Comcast, dynamic DNS service

[Bill Bogstad]

On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 9:19 AM, Matthew Gillen <me-5yx05kfkO/aqeI1yJSURBw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 04/03/2006 03:19 PM, Ward Vandewege wrote:
>> Yeah - I recently came across a Canadian ISP that does this for POP3/IMAP
>> (!). I just couldn't believe it - here is this Canadian, travelling with her
>> laptop somewhere in Europe. She wants to check her e-mail with her mail
>> client, and _her ISP simply does not allow it_ outside its own network.  She
>> had to use the ISP's (crappy) webmail. Reasoning: according to the ISP's
>> website, security. I really wonder what the ISP is afraid of - third parties
>> stealing their customers e-mail? It just does not make sense.
>>
>> Needless to say I recommended that she changes ISP. I can't remember the
>> ISP's name but it was a big one...
>
> It's beyond me why anyone would use their ISP-provided email for anything but
> interacting with the ISP anyway.  It's as much a vendor-lock-in mechanism as a
> "service" provided to the customer...

Which is why I've had a $20 a year pobox.com email forwarding address
for over ten years now.
Currently, I use gmail to actually read/send mail.  I normally use the
web interface, but sometimes use IMAP clients.   I can switch to a
different mail provider (or my own server) quickly without having to
update my address with the world.  It's worth the <$2 a month for that
piece of mind.

Given the longevity of my address, I get lots of spam directed there.
So far Google does a pretty
good job of dumping it into my spam box.  I only see 2-4 messages a
day of spam that are
false negatives.   And one or two false positives a week.  Yes, I
routinely skim my spam folder.
That's when I use IMAP.  I start up my client and let it download all
the headers from my spam folder.  I then quickly skim the
senders/subjects.  The roundtrip time via gmail's web interface to do
this is just too slow to switch screens.

Bill Bogstad