided great
> service for the first year or so. One day, none of us could fetch our
> email. Fortunately, I had a shell open via ssh so I could see the
> problem. The server had run out of space on /var and of course the mail
> spool was on /var. We left messages on their voice mail. We opened
> trouble tickets. No response, which was very unusual.
>
> I had made the mistake of using my email address within that domain for
>  the admin contact email. How can you make any changes to the domain
> registration, in this case, changing the DNS to point to another
> provider, when you can't receive mail at your account? I went through a
> lot of hassle with affidavits and faxes and after three days of no
> email, we were with a new provider but this ordeal was the impetus for
> us to start hosting our own stuff shortly thereafter and eventually to
> offer hosting services to others. Tip: NEVER use an email address within
> the same domain or even on the same server as the domain you're
> registering. We use a Yahoo or Gmail account on all our domain
> registrations.
>
> We never did hear from the first hosting company again. As it turned
> out, they had gone out of business but their machines were still running
> and their web site presumably still accepting new accounts. For the sake
> of curiosity, I monitored their web site and it was a few months before
> it finally went off-line. Who knows how many people got burned with them?
>   
    The Google bunch I knew at Stanford U were real good students. Their 
business was set up to make money and even today in the bankers screwed 
up economy they are still making money!

    I think bar an error in the Gmail side our server is as safe as they 
get. And it will last until I die which may be soon.

    Karl