[Re-alpine-devel] [Alpine-info] select fails sporadically

[Jacob Wegelin]

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009, Mark Crispin wrote:


> On Fri, 16 Oct 2009, Jacob Wegelin wrote:

>> SEARCH index is not full-text indexed.

>

> That message came from your IMAP server.

>

>> The answer to many of my problems in using alpine seems to be that it's the 

>> fault of the IMAP server. Unfortunately, I get my mail at my university, so 

>> I don't think I can choose which IMAP server my mail comes into.

>

> Unfortunately, you are correct in your assessment of the situation.

>

> Your university runs a crappy IMAP server.  The intent is to induce you to 

> give up on IMAP (and IMAP clients such as Alpine) and instead use whatever 

> email software they proffer to you.

>

> Your choices boil down to:

> [1] Tolerate the problems.

> [2] Fight it.

> [3] Forward your mail to a working IMAP server.

> [4] Download your mail from the broken IMAP server to a local disk file,

>     and do all your Alpine activity on that disk file.  Alpine has a

>     feature called "maildrops" which ought to be helpful.


Am I correct in thinking that, under [4], my incoming mail will *only* be visible by accessing the folder on my local computer (my MacBook Pro laptop)? So that if my laptop gets stolen or broken, any mail sent to me since the most recent backup is lost?

Currently, when my internet connection is slow, I sometimes check email outside of Alpine through my university's "webmail" tool. In fact, I can check my mail from any computer with internet connection in this way. If I do option [4], am I correct in thinking that the only incoming emails I find through a web page will be those that came to the server since the last time Alpine on my laptop checked for new mail?

Regarding [3]: I imagine you may have answered the following question already, but where could one find a good IMAP server for [3]?

Thanks

Jacob Wegelin