Mail - dumbed down to the point of pointless

[Pd]

I've used Eudora since god made the internet, and it was a sad day
indeed when it stopped being developed. However, v6.2 still works
happily on intel Macs running Leopard, so I don't need to worry yet.

Unfortunately my wife uses Mail, mostly because it is integrated with
the other things like Address Book and her iPhone. The last week I've
had to use it, because I've been helping her out with an email campaign
she's doing.

And streuth, Mail is brain dead.

You can't change the subject of a received email (or a sent one), so if
the sender does your typical uninformative subject (Hi!), you can't
change it to something meaningful in the list of emails.

You can't change colour tag while email is open. When it's open is when
you have the information in front of you to decide what colour tag you
want, but you can only set the colour after you close the email. Doh.

You can't even see the colour tag while email is open.

Choosing Send Again closes the email you were looking at, so if you want
to send a similar email to several people, every time you send again,
you're left with a blank screen after sending, and have to open the
original email again. I wish it would leave emails open that are open.

You can't change the status of an email, so if you send an email in
response to a received email, but don't use the reply button, you can't
change the received email to show "Replied".

You can't do Reply With Stationery.
- aha! thinks I, here's how you do it: Reply then choose Stationery.
But no, you can only use Stationery with a New message, not with a
Reply. How friggin stupid is that?

There are plenty of other whiny whinges I have about Mail, but that's
probably enough griping for one day. I should send this to Apple
Feedback I guess.

I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

[David Kennedy]

Post by Pd
I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

I gave up with it a couple of years ago. It has all the faults you
mention and a few more. Not wanting to pay M$ anything I went over to
thunderbird which does the job nicely. It also seems fairly easy to
convert people to.

[Chris Ridd]

On 2009-01-21 17:21:56 +0000, David Kennedy

Post by David Kennedy

Post by Pd
I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

I gave up with it a couple of years ago. It has all the faults you
mention and a few more. Not wanting to pay M$ anything I went over to
thunderbird which does the job nicely. It also seems fairly easy to
convert people to.

If only Thunderbird had a less horrible and more Mac-ish UI! Perhaps a
Camino-like project?

[Tim Streater]

Post by Chris Ridd
On 2009-01-21 17:21:56 +0000, David Kennedy

Post by David Kennedy

Post by Pd
I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

I gave up with it a couple of years ago. It has all the faults you
mention and a few more. Not wanting to pay M$ anything I went over to
thunderbird which does the job nicely. It also seems fairly easy to
convert people to.

If only Thunderbird had a less horrible and more Mac-ish UI! Perhaps a
Camino-like project?

Well, there is always Eudora 8.0.0b5 which just came out. I haven't
looked at it yet but apparently is has tabs which I want. But I don't
think you can edit received mails which is a prime requirement for me.
The killer though is the compose window, which really sucks - it wants
to put every recipient on a new line - really stupid.

Then there's Odysseus, which is now at 1.0b12, and is close to being
usable. It also has tabs and you *can* edit your received mail. But it's
still rather buggy.

[Chris Ridd]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by Chris Ridd
On 2009-01-21 17:21:56 +0000, David Kennedy

Post by David Kennedy

Post by Pd
I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

I gave up with it a couple of years ago. It has all the faults you
mention and a few more. Not wanting to pay M$ anything I went over to
thunderbird which does the job nicely. It also seems fairly easy to
convert people to.

If only Thunderbird had a less horrible and more Mac-ish UI! Perhaps a
Camino-like project?

Well, there is always Eudora 8.0.0b5 which just came out. I haven't

Is that the Eudora skin+Thunderbird effort?

Post by Tim Streater
Then there's Odysseus, which is now at 1.0b12, and is close to being
usable. It also has tabs and you *can* edit your received mail. But it's
still rather buggy.

Is it commercial?

[Martin S.]

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Tim Streater
Then there's Odysseus, which is now at 1.0b12, and is close to being
usable. It also has tabs and you *can* edit your received mail. But it's
still rather buggy.

Is it commercial?

Yes, and I'd be happy to pay for *if* it ever lives up to Eudora's
capabilities.

Luckily E is working just fine for me, so there's no rush.

[Jack Campin - bogus address]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Pd
I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

Not wanting to pay M$ anything I went over to thunderbird which does
the job nicely. It also seems fairly easy to convert people to.

If only Thunderbird had a less horrible and more Mac-ish UI! Perhaps
a Camino-like project?

Well, there is always Eudora 8.0.0b5 which just came out.

Has it now got each message in a separate files so you can search for
them sensibly, and does it now let you turn off format-flowed and all
text styling forever?

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.uk> ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob [phone]
CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

[Pd]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Tim Streater
Well, there is always Eudora 8.0.0b5 which just came out.

Has it now got each message in a separate files so you can search for
them sensibly

I'd find that abominable, personally. I always use Eudora's search in
mail. Until Spotlight is reliable, trustworthy and able to display the
meta-data about emails, I can't see that changing.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by Pd

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Tim Streater
Well, there is always Eudora 8.0.0b5 which just came out.

Has it now got each message in a separate files so you can search for
them sensibly

I'd find that abominable, personally. I always use Eudora's search in
mail. Until Spotlight is reliable, trustworthy and able to display the
meta-data about emails, I can't see that changing.

I have been known to occasionally molest my mail database from the
command line, which is a lot trickier when you don't have nice simple
mbox or preferably individual files to manipulate.

Indexing of those files vs having them in a database is irrelevant,
it's down to the cleverness of the indexing rather than the
disposition of the data on the filesystem.

For Spotlight to display metadata would require Eudora to publish that
metadata in a manner that Spotlight can see it - ie write a Spotlight
filter that covers both the data and the metadata, rather than
allowing Spotlight to just cover the data in its own usual fashion.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Jack Campin - bogus address]

Post by Pd

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Tim Streater
Well, there is always Eudora 8.0.0b5 which just came out.

Has it now got each message in a separate files so you can search
for them sensibly/

I'd find that abominable, personally. I always use Eudora's search in
mail.

How? I've never found any version of Eudora's search anywhere close
to usable. If I need to search through my Eudora mail I use BBEdit
and open the mailbox with that.

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.uk> ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob [phone]
CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

[Tim Streater]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Pd

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Tim Streater
Well, there is always Eudora 8.0.0b5 which just came out.

Has it now got each message in a separate files so you can search
for them sensibly/

I'd find that abominable, personally. I always use Eudora's search in
mail.

How? I've never found any version of Eudora's search anywhere close
to usable. If I need to search through my Eudora mail I use BBEdit
and open the mailbox with that.

Are you mad? It's perfectly useable. I use it a lot and its quite fast
enough. Even on a 1GHJz lappy under Xp, it could search 50k mail items
in only a few secs.

[Jack Campin - bogus address]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Pd

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Tim Streater
Well, there is always Eudora 8.0.0b5 which just came out.

Has it now got each message in a separate files so you can search
for them sensibly/

I'd find that abominable, personally. I always use Eudora's search in
mail.

How? I've never found any version of Eudora's search anywhere close
to usable. If I need to search through my Eudora mail I use BBEdit
and open the mailbox with that.

Are you mad? It's perfectly useable. I use it a lot and its quite fast
enough. Even on a 1GHJz lappy under Xp, it could search 50k mail items
in only a few secs.

If you only want the first result.

It searches sequentially in the user interface. You can't get a list
of matches and click on the one you want. And the way you have to
persuade it to step onwards to the next match is like no other user
interface I've seen since I stopped using line editors - it goes round
and round in circles within a single message unless you do some weird
juju to make it look in the next one.

I'm talking about Mac versions - maybe the XP one you're using is
better.

==== j a c k at c a m p i n . m e . u k === <http://www.campin.me.uk> ====
Jack Campin, 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland == mob [phone]
CD-ROMs and free stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, and Mac logic fonts

[Pd]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Tim Streater

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Pd

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address

Post by Tim Streater
Well, there is always Eudora 8.0.0b5 which just came out.

Has it now got each message in a separate files so you can search
for them sensibly/

I'd find that abominable, personally. I always use Eudora's search in
mail.

How? I've never found any version of Eudora's search anywhere close
to usable. If I need to search through my Eudora mail I use BBEdit
and open the mailbox with that.

Are you mad? It's perfectly useable. I use it a lot and its quite fast
enough. Even on a 1GHJz lappy under Xp, it could search 50k mail items
in only a few secs.

If you only want the first result.

Erm, methinks you missed that lesson, Eudora Searching 101.

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
It searches sequentially in the user interface. You can't get a list
of matches and click on the one you want.

Sure you can. That's the default mode. The Eudora you used must've been
switched to Find rather than Search. Find looks through the currently
open email for text matches. Search looks through all your mailboxes, or
whichever mailboxes you select, and presents you with a list of all
matching emails. Takes a few seconds to search through the 100,000
emails I have in my system, which is fast enough for me.

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
I'm talking about Mac versions - maybe the XP one you're using is
better.

This is the Mac version, v6.2, and all previous versions that I can
remember. The search has always been blisteringly fast, and one of the
features of Eudora that's kept me using it all these years.

[Peter Ceresole]

Post by Pd
This is the Mac version, v6.2, and all previous versions that I can
remember. The search has always been blisteringly fast, and one of the
features of Eudora that's kept me using it all these years.

I'm still using 6.1 (I really should get hold of 6.4 except that 6.1 is
so sweet, so why bother?) on a 1.8GHz iG5 and on a 883HHz TiBook. The
global search in Eudora (Cmd-Opt-F) is blisteringly fast on either, and
finds text strings from anywhere in the selected mailboxes. Just
terrific.

[Pd]

Post by Peter Ceresole
I'm still using 6.1 (I really should get hold of 6.4

I assume you mean 6.2.4?

Post by Peter Ceresole
except that 6.1 is so sweet, so why bother?) on a 1.8GHz iG5 and on a
883HHz TiBook. The global search in Eudora (Cmd-Opt-F)

There is a setting for swapping the Search and Find, which maybe I've
always done because I've always used Cmd-F for the global search.

Post by Peter Ceresole
is blisteringly fast on either, and finds text strings from anywhere in
the selected mailboxes. Just terrific.

[Peter Ceresole]

Post by Pd

Post by Peter Ceresole
I'm still using 6.1 (I really should get hold of 6.4

I assume you mean 6.2.4?

Yup.

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Jack Campin - bogus address
It searches sequentially in the user interface. You can't get a list
of matches and click on the one you want

Er, we're talking about Special->Find->Search XXX (where XXX = mailbox,
mailfolder etc). Its bloody quick even when the mbox is siutting on an IMAP
server, and it presents the matching emails in a "Search results" window
that you can view in any order you want.

[David Kennedy]

Post by Chris Ridd
On 2009-01-21 17:21:56 +0000, David Kennedy

Post by David Kennedy

Post by Pd
I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

I gave up with it a couple of years ago. It has all the faults you
mention and a few more. Not wanting to pay M$ anything I went over to
thunderbird which does the job nicely. It also seems fairly easy to
convert people to.

If only Thunderbird had a less horrible and more Mac-ish UI! Perhaps a
Camino-like project?

As I was always a Netscape user - rather than Internet Exploder - I
always found it quite simple.

[Ian McCall]

I've used Eudora since god made the internet,...

As, indeed, did I.

Unfortunately my wife uses Mail, mostly because it is integrated with
the other things like Address Book and her iPhone. The last week I've
had to use it, because I've been helping her out with an email campaign
she's doing.
And streuth, Mail is brain dead.

err...

You can't change the subject of a received email (or a sent one), so if
the sender does your typical uninformative subject (Hi!), you can't
change it to something meaningful in the list of emails.

ok - you mean if you've already got the mail, or have already sent the
mail, you can't alter the subject? That seems more than reasonable to
me, although I accept that retagging might be useful.

You can't change colour tag while email is open. When it's open is when
you have the information in front of you to decide what colour tag you
want, but you can only set the colour after you close the email. Doh.
You can't even see the colour tag while email is open.

Fair enough - I don't use it, but I agree on the usefulness.

Choosing Send Again closes the email you were looking at, so if you want
to send a similar email to several people, every time you send again,
you're left with a blank screen after sending, and have to open the
original email again. I wish it would leave emails open that are open.

For such is cc devised? Or am I misunderstanding your usage?

You can't change the status of an email, so if you send an email in
response to a received email, but don't use the reply button, you can't
change the received email to show "Replied".

True. Also annoying to me is that if I initiated the thread, I can't go
from a reply to my original email.

You can't do Reply With Stationery.
- aha! thinks I, here's how you do it: Reply then choose Stationery.
But no, you can only use Stationery with a New message, not with a
Reply. How friggin stupid is that?

Stationary is an affront to God's Clean Earth, and those that use it
shall surely suffer come Judgement Day. And I'm an atheist...

There are plenty of other whiny whinges I have about Mail, but that's
probably enough griping for one day. I should send this to Apple
Feedback I guess.

My own gripes are that it's poor at understanding dodgy connections and
can hang trying to close a socket that it will never, ever be able to
contact ever again. The "can't see initial email when threading
conversation" thing also gets me, and its poor error correction when
trying to handle offline actions gets me. A further gripe is the lack
of synchronisation between Mail RSS read counts and Safari RSS read
counts, which in practice means I never use Mail for RSS. Finally,
Address Book allows a nickname assignment, but Mail doesn't recognise
it.

All the above might sound like I've thrown the thing in a bin, but in
fact it's my primary mail client and I value it for its simplicity. I
used Eudora in the Sys 6/7 days and also on Windows for a while - I
understand the feature set, but in the end I find the simplicity of
Mail wins out,

I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

Agreed, but thought-for-the-day is....if you're doing more than read,
write and reply....is email the tool you want to be using?



Cheers,
Ian

[Chris Ridd]

Post by Ian McCall

Post by Pd
Choosing Send Again closes the email you were looking at, so if you want
to send a similar email to several people, every time you send again,
you're left with a blank screen after sending, and have to open the
original email again. I wish it would leave emails open that are open.

For such is cc devised? Or am I misunderstanding your usage?

Also, what about Message > Redirect?

[Dan]

on the talk of mail I run a football team so have to send out e-mails to
around 30 people each week which can be a pain with mail and iPhone. Is
there a program/app that I can use on both to compile a mailing list as the
address book seems to have duplicated all my contacts when I put them in a
group.


--
Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service
------->>>>>>http://www.NewsDemon.com<<<<<<------
Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access

[varnish]

Post by Dan
on the talk of mail I run a football team so have to send out e-mails to
around 30 people each week which can be a pain with mail and iPhone. Is
there a program/app that I can use on both to compile a mailing list as the
address book seems to have duplicated all my contacts when I put them in a
group.

Try http://ethreesoftware.com/directmail/

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Dan
the
address book seems to have duplicated all my contacts when I put them in a
group.

Wonder why it did that. What did you do? I just tried creating a new group
and dragging contacts into it. Works fine, as it always has.

MST

[Dan]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Dan
the
address book seems to have duplicated all my contacts when I put them in a
group.

Wonder why it did that. What did you do? I just tried creating a new group
and dragging contacts into it. Works fine, as it always has.
MST

Sorry should have explained better. What its done is create contacts with
multiple e-mails. So say in my address book I have Ben with an e-mail. Dan
with e-mail and , Tom with e-mail.

In the address book its fine but in 'Footie Team' group it has

Ben - with 3 e-mails his and two other peoples
Dan his e-mail and 4 others
Tom with his e-mail and four others

The issue being that the e-mails in all these will be the same so ben has tom
and dan's e-mail in his contact card.

God knows what happened! Should I just delete and import again?


--
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------->>>>>>http://www.NewsDemon.com<<<<<<------
Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access

[ray]

Post by Dan
on the talk of mail I run a football team so have to send out e-mails to
around 30 people each week which can be a pain with mail and iPhone. Is
there a program/app that I can use on both to compile a mailing list as the
address book seems to have duplicated all my contacts when I put them in a
group.

That's the way Mail and Address book handle groups. It works. I'm not
sure it does actually duplicate address book entries rather than it just
looks like it does.

[Jochem Huhmann]

Post by ray

Post by Dan
on the talk of mail I run a football team so have to send out e-mails to
around 30 people each week which can be a pain with mail and iPhone. Is
there a program/app that I can use on both to compile a mailing list as the
address book seems to have duplicated all my contacts when I put them in a
group.

That's the way Mail and Address book handle groups. It works. I'm not
sure it does actually duplicate address book entries rather than it just
looks like it does.

Groups in Address Book are the same as playlists in iTunes. There is
nothing duplicated, it's just a view on a subset of your data. This
can't be *that* hard to understand.



Jochem

[ray]

Post by Jochem Huhmann

Post by ray

Post by Dan
on the talk of mail I run a football team so have to send out e-mails to
around 30 people each week which can be a pain with mail and iPhone. Is
there a program/app that I can use on both to compile a mailing list as the
address book seems to have duplicated all my contacts when I put them in a
group.

That's the way Mail and Address book handle groups. It works. I'm not
sure it does actually duplicate address book entries rather than it just
looks like it does.

Groups in Address Book are the same as playlists in iTunes. There is
nothing duplicated, it's just a view on a subset of your data. This
can't be *that* hard to understand.

It isn't, but there is a rider.
If you have a Group in Mail and you add an address to that group that
isn't already in your address book, it gets "duplicated" in your "All"
group.
That is what the OP is talking about.

[Peter Ceresole]

Post by ray

Post by Jochem Huhmann
Groups in Address Book are the same as playlists in iTunes. There is
nothing duplicated, it's just a view on a subset of your data. This
can't be *that* hard to understand.

It isn't, but there is a rider.
If you have a Group in Mail and you add an address to that group that
isn't already in your address book, it gets "duplicated" in your "All"
group.
That is what the OP is talking about.

But isn't that just what iTunes does? Anything new you add goes into
'Music' as well as into the playlist to which you added it.

[ray]

Post by Peter Ceresole

Post by ray

Post by Jochem Huhmann
Groups in Address Book are the same as playlists in iTunes. There is
nothing duplicated, it's just a view on a subset of your data. This
can't be *that* hard to understand.

It isn't, but there is a rider.
If you have a Group in Mail and you add an address to that group that
isn't already in your address book, it gets "duplicated" in your "All"
group.
That is what the OP is talking about.

But isn't that just what iTunes does? Anything new you add goes into
'Music' as well as into the playlist to which you added it.

Yes it is but you can see how it could puzzle or irritate some people.
It clearly does Dan.

[Elliott Roper]

Post by ray

Post by Jochem Huhmann

Post by ray

Post by Dan
on the talk of mail I run a football team so have to send out e-mails to
around 30 people each week which can be a pain with mail and iPhone. Is
there a program/app that I can use on both to compile a mailing list as the
address book seems to have duplicated all my contacts when I put them in a
group.

That's the way Mail and Address book handle groups. It works. I'm not
sure it does actually duplicate address book entries rather than it just
looks like it does.

Groups in Address Book are the same as playlists in iTunes. There is
nothing duplicated, it's just a view on a subset of your data. This
can't be *that* hard to understand.

It isn't, but there is a rider.
If you have a Group in Mail and you add an address to that group that
isn't already in your address book, it gets "duplicated" in your "All"
group.
That is what the OP is talking about.

Looks like it *is* hard to understand.

Does not "All" provide a glimmer of a clue?
Just like playlists. It is not a separate address, it is another (quite
useful) view of the lists of addresses,

[Pd]

...

Post by Ian McCall

Post by Pd
You can't change the subject of a received email (or a sent one), so if
the sender does your typical uninformative subject (Hi!), you can't
change it to something meaningful in the list of emails.

ok - you mean if you've already got the mail, or have already sent the
mail, you can't alter the subject? That seems more than reasonable to
me, although I accept that retagging might be useful.

You still have the original subject in the email itself, but Eudora
stores a separate mail subject in its mailbox index, which you can
change to something useful.

Post by Ian McCall

Post by Pd
Choosing Send Again closes the email you were looking at, so if you want
to send a similar email to several people, every time you send again,
you're left with a blank screen after sending, and have to open the
original email again. I wish it would leave emails open that are open.

For such is cc devised? Or am I misunderstanding your usage?

You are misunderstanding my usage. I have an email with various bits of
information that are common to all, but I customise parts to suit the
recipient. So "similar" emails, not "the same" email.

Post by Ian McCall

Post by Pd
You can't do Reply With Stationery.
- aha! thinks I, here's how you do it: Reply then choose Stationery.
But no, you can only use Stationery with a New message, not with a
Reply. How friggin stupid is that?

Stationary is an affront to God's Clean Earth, and those that use it
shall surely suffer come Judgement Day. And I'm an atheist...

Certainly stationery as supplied by Apple in Mail, with its stupid
backgrounds and so on is a blight upon the interworld. I have a friend
who sends me "stationeried" mail, on a blue sky with clouds background.
I never see it because I have all that crap turned off, but the other
day I discovered that each of the hundreds of emails contained yet
another copy of that background, so my "Parts" folder is full of the
things.

I meant stationery in the sense of "boilerplate text", not "silly fonts
and background pictures".

Post by Ian McCall
Agreed, but thought-for-the-day is....if you're doing more than read,
write and reply....is email the tool you want to be using?

Yes, because the main functions are reading, writing and replying to
email. It's the organisation and storage of those emails that Eudora is
particularly good at, and Mail spectacularly bad for my purposes. If I
have to do this exercise again, I think I'll set it up so I can use
Eudora on a specially commissioned email address.

[Chris Ridd]

Post by Pd
...

Post by Ian McCall

Post by Pd
You can't change the subject of a received email (or a sent one), so if
the sender does your typical uninformative subject (Hi!), you can't
change it to something meaningful in the list of emails.

ok - you mean if you've already got the mail, or have already sent the
mail, you can't alter the subject? That seems more than reasonable to
me, although I accept that retagging might be useful.

You still have the original subject in the email itself, but Eudora
stores a separate mail subject in its mailbox index, which you can
change to something useful.

I believe MailTags will let you change subject lines and stuff.
Personally it seems a bizarre thing to do, but if that's what you want
to do...

Post by Pd
You are misunderstanding my usage. I have an email with various bits of
information that are common to all, but I customise parts to suit the
recipient. So "similar" emails, not "the same" email.

Ah, so Message > Redirect is what you want.

Post by Pd

Post by Ian McCall

Post by Pd
You can't do Reply With Stationery.
- aha! thinks I, here's how you do it: Reply then choose Stationery.
But no, you can only use Stationery with a New message, not with a
Reply. How friggin stupid is that?

Stationary is an affront to God's Clean Earth, and those that use it
shall surely suffer come Judgement Day. And I'm an atheist...

Certainly stationery as supplied by Apple in Mail, with its stupid
backgrounds and so on is a blight upon the interworld. I have a friend
who sends me "stationeried" mail, on a blue sky with clouds background.
I never see it because I have all that crap turned off, but the other
day I discovered that each of the hundreds of emails contained yet
another copy of that background, so my "Parts" folder is full of the
things.
I meant stationery in the sense of "boilerplate text", not "silly fonts
and background pictures".

Legal disclaimers sort of thing? Yes, they are a boil on the bum of humanity.

[Tim Streater]

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Pd
...

Post by Ian McCall

Post by Pd
You can't change the subject of a received email (or a sent one), so if
the sender does your typical uninformative subject (Hi!), you can't
change it to something meaningful in the list of emails.

ok - you mean if you've already got the mail, or have already sent the
mail, you can't alter the subject? That seems more than reasonable to
me, although I accept that retagging might be useful.

You still have the original subject in the email itself, but Eudora
stores a separate mail subject in its mailbox index, which you can
change to something useful.

I believe MailTags will let you change subject lines and stuff.
Personally it seems a bizarre thing to do, but if that's what you want
to do...

I want to be able to change the subject to something useful (if it
happens not to be). I want to edit the body to get rid of the crap from
an e-mail. Less so now I'm not working but while at work, you'd get
klods who'd simply reply and quote everything that went before. Most
irritating.

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Pd
You are misunderstanding my usage. I have an email with various bits of
information that are common to all, but I customise parts to suit the
recipient. So "similar" emails, not "the same" email.

Ah, so Message > Redirect is what you want.

Well, Eudora has that too. I redirected a couple of mails yesterday
(because an important recipient had been missed from the cc: line), so
the From: line says (to the new recipient):

From: ***@sender.com (by way of Tim Streater)

Send Again lets you pick a mail from your Out box and, well, send it
again. You might modify it first or send it to someone else of course.

A hated feature of many mailers is that they have Out, Drafts, Sent, etc
etc boxes. You only need the one - Out, with mails having a status
(sent, not sent, queued, etc).

And that reminds me. I can queue mail for later sending - or even pick a
time at which a particular mail will be sent (I haven't used this latter
feature much). But queueing is useful as it allows you to work offline
or even to have second thoughts before sending.

And the Fcc: feature is also important, where you can arrange to have
copies of a sent mail automatically stored in some mailbox (or
mailboxes), or, even better, in the mailbox where the mail was that
you're replying to. And since a sent mail is listed in italics whenever
its not in the Out box, makes it easy to distinguish as you browse a
mailbox.

And then there's the Who column. And the fact that there are 200 or so
hidden tweaks you can apply (most of which you'd never do, or course).
Time was when to update the RIPE database you had to send mail to it. If
the text items were too long (happened sometimes), Eudora would wrap
them and then the RIPE end complained. I was able to invoke a hidden
Eudora config option to have it wrap at 255 instead of 70-odd chars.

No doubt other Eudora users have their preferred features that I haven't
even mentioned.

[Chris Ridd]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by Chris Ridd
Ah, so Message > Redirect is what you want.

Well, Eudora has that too. I redirected a couple of mails yesterday
(because an important recipient had been missed from the cc: line), so

What, it doesn't use the proper mail headers? (Resent-From and Resent-To)

Post by Tim Streater
A hated feature of many mailers is that they have Out, Drafts, Sent, etc
etc boxes. You only need the one - Out, with mails having a status
(sent, not sent, queued, etc).

Yep, that makes sense if you've got queuing.

[Tim Streater]

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Tim Streater

Post by Chris Ridd
Ah, so Message > Redirect is what you want.

Well, Eudora has that too. I redirected a couple of mails yesterday
(because an important recipient had been missed from the cc: line), so

What, it doesn't use the proper mail headers? (Resent-From and Resent-To)

What it does internally I've no idea. The above is simply how it looks
when I'm composing the re-directed mail (I get the chance to edit what
the original sender sent to me).

I'll have to redirect one to myself and have a look.

[Pd]

Post by Tim Streater
No doubt other Eudora users have their preferred features that I haven't
even mentioned.

Like the "Boring Headers" command, so you can hide all the rubbish that
various mail systems add, or show just particular headers that you're
interested in.

[Tim Streater]

Post by Pd

Post by Tim Streater
No doubt other Eudora users have their preferred features that I haven't
even mentioned.

Like the "Boring Headers" command, so you can hide all the rubbish that
various mail systems add, or show just particular headers that you're
interested in.

F*ck me yes, that's one I use heavily at work.

[Pd]

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Pd
You are misunderstanding my usage. I have an email with various bits of
information that are common to all, but I customise parts to suit the
recipient. So "similar" emails, not "the same" email.

Ah, so Message > Redirect is what you want.

Not so sure. In Eudora, Redirect means an incoming mail is sent out
again with the original sender's From address, although there is a
header that says it's via the actual sender.

[Chris Ridd]

Post by Pd

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Pd
You are misunderstanding my usage. I have an email with various bits of
information that are common to all, but I customise parts to suit the
recipient. So "similar" emails, not "the same" email.

Ah, so Message > Redirect is what you want.

Not so sure. In Eudora, Redirect means an incoming mail is sent out
again with the original sender's From address, although there is a
header that says it's via the actual sender.

If you're the original sender as well though?

[Pd]

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Pd
Not so sure. In Eudora, Redirect means an incoming mail is sent out
again with the original sender's From address, although there is a
header that says it's via the actual sender.

If you're the original sender as well though?

Mebbe, mebbe. I'll investigiminate Redirect if I have to do a similar
job again.

[Pd]

Post by Pd

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Pd
Not so sure. In Eudora, Redirect means an incoming mail is sent out
again with the original sender's From address, although there is a
header that says it's via the actual sender.

If you're the original sender as well though?

Mebbe, mebbe. I'll investigiminate Redirect if I have to do a similar
job again.

Finally got utterly fed up with having to look at every single mail to
find out what it's about, so decided I'd just redirect the whole damn
lot to my account, and deal with them in Eudora.

Guess what? Mail won't redirect more than one mail at a time.
Hoo boy that is dumb dumb dumb. <grinds teeth>

[Bella Jones]

Post by Pd
I've used Eudora since god made the internet, and it was a sad day
indeed when it stopped being developed. However, v6.2 still works
happily on intel Macs running Leopard, so I don't need to worry yet.
Unfortunately my wife uses Mail, mostly because it is integrated with
the other things like Address Book and her iPhone. The last week I've
had to use it, because I've been helping her out with an email campaign
she's doing.
And streuth, Mail is brain dead.

I have to agree. There's something iffy about the way the message list
has to kind of redraw itself when you bring it to the front.

Lots of small things that I've come across along the way are annoying.
Entourage is better.

Post by Pd
You can't change the subject of a received email (or a sent one), so if
the sender does your typical uninformative subject (Hi!), you can't
change it to something meaningful in the list of emails.
You can't change colour tag while email is open. When it's open is when
you have the information in front of you to decide what colour tag you
want, but you can only set the colour after you close the email. Doh.
You can't even see the colour tag while email is open.

Actually, what is colour tagging? Nothing in Help.

[...]

Post by Pd
There are plenty of other whiny whinges I have about Mail, but that's
probably enough griping for one day. I should send this to Apple
Feedback I guess.

It doesn't learn which one of a person's email addresses gets used the
most and is therefore likely their current one. I understand there's a
plug-in for this, but there shouldnt have to be.

Like Address Book, there's something underdeveloped about it.

Post by Pd
I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

And then all that oversensitive nonsense about having to re-type account
passwords. Doesn't do that so often now.

[The Mekon]

Post by Pd
I've used Eudora since god made the internet, and it was a sad day
indeed when it stopped being developed. However, v6.2 still works
happily on intel Macs running Leopard, so I don't need to worry yet.
Unfortunately my wife uses Mail, mostly because it is integrated with
the other things like Address Book and her iPhone. The last week I've
had to use it, because I've been helping her out with an email campaign
she's doing.
And streuth, Mail is brain dead.
You can't change the subject of a received email (or a sent one), so if
the sender does your typical uninformative subject (Hi!), you can't
change it to something meaningful in the list of emails.
You can't change colour tag while email is open. When it's open is when
you have the information in front of you to decide what colour tag you
want, but you can only set the colour after you close the email. Doh.
You can't even see the colour tag while email is open.
Choosing Send Again closes the email you were looking at, so if you want
to send a similar email to several people, every time you send again,
you're left with a blank screen after sending, and have to open the
original email again. I wish it would leave emails open that are open.
You can't change the status of an email, so if you send an email in
response to a received email, but don't use the reply button, you can't
change the received email to show "Replied".
You can't do Reply With Stationery.
- aha! thinks I, here's how you do it: Reply then choose Stationery.
But no, you can only use Stationery with a New message, not with a
Reply. How friggin stupid is that?
There are plenty of other whiny whinges I have about Mail, but that's
probably enough griping for one day. I should send this to Apple
Feedback I guess.
I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

I don't disagree, but I gave up on Eudora and moved from that to Apple
Mail when we needed to talk to an IMAP server with a thousand or so
shared mailboxes. Eudora just can't cope this this. No problem for
MAil.app. Horses....courses....

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by The Mekon
I don't disagree, but I gave up on Eudora and moved from that to Apple
Mail when we needed to talk to an IMAP server with a thousand or so
shared mailboxes. Eudora just can't cope this this. No problem for
MAil.app. Horses....courses....

Mail barely copes with a few mail folders here (all on my IMAP server), how
can it cope with a 1000? It puts all the mboxes in 1 long scrolling list -
getting to the one at the bottom in just an exercise in frustration. Eudora
has nested folders, maintains an index so opening a mailbox with several
1000 msgs in it is bloody quick compared to Mail.

[The Mekon]

Post by Sak Wathanasin

Post by The Mekon
I don't disagree, but I gave up on Eudora and moved from that to Apple
Mail when we needed to talk to an IMAP server with a thousand or so
shared mailboxes. Eudora just can't cope this this. No problem for
MAil.app. Horses....courses....

Mail barely copes with a few mail folders here (all on my IMAP server), how
can it cope with a 1000? It puts all the mboxes in 1 long scrolling list -
getting to the one at the bottom in just an exercise in frustration. Eudora
has nested folders, maintains an index so opening a mailbox with several
1000 msgs in it is bloody quick compared to Mail.

You and me are seeing totally different results!

With approx 1000 mailboxes I found Eudora so slow to open that I have
never bothered sitting it out to see if it *ever* actually gets to a
position where I can use it. Mail.app OTOH is no problem in this
regard. This did become an issue for me approx 3 years ago, and that's
when I moved from Eudora to Mail.app. I have occasionally dipped back
into Eudora to see if anything has changed, and I have always got the
impression that it is just as bad, though I can't claim to have
re-evaluated it properly.

On the issue of navigating the list of mailboxes. Well 1000 mailboxes
will always be a pain too navigate. But the point is that the structure
( ie nesting) that I see on the client just reflects what the mailbox
structure is on the server. It's not up to the client to decide how to
arrange them.

I wonder if we are seeing different behaviour because we have different
servers? I am using the default Cyrus install on 10.3.9 server, clients
are mail.app on 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5. No significant differences between
behaviour on different client OSes as far as this discussion goes.

What IMAP server are you using?


Everything so far is about 1000 mailboxes. Regarding your comment about
a mailbox with 1000 messages... I don't at the moment have that to
compare, but I think I did in the past and never noticed a problem. I
did a quick test just now and there was absolutely no problem opening
and navigating a mailbox with 200+ messages, even though I am currently
working over a WAN over broadband.

[Tim Streater]

Post by The Mekon

Post by Sak Wathanasin

Post by The Mekon
I don't disagree, but I gave up on Eudora and moved from that to Apple
Mail when we needed to talk to an IMAP server with a thousand or so
shared mailboxes. Eudora just can't cope this this. No problem for
MAil.app. Horses....courses....

Mail barely copes with a few mail folders here (all on my IMAP server), how
can it cope with a 1000? It puts all the mboxes in 1 long scrolling list -
getting to the one at the bottom in just an exercise in frustration. Eudora
has nested folders, maintains an index so opening a mailbox with several
1000 msgs in it is bloody quick compared to Mail.

You and me are seeing totally different results!
With approx 1000 mailboxes I found Eudora so slow to open ...

Why've you got 1000 mailboxes? After 15 years at the same place, and
getting about 75 e-mails a day (few spam), I only ended up with about
100 mailboxes. And 75 of them were for projects or issues that were
years ago (i.e., I could have deleted them).

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by The Mekon
It's not up to the client to decide how to
arrange them.

It doesn't re-arrange them: the differenec that Mail presents an exploded
view, but Eudora presents a hierarchical view. With a sensible arrangement,
ou only have to deal with a few dozen mboxes at a time. For example, even
though I few a few hundred mboxes, there are only about a dzoen mailfolders
at the top-level, and that's all I have to deal until I drill down a level
and so on.

Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes and you are having Eudora check for
new mail in 1000 mboxes, in which case, I'm not surprised that it's slow. I
only have it check for new mail in my INBOX and that's all it does when it
launches. It will only check for mail in other mboxes when I open them.

Eudora's IMAP client isn't the most brilliant: it was tacked on fairly late
in its life and hasn't been updated (and never will now), but it's good
enough and the rest of Eudora makes up for it.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Sak Wathanasin
Mail barely copes with a few mail folders here (all on my IMAP server), how
can it cope with a 1000? It puts all the mboxes in 1 long scrolling list -

Is this just because of your IMAP server? I use POP [1], and Mail allows
nested mailboxes. I couldn't live without them.

MST

[1] (must get round to changing to IMAP - any thoughts or recommendations?)

[Elliott Roper]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Sak Wathanasin
Mail barely copes with a few mail folders here (all on my IMAP server), how
can it cope with a 1000? It puts all the mboxes in 1 long scrolling list -

Is this just because of your IMAP server? I use POP [1], and Mail allows
nested mailboxes. I couldn't live without them.
MST
[1] (must get round to changing to IMAP - any thoughts or recommendations?)

Yeah. Don't! There is no such thing as a reliable IMAP server.

I'm using Mail with (mostly) POP, and I'n not seeing any of this lack
of feature or poor performance that others are seeing.

I have nested mailboxes, smart mailboxes, some mailboxes with well over
10,000 mails in, and spotlight or whatever mail uses to find things
works like a charm. And my mail is not sitting on a server somewhere
for the local STASI dogcatcher to rummage in.

My .mac account is using IMAP as a test. It reinforces my distaste for
IMAP at every opportunity. And don't get me started on Google's IMAP
-that one I POPped back as quick as I could.

[Martin S Taylor]

Elliott Roper wrote...

Post by Elliott Roper
Yeah. Don't! There is no such thing as a reliable IMAP server.

Is the problem that if the IMAP server is down you can't access your mail?
Aren't there copies stored on the Mac by default? (I know you can do this
manually if you need to.)

My gripe with POP is that when I access mail on my iPhone the messages aren't
there on my Mac when I get home. IMAP seems perfect for this.

The problem is analogous to using Evernote on the Mac and iPhone. It (in
theory) synchronises well, but if the server is down it's hard to access from
the iPhone. Maybe one day DEVONthink will synch to the iPhone.

Post by Elliott Roper
I'm using Mail with (mostly) POP, and I'n not seeing any of this lack
of feature or poor performance that others are seeing.
I have nested mailboxes, smart mailboxes, some mailboxes with well over
10,000 mails in, and spotlight or whatever mail uses to find things
works like a charm.

I've found one or two quirks that I don't like (Rules don't always work as
they should; hard to know where a message is stored on the Mac in case I need
to restore using TM) but basically it works well enough for me.

Post by Elliott Roper
And my mail is not sitting on a server somewhere
for the local STASI dogcatcher to rummage in.

Does this worry you? Don't reliable servers keep it encrypted?

Post by Elliott Roper
My .mac account is using IMAP as a test. It reinforces my distaste for
IMAP at every opportunity. And don't get me started on Google's IMAP
-that one I POPped back as quick as I could.

I did too! I'm planning to have another look at it, though. Mac people I
respect have said that the IMAP which comes with Google Apps is much better.

MST

[IronFist]

Post by Martin S Taylor
hard to know where a message is stored on the Mac

Gulp.

Would some kind soul please elaborate on this. I've been using Eudora
for over a decade but it's living on borrowed time. Sooner or later, i
think I must switch. Apple Mail was more or less the obvious choice.
But, if you can't tell where the files are stored, I will strike it of
the list immediately.

Email is extremely important to me. My Eudora mail folder is 620
megabytes and comprises hundreds of nested folders, organized for
maximum convenience. From time to time, I need to manipulate Eudora's
folders around to improve efficiency, while it is "resting". If I can't
move Mail's folders around in the same way in the Finder, I must look
elsewhere for a replacement for when OSX breaks Eudora.

Comments from Mail users, specially those who migrated from Eudora,
would be much appreciated.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by IronFist
If I can't
move Mail's folders around in the same way in the Finder, I must look
elsewhere for a replacement for when OSX breaks Eudora.

You can certainly move the folders around and nest and re-nest them however
you want, but it's best to do it in Mail itself. Like many of Apple's
programs, it keeps an index somewhere separate and if you restructure the
folders manually in the Finder, the index will get confused.

I'm sure there's a way to rebuild the index, but it involves tweezers and
latex gloves; I just stick to moving the folders around in Mail, which works
perfectly well, as it does in iTunes.

MST

[Jochem Huhmann]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by IronFist
If I can't
move Mail's folders around in the same way in the Finder, I must look
elsewhere for a replacement for when OSX breaks Eudora.

You can certainly move the folders around and nest and re-nest them however
you want, but it's best to do it in Mail itself. Like many of Apple's
programs, it keeps an index somewhere separate and if you restructure the
folders manually in the Finder, the index will get confused.

Yes, but the good thing is that you can just delete it any time and Mail
will rebuild it.

Post by Martin S Taylor
I'm sure there's a way to rebuild the index, but it involves tweezers and
latex gloves; I just stick to moving the folders around in Mail, which works
perfectly well, as it does in iTunes.

I don't think there's *any* current email app which will read and index
all mails at every startup or on opening a mailbox. The reason it that
this would take a really long time and would make the app extremely
slow. Some index or other cached data is just the only sane way to
handle this.

I surely had the odd bad moment with Mail.app but over all it's a fine
application. Most of the time it does what it is supposed to do with
grace and is very ease to use. There may be other apps more suitable for
certain cases, but by and large it is just fine. And I'm writing this
using Emacs and Gnus (which is also a *very* powerful MUA, but not
exactly graceful or easy to use).


Jochem

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by IronFist

Post by Martin S Taylor
hard to know where a message is stored on the Mac

Gulp.
Would some kind soul please elaborate on this.

It's not *very* hard to know. In Leopard, a mail in your inbox will
exist on the hard drive in /Users/<yourusername>/Library/Mail/<folder
named after your mail account>/Inbox.mbox/Messages, where it'll be one
of the hordes of .emlx text files.

Other folders are next door in
~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/<mailfolder name>.mbox/Messages

Cheers - Jaimie

[IronFist]

In article

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by IronFist

Post by Martin S Taylor
hard to know where a message is stored on the Mac

Gulp.
Would some kind soul please elaborate on this.

It's not *very* hard to know. In Leopard, a mail in your inbox will
exist on the hard drive in /Users/<yourusername>/Library/Mail/<folder
named after your mail account>/Inbox.mbox/Messages, where it'll be one
of the hordes of .emlx text files.
Other folders are next door in
~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes/<mailfolder name>.mbox/Messages
Cheers - Jaimie

Thanks, Jamie

[zoara]

Post by IronFist
Comments from Mail users, specially those who migrated from Eudora,
would be much appreciated.

I used to use Eudora, with dozens of filters and mailboxes.

Now I use Mail, and my mailboxes are In, Pending, and Filed. I let
Spotlight do the rest. Never fails, and is a lot less faff.

-z-

[Tim Streater]

Post by zoara

Post by IronFist
Comments from Mail users, specially those who migrated from Eudora,
would be much appreciated.

I used to use Eudora, with dozens of filters and mailboxes.
Now I use Mail, and my mailboxes are In, Pending, and Filed. I let
Spotlight do the rest. Never fails, and is a lot less faff.

When the boss says, OK, deal with this issue/topic/project, and the
people involved is a random subset of people where you work, a random
subset of the companies you deal with and *their* employees, and the
issue/topic/project has a number of strands to it, I always keep the
whole lot (mails sent and received) in a single mailbox, or possibly a
folder with a number of strand-related mailboxes at worst.

Eudora's Fcc: feature helps a lot here and reduces the amount of manual
filing required. I don't use filters for this sort of thing because of
the randomness of the Subject: and From: lines involved.

Further, I *know* that I have it all in the one place. Does this ever
fail? Sure, and I am then grateful for Eudora's powerful search and
possibly even spotlight to help find something that I occasionally
misfile.

But these will never find for me that elusive email which is vital to
this moment and which contains not a single word I could imagine to
search on.

*I* have to be the one making the decisions about what to file where,
because *I* know the meaning of the content. Equally, until one can
"search on on what I mean, not what I said", Spotlight and friends,
including the Eudora search (or that of any other mailer, for that
matter), are not going to be the last word.

[Chris Ridd]

On 2009-01-23 10:53:21 +0000, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor
Elliott Roper wrote...

Post by Elliott Roper
Yeah. Don't! There is no such thing as a reliable IMAP server.

Is the problem that if the IMAP server is down you can't access your mail?
Aren't there copies stored on the Mac by default? (I know you can do this
manually if you need to.)

Everything's cached on your Mac.

Post by Martin S Taylor
I've found one or two quirks that I don't like (Rules don't always work as
they should; hard to know where a message is stored on the Mac in case I need
to restore using TM) but basically it works well enough for me.

~/Library/Mail/IMAP-***@servername/...

Or ~/Library/Mail/Mac-username/ for MobileMe accounts.

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Elliott Roper
And my mail is not sitting on a server somewhere
for the local STASI dogcatcher to rummage in.

Does this worry you? Don't reliable servers keep it encrypted?

That's *very* unlikely. Most store them in files literally as they came
from the sender.

If you want encryption, you need to use S/MIME or PGP to encrypt each email.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Martin S Taylor
Does this worry you? Don't reliable servers keep it encrypted?

That's *very* unlikely. Most store them in files literally as they came
from the sender.
If you want encryption, you need to use S/MIME or PGP to encrypt each email.

That's what I thought. It doesn't worry me that much in practice (though the
principle is a little disturbing).

I've walked the PGP route with Elliott already. I don't think I need S/MIME
just yet though hard-core Civil Libertarians could easily convince me
otherwise.

MST

[Pd]

Post by Martin S Taylor
I've walked the PGP route with Elliott already. I don't think I need S/MIME
just yet though hard-core Civil Libertarians could easily convince me
otherwise.

Haven't the UK guvmint just passed some law that says the Polis can hack
into your machine, read your mail, files, whatever, load keyloggers and
backdoors and all without a warrant, if they 'sincerely and genuinely
believe you're a bad person'?

[Chris Ridd]

Post by Pd

Post by Martin S Taylor
I've walked the PGP route with Elliott already. I don't think I need S/MIME
just yet though hard-core Civil Libertarians could easily convince me
otherwise.

Haven't the UK guvmint just passed some law that says the Polis can hack
into your machine, read your mail, files, whatever, load keyloggers and
backdoors and all without a warrant, if they 'sincerely and genuinely
believe you're a bad person'?

Or you're the wrong colour, look at them in a funny way, or have odd trousers.

[zoara]

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Pd

Post by Martin S Taylor
I've walked the PGP route with Elliott already. I don't think I need S/MIME
just yet though hard-core Civil Libertarians could easily convince me
otherwise.

Haven't the UK guvmint just passed some law that says the Polis can hack
into your machine, read your mail, files, whatever, load keyloggers and
backdoors and all without a warrant, if they 'sincerely and genuinely
believe you're a bad person'?

Or you're the wrong colour, look at them in a funny way, or have odd trousers.

Fortunately, they only do this to people who use Windows, or pirate
copies of iWork.

-z-

[unknown]

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Pd

Post by Martin S Taylor
I've walked the PGP route with Elliott already. I don't think I need S/MIME
just yet though hard-core Civil Libertarians could easily convince me
otherwise.

Haven't the UK guvmint just passed some law that says the Polis can hack
into your machine, read your mail, files, whatever, load keyloggers and
backdoors and all without a warrant, if they 'sincerely and genuinely
believe you're a bad person'?

Or you're the wrong colour, look at them in a funny way, or have odd trousers.

Or no trousers, especially if you're a man. Or wear a headscarf.

[Peter Ceresole]

Post by Pd
Haven't the UK guvmint just passed some law that says the Polis can hack
into your machine, read your mail, files, whatever, load keyloggers and
backdoors and all without a warrant, if they 'sincerely and genuinely
believe you're a bad person'?

Isn't that the clause immediately after the one that gives them First
Night rights over your daughter?

[Jochem Huhmann]

Post by Pd
Haven't the UK guvmint just passed some law that says the Polis can hack
into your machine, read your mail, files, whatever, load keyloggers and
backdoors and all without a warrant, if they 'sincerely and genuinely
believe you're a bad person'?

The German government has passed quite a similar law last year and most
of the hackers decided that they're really looking forward to them
trying it. Lots of fun to be had, surely.


Jochem

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:53:21 GMT, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor
Elliott Roper wrote...

Post by Elliott Roper
Yeah. Don't! There is no such thing as a reliable IMAP server.

That doesn't seem to be the case. I've never been plumbed to an
unreliable one, in fact - even the likes of Notes and Exchange seem
capable at handling multigig mail stores over IMAP.

Post by Martin S Taylor
Is the problem that if the IMAP server is down you can't access your mail?
Aren't there copies stored on the Mac by default? (I know you can do this
manually if you need to.)

Yes, almost every mail client uses a local cache.

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Elliott Roper
And my mail is not sitting on a server somewhere
for the local STASI dogcatcher to rummage in.

Does this worry you? Don't reliable servers keep it encrypted?

Any local STASI would have picked it up at the SMTP level anyway, and
there's all the backups that get done as well, so it hardly matters
whether there's a user-available server-side cache. Email is
inherently available to the police state - ask the Americans.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Whistleblower_Bushs_NSA_targeted_reporters_0121.html

Cheers - Jaimie

[Elliott Roper]

Post by Martin S Taylor
Elliott Roper wrote...

Post by Elliott Roper
Yeah. Don't! There is no such thing as a reliable IMAP server.

Is the problem that if the IMAP server is down you can't access your mail?
Aren't there copies stored on the Mac by default? (I know you can do this
manually if you need to.)

I seem to get it tangled too easily. Unreads wrong, trash scattered
willy nilly, glacial performance on my not so reliable connection.

Post by Martin S Taylor
My gripe with POP is that when I access mail on my iPhone the messages aren't
there on my Mac when I get home. IMAP seems perfect for this.

Yes, that is the hope. I fudge it by running one copy of mail at a
time, and doing a send again to get the ones I want in the right place.
Horrible, but less than it sounds, since I swap from Pro to Boko for
about 10 days/year. When I get an iPhone, I'll have to rethink it all.

<snip>

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Elliott Roper
And my mail is not sitting on a server somewhere
for the local STASI dogcatcher to rummage in.

Does this worry you? Don't reliable servers keep it encrypted?

My understanding is they optionally encrypt in transit (SSL). Clearly
they can't keep the addressing encrypted, and I sure wouldn't trust
Google not to sell my little idiosyncrasies to the highest bidder. If I
want secure mail I do it myself. PGP end to end. That keeps the RIPA
snoops out in the cold properly. Incidentally, I use the old fashioned
PGP plugin so mail mail stays encrypted except when I'm explicitly
looking at it.

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Elliott Roper
My .mac account is using IMAP as a test. It reinforces my distaste for
IMAP at every opportunity. And don't get me started on Google's IMAP
-that one I POPped back as quick as I could.

I did too! I'm planning to have another look at it, though. Mac people I
respect have said that the IMAP which comes with Google Apps is much better.

Thanks. Worth another look then.

[Chris Ridd]

Post by Elliott Roper
My understanding is they optionally encrypt in transit (SSL). Clearly
they can't keep the addressing encrypted, and I sure wouldn't trust

In transit between what and what?

Pretty much 99.9999% of all Internet email is sent between MTAs in the
clear, no SSL. So that's highly sniffable by $govt with a tap in the
appropriate places.

Between MTA and IMAP server is still likely to be in the clear, though
it may be over loopback or something unsniffable.

Between UA and IMAP server/SMTP submission it is somewhat likely to use
SSL. Pretty unsniffable, though there are known MITM SSL attacks. Don't
use weak hashing algorithms...

Post by Elliott Roper
Google not to sell my little idiosyncrasies to the highest bidder. If I
want secure mail I do it myself. PGP end to end. That keeps the RIPA
snoops out in the cold properly. Incidentally, I use the old fashioned
PGP plugin so mail mail stays encrypted except when I'm explicitly
looking at it.

Apparently the GPG plugin's finally been released for Leopard, though
if memory serves you're still legally obliged to cough up your private
keys on demand. Obviously if you've forgotten, and everyone knows
you've forgotten, then you can't. Richard Clayton's alibi is documented
via:

<http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2007/09/30/time-to-forget/>

[Elliott Roper]

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Elliott Roper
My understanding is they optionally encrypt in transit (SSL). Clearly
they can't keep the addressing encrypted, and I sure wouldn't trust

In transit between what and what?

Between IMAP server and client only.

Post by Chris Ridd
Pretty much 99.9999% of all Internet email is sent between MTAs in the
clear, no SSL. So that's highly sniffable by $govt with a tap in the
appropriate places.
Between MTA and IMAP server is still likely to be in the clear, though
it may be over loopback or something unsniffable.
Between UA and IMAP server/SMTP submission it is somewhat likely to use
SSL. Pretty unsniffable, though there are known MITM SSL attacks. Don't
use weak hashing algorithms...

That's what I meant, if not what I said.

Post by Chris Ridd

Post by Elliott Roper
Google not to sell my little idiosyncrasies to the highest bidder. If I
want secure mail I do it myself. PGP end to end. That keeps the RIPA
snoops out in the cold properly. Incidentally, I use the old fashioned
PGP plugin so mail mail stays encrypted except when I'm explicitly
looking at it.

Apparently the GPG plugin's finally been released for Leopard, though
if memory serves you're still legally obliged to cough up your private
keys on demand. Obviously if you've forgotten, and everyone knows
you've forgotten, then you can't. Richard Clayton's alibi is documented
<http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2007/09/30/time-to-forget/>

Yep. I was pleased to have had a small role in that. I got my MP to
lean on the Home Office to add the "place in intelligible form"
procedure, on the grounds of protecting me from bent coppers and
council flytipping inspectors PGP signing correspondence in my name
after demanding my decryption (and signing) key.

I was probably one of thousands who did so, but I did get a nice letter
from the HO wonks.

If my signature on these posts ever changes, I may not be able to tell
you why.

I'm not doing anything naughty. I have nothing to hide, but I'm damn
well making it as hard as possible for some future corrupt state to
grab me or stitch me up. The RIPA is truly Orwellian legislation.

It is evil and totalitarian, and out of all proportion for its stated
purpose. In parallel with all the other 11 o'clock hate apparatus that
I'm supposed to believe is protecting me. Me? Protecting
lobotomy-jacket-wearing-jobsworths and self-serving rotten borough
politicians is more like it.

(LJWJs hang their brains on the same peg they take their yellow jacket
from when they start their snooping shift each day.)

[Tim Streater]

Post by Elliott Roper
I'm not doing anything naughty. I have nothing to hide, but I'm damn
well making it as hard as possible for some future corrupt state to
grab me or stitch me up. The RIPA is truly Orwellian legislation.
It is evil and totalitarian, and out of all proportion for its stated
purpose. In parallel with all the other 11 o'clock hate apparatus that
I'm supposed to believe is protecting me. Me? Protecting
lobotomy-jacket-wearing-jobsworths and self-serving rotten borough
politicians is more like it.

What do you expect from a Labour Government, eh? They know best -
remember that. It only is surprising that it took so long.

By the way, did they get that Enabling Act passed?

[Elliott Roper]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by Elliott Roper
I'm not doing anything naughty. I have nothing to hide, but I'm damn
well making it as hard as possible for some future corrupt state to
grab me or stitch me up. The RIPA is truly Orwellian legislation.
It is evil and totalitarian, and out of all proportion for its stated
purpose. In parallel with all the other 11 o'clock hate apparatus that
I'm supposed to believe is protecting me. Me? Protecting
lobotomy-jacket-wearing-jobsworths and self-serving rotten borough
politicians is more like it.

What do you expect from a Labour Government, eh? They know best -
remember that. It only is surprising that it took so long.

Did not the Tories start it?

Remember, parliament is only a PR stunt for the permanent public
'service'.

Post by Tim Streater
By the way, did they get that Enabling Act passed?

If you mean the activation? I believe yes.
see upthread a little, there was a link.

[Tim Streater]

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Tim Streater

Post by Elliott Roper
I'm not doing anything naughty. I have nothing to hide, but I'm damn
well making it as hard as possible for some future corrupt state to
grab me or stitch me up. The RIPA is truly Orwellian legislation.
It is evil and totalitarian, and out of all proportion for its stated
purpose. In parallel with all the other 11 o'clock hate apparatus that
I'm supposed to believe is protecting me. Me? Protecting
lobotomy-jacket-wearing-jobsworths and self-serving rotten borough
politicians is more like it.

What do you expect from a Labour Government, eh? They know best -
remember that. It only is surprising that it took so long.

Did not the Tories start it?
Remember, parliament is only a PR stunt for the permanent public
'service'.

Post by Tim Streater
By the way, did they get that Enabling Act passed?

If you mean the activation? I believe yes.
see upthread a little, there was a link.

I mean copying the trick started (or at any rate used) by that nice Mr.
Hitler.

I understand that the EU is considering something similar. Just in case
the Irish remain bolshy.

[Elliott Roper]

Post by Tim Streater
I mean copying the trick started (or at any rate used) by that nice Mr.
Hitler.

I'm sorry. Godwin's Law has to be invoked.

[Tim Streater]

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Tim Streater
I mean copying the trick started (or at any rate used) by that nice Mr.
Hitler.

I'm sorry. Godwin's Law has to be invoked.

It's no good invoking it now! You should have done it when I mentioned
the Enabling Act.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Chris Ridd
Apparently the GPG plugin's finally been released for Leopard, though
if memory serves you're still legally obliged to cough up your private
keys on demand. Obviously if you've forgotten, and everyone knows
you've forgotten, then you can't. Richard Clayton's alibi is documented
<http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2007/09/30/time-to-forget/>

I used to work for Richard, and we got on quite well at one level and not at
all on another.

Post by Elliott Roper
Yep. I was pleased to have had a small role in that. I got my MP to
lean on the Home Office to add the "place in intelligible form"
procedure, on the grounds of protecting me from bent coppers and
council flytipping inspectors PGP signing correspondence in my name
after demanding my decryption (and signing) key.
I was probably one of thousands who did so, but I did get a nice letter
from the HO wonks.

I quite like TrueCrypt's defence to the RIPA. It can encrypt at two levels.
If you're at gunpoint, you reveal password A and the file decrypts to show
something mildly scurrilous which you might want to keep hidden from your
wife. But if you type in password B you get at the really hard-core stuff you
don't want the RIPA Gestapo to find.

And the great thing is that there's no way anyone can prove that you *have*
set a password B, or that there is anything else hidden at this second level.
MST

[Elliott Roper]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Chris Ridd
Apparently the GPG plugin's finally been released for Leopard, though
if memory serves you're still legally obliged to cough up your private
keys on demand. Obviously if you've forgotten, and everyone knows
you've forgotten, then you can't. Richard Clayton's alibi is documented
<http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2007/09/30/time-to-forget/>

I used to work for Richard, and we got on quite well at one level and not at
all on another.

Post by Elliott Roper
Yep. I was pleased to have had a small role in that. I got my MP to
lean on the Home Office to add the "place in intelligible form"
procedure, on the grounds of protecting me from bent coppers and
council flytipping inspectors PGP signing correspondence in my name
after demanding my decryption (and signing) key.
I was probably one of thousands who did so, but I did get a nice letter
from the HO wonks.

I quite like TrueCrypt's defence to the RIPA. It can encrypt at two levels.
If you're at gunpoint, you reveal password A and the file decrypts to show
something mildly scurrilous which you might want to keep hidden from your
wife. But if you type in password B you get at the really hard-core stuff you
don't want the RIPA Gestapo to find.
And the great thing is that there's no way anyone can prove that you *have*
set a password B, or that there is anything else hidden at this second level.
MST

Excellent! That's a neat place to put stegged stuff, if it works.
I suspect that a clueful investigator will note discrepancy in
ciphertext and expected plaintext sizes, but you could hide interesting
short stuff in padding or even IVs. How does TrueCrypt keep the second
passphrase and decryption key hidden?

If plod rubber-hoses me into opening my Mac, he can see my PGP private
keys, even if he can't use 'em till he hits me again and again for the
passphrase. If he can see another private key, he'll go on hitting me.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Martin S Taylor
I quite like TrueCrypt's defence to the RIPA. It can encrypt at two levels.
If you're at gunpoint, you reveal password A and the file decrypts to show
something mildly scurrilous which you might want to keep hidden from your
wife. But if you type in password B you get at the really hard-core stuff you
don't want the RIPA Gestapo to find.
And the great thing is that there's no way anyone can prove that you *have*
set a password B, or that there is anything else hidden at this second level.
MST

Excellent! That's a neat place to put stegged stuff, if it works.
I suspect that a clueful investigator will note discrepancy in
ciphertext and expected plaintext sizes, but you could hide interesting
short stuff in padding or even IVs. How does TrueCrypt keep the second
passphrase and decryption key hidden?

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability

Post by Elliott Roper
If plod rubber-hoses me into opening my Mac, he can see my PGP private
keys, even if he can't use 'em till he hits me again and again for the
passphrase. If he can see another private key, he'll go on hitting me.

They don't need to hit you for the passphrase, they can just throw you
in prison to rot. Good, innit?

Cheers - Jaimie

[Elliott Roper]

In article

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Martin S Taylor
I quite like TrueCrypt's defence to the RIPA. It can encrypt at two levels.
If you're at gunpoint, you reveal password A and the file decrypts to show
something mildly scurrilous which you might want to keep hidden from your
wife. But if you type in password B you get at the really hard-core stuff you
don't want the RIPA Gestapo to find.
And the great thing is that there's no way anyone can prove that you *have*
set a password B, or that there is anything else hidden at this second level.
MST

Excellent! That's a neat place to put stegged stuff, if it works.
I suspect that a clueful investigator will note discrepancy in
ciphertext and expected plaintext sizes, but you could hide interesting
short stuff in padding or even IVs. How does TrueCrypt keep the second
passphrase and decryption key hidden?

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability

OK as far as it goes. What do you say when plod asks "What's this 40GB
file of pseudo-random numbers?"

I do like a variation where you keep another 99 40GB files of similarly
named random numbers encrypted to a key you never knew and threw away.
You still get beaten up, but 99% of the time you sound convincing when
you tell 'em you don't know the passphrase (between wracking sobs of
fingernail free agony).

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Elliott Roper
If plod rubber-hoses me into opening my Mac, he can see my PGP private
keys, even if he can't use 'em till he hits me again and again for the
passphrase. If he can see another private key, he'll go on hitting me.

They don't need to hit you for the passphrase, they can just throw you
in prison to rot. Good, innit?

Terr-fuckin-riffic it are!

Of course, if they think they need my stuff in a hurry, they'll still
do rubber hose cryptanalysis and *then* fling my bruised body in the
slammer to rot.

[Pd]

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability

OK as far as it goes. What do you say when plod asks "What's this 40GB
file of pseudo-random numbers?"

But there isn't one. You have a 100GB encrypted mountable image. So far
you have only filled up 60GB of that. The other 40GB just looks like,
and is displayed as, free space in the outer encrypted image.

Of course they could mess up your top sekrit files by simply filling up
the remaining 'free' space in the encrypted image, but they won't be
able to prove there was anything there to mess up.

[Elliott Roper]

Post by Pd

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability

OK as far as it goes. What do you say when plod asks "What's this 40GB
file of pseudo-random numbers?"

But there isn't one. You have a 100GB encrypted mountable image. So far
you have only filled up 60GB of that. The other 40GB just looks like,
and is displayed as, free space in the outer encrypted image.

Course! neato.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Martin S Taylor
Elliott Roper wrote...

Post by Elliott Roper
Yeah. Don't! There is no such thing as a reliable IMAP server.

Is the problem that if the IMAP server is down you can't access your mail?
Aren't there copies stored on the Mac by default? (I know you can do this
manually if you need to.)

I seem to get it tangled too easily. Unreads wrong, trash scattered
willy nilly, glacial performance on my not so reliable connection.

Sounds like your local agent is committing changes locally without
insisting that the IMAP server responds with an acknowledgment that it
has done the same, and that sort of unreconciled behaviour *really*
fails over an unreliable connection.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Martin S Taylor
Is this just because of your IMAP server? I use POP [1], and Mail allows
nested mailboxes. I couldn't live without them.

Oh, it allows them, but it presents them in 1 long, "exploded" scrolling
list (like on the iPhone, grrrh); kinda painful whe you have over a 100. Has
this changed in a recent version of Mail?

[deKay]

Soni tempori elseu romani yeof helsforo nisson ol sefini ill des Wed, 21 Jan
2009 16:26:53 +0000, sefini jorgo geanyet des mani yeof do uk.comp.sys.mac,

Post by Pd
I'm sure Mail is okay if you have very limited email requirements (my
wife seems to be happy with it), but if you do anything vaguely beyond
the realms of read, write and reply, it's a remarkably frustrating
environment for handling email.

Blimey. I've been using email since 1992, and I don't think I've ever needed,
or even considered I might have to, to do any of those things you mention.
Several of them just seem totally pointless too - as if I were to complain
that my car can't swim.

deKay

[Pd]

Post by deKay
Blimey. I've been using email since 1992, and I don't think I've ever needed,
or even considered I might have to, to do any of those things you mention.
Several of them just seem totally pointless too - as if I were to complain
that my car can't swim.

The trouble is once you *have* used the features of something like
Eudora, trying to manage email communication with a lot of different
people at a lot of different stages in a process is very frustrating in
Mail.

To use your analogy, if you've only ever driven amphibious cars, to
suddenly get in one that is stopped by a deep puddle leaves one slightly
incredulous at the lack of ability.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by Pd

Post by deKay
Blimey. I've been using email since 1992, and I don't think I've ever needed,
or even considered I might have to, to do any of those things you mention.
Several of them just seem totally pointless too - as if I were to complain
that my car can't swim.

The trouble is once you *have* used the features of something like
Eudora, trying to manage email communication with a lot of different
people at a lot of different stages in a process is very frustrating in
Mail.
To use your analogy, if you've only ever driven amphibious cars, to
suddenly get in one that is stopped by a deep puddle leaves one slightly
incredulous at the lack of ability.

A friend of mine drove a DB7 through a deep puddle, and the water
swooshed up and over the car into the engine compartment - where it
killed both the engine and electric system permanently, £45k insurance
claim for the rebuild. British engineering at its best.

That's not a forced car analogy, by the way - it's just an anecdote.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Chris Ridd]

On 2009-01-22 12:59:12 +0000, Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Pd

Post by deKay
Blimey. I've been using email since 1992, and I don't think I've ever needed,
or even considered I might have to, to do any of those things you mention.
Several of them just seem totally pointless too - as if I were to complain
that my car can't swim.

The trouble is once you *have* used the features of something like
Eudora, trying to manage email communication with a lot of different
people at a lot of different stages in a process is very frustrating in
Mail.
To use your analogy, if you've only ever driven amphibious cars, to
suddenly get in one that is stopped by a deep puddle leaves one slightly
incredulous at the lack of ability.

A friend of mine drove a DB7 through a deep puddle, and the water
swooshed up and over the car into the engine compartment - where it
killed both the engine and electric system permanently, £45k insurance
claim for the rebuild. British engineering at its best.

Heh. What did he put on the insurance claim? I can't see "drove through
puddle" going down particularly well, unless the insurers owned a DB7
themselves...

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by Chris Ridd
On 2009-01-22 12:59:12 +0000, Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Pd

Post by deKay
Blimey. I've been using email since 1992, and I don't think I've ever needed,
or even considered I might have to, to do any of those things you mention.
Several of them just seem totally pointless too - as if I were to complain
that my car can't swim.

The trouble is once you *have* used the features of something like
Eudora, trying to manage email communication with a lot of different
people at a lot of different stages in a process is very frustrating in
Mail.
To use your analogy, if you've only ever driven amphibious cars, to
suddenly get in one that is stopped by a deep puddle leaves one slightly
incredulous at the lack of ability.

A friend of mine drove a DB7 through a deep puddle, and the water
swooshed up and over the car into the engine compartment - where it
killed both the engine and electric system permanently, £45k insurance
claim for the rebuild. British engineering at its best.

Heh. What did he put on the insurance claim? I can't see "drove through
puddle" going down particularly well, unless the insurers owned a DB7
themselves...

"Drove through a puddle, puddle broke the car". He's like that.

The car was six years old at the time, and £45k was very close to
writeoff value. The £45k is also only a touch more than he'd paid for
insurance over that period...

Cheers - Jaimie

[Chris Ridd]

On 2009-01-22 14:19:34 +0000, Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Chris Ridd
On 2009-01-22 12:59:12 +0000, Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Pd

Post by deKay
Blimey. I've been using email since 1992, and I don't think I've ever needed,
or even considered I might have to, to do any of those things you mention.
Several of them just seem totally pointless too - as if I were to complain
that my car can't swim.

The trouble is once you *have* used the features of something like
Eudora, trying to manage email communication with a lot of different
people at a lot of different stages in a process is very frustrating in
Mail.
To use your analogy, if you've only ever driven amphibious cars, to
suddenly get in one that is stopped by a deep puddle leaves one slightly
incredulous at the lack of ability.

A friend of mine drove a DB7 through a deep puddle, and the water
swooshed up and over the car into the engine compartment - where it
killed both the engine and electric system permanently, £45k insurance
claim for the rebuild. British engineering at its best.

Heh. What did he put on the insurance claim? I can't see "drove through
puddle" going down particularly well, unless the insurers owned a DB7
themselves...

"Drove through a puddle, puddle broke the car". He's like that.

He got that from the old "the tree that wasn't there jumped out at me"
lists didn't he?

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
The car was six years old at the time, and £45k was very close to
writeoff value. The £45k is also only a touch more than he'd paid for
insurance over that period...

Ouch!

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
The car was six years old at the time, and £45k was very close to
writeoff value. The £45k is also only a touch more than he'd paid for
insurance over that period...

Ouch!

Don't get me started...

Someone tried to nick Vt's motorbike and wrecked the steering lock and
electrics while doing so. £270 to fix it, and despite the bike only being
worth £750 the excess is £275, so we got nowt.

A couple of days after we got it back from the repairers, someone torched it
to a crisp in front of the house (spectacular pictures to anyone interested).
But while it was at the repairers the MOT had expired, so again the insurers
wouldn't pay, and we had lost over a grand on a bike worth £750 - not to
mention the insurance premiums.

MST

[D.M. Procida]

Post by Martin S Taylor
Someone tried to nick Vt's motorbike and wrecked the steering lock and
electrics while doing so. £270 to fix it, and despite the bike only being
worth £750 the excess is £275, so we got nowt.
A couple of days after we got it back from the repairers, someone torched it
to a crisp in front of the house (spectacular pictures to anyone interested).
But while it was at the repairers the MOT had expired, so again the insurers
wouldn't pay, and we had lost over a grand on a bike worth £750 - not to
mention the insurance premiums.

Remind me not to use your insurance company...

Daniele

[Graeme Wall]

Post by D.M. Procida

Post by Martin S Taylor
Someone tried to nick Vt's motorbike and wrecked the steering lock and
electrics while doing so. £270 to fix it, and despite the bike only being
worth £750 the excess is £275, so we got nowt.
A couple of days after we got it back from the repairers, someone torched
it to a crisp in front of the house (spectacular pictures to anyone
interested). But while it was at the repairers the MOT had expired, so
again the insurers wouldn't pay, and we had lost over a grand on a bike
worth £750 - not to mention the insurance premiums.

Remind me not to use your insurance company...

I don't understand why they refused to pay, the fact that the MOT expired
while the bike was under repair is irrelevant to the claim. Presumably the
bike had a valid certificate at the time the damage took place. If this was
recent, take it up with the insurance ombudsman.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by D.M. Procida

Post by Martin S Taylor
Someone tried to nick Vt's motorbike and wrecked the steering lock and
electrics while doing so. £270 to fix it, and despite the bike only being
worth £750 the excess is £275, so we got nowt.
A couple of days after we got it back from the repairers, someone torched
it to a crisp in front of the house (spectacular pictures to anyone
interested). But while it was at the repairers the MOT had expired, so
again the insurers wouldn't pay, and we had lost over a grand on a bike
worth £750 - not to mention the insurance premiums.

Remind me not to use your insurance company...

I don't understand why they refused to pay, the fact that the MOT expired
while the bike was under repair is irrelevant to the claim. Presumably the
bike had a valid certificate at the time the damage took place. If this was
recent, take it up with the insurance ombudsman.

No, the MOT expired while it was at the repairers, so we couldn't get a new
certificate then (obviously). We took charge of it, drove it home (probably
illegal, since it didn't have an MOT) and it sat outside the house while we
booked a new MOT test for a few days' time. It was while waiting for that
test that the bike got torched.

MST

[Graeme Wall]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by D.M. Procida

Post by Martin S Taylor
Someone tried to nick Vt's motorbike and wrecked the steering lock and
electrics while doing so. £270 to fix it, and despite the bike only being
worth £750 the excess is £275, so we got nowt.
A couple of days after we got it back from the repairers, someone torched
it to a crisp in front of the house (spectacular pictures to anyone
interested). But while it was at the repairers the MOT had expired, so
again the insurers wouldn't pay, and we had lost over a grand on a bike
worth £750 - not to mention the insurance premiums.

Remind me not to use your insurance company...

I don't understand why they refused to pay, the fact that the MOT expired
while the bike was under repair is irrelevant to the claim. Presumably
the bike had a valid certificate at the time the damage took place. If
this was recent, take it up with the insurance ombudsman.

No, the MOT expired while it was at the repairers, so we couldn't get a new
certificate then (obviously). We took charge of it, drove it home (probably
illegal, since it didn't have an MOT) and it sat outside the house while we
booked a new MOT test for a few days' time. It was while waiting for that
test that the bike got torched.

Presumably kept off the public highway? What's the name of your insurers so
I can avoid them?

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by Martin S Taylor
No, the MOT expired while it was at the repairers, so we couldn't get a new
certificate then (obviously). We took charge of it, drove it home (probably
illegal, since it didn't have an MOT) and it sat outside the house while we
booked a new MOT test for a few days' time. It was while waiting for that
test that the bike got torched.

Presumably kept off the public highway? What's the name of your insurers so
I can avoid them?

No, it was on the public highway - there's nowhere else to keep it in London.
I'm not sure if it's legal to keep a m/c on the road without an MOT if you
don't actually ride it, but it's perfectly okay for the insurers to rule that
the insurance is invalid.

Aviva, nee Norwich Union (I think - it usually is when they try daft stunts
like this.)

MST

[Graeme Wall]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by Martin S Taylor
No, the MOT expired while it was at the repairers, so we couldn't get a
new certificate then (obviously). We took charge of it, drove it home
(probably illegal, since it didn't have an MOT) and it sat outside the
house while we booked a new MOT test for a few days' time. It was while
waiting for that test that the bike got torched.

Presumably kept off the public highway? What's the name of your insurers
so I can avoid them?

No, it was on the public highway - there's nowhere else to keep it in
London. I'm not sure if it's legal to keep a m/c on the road without an
MOT if you don't actually ride it, but it's perfectly okay for the
insurers to rule that the insurance is invalid.

That's your problem, you were actually breaking the law. The only time you
can have a vehicle on the public highway without an MoT is when you are
taking it to be tested, or to be worked on prior to testing.

[Darren Griffin - PocketGPSWorld.com]

Post by Graeme Wall
I don't understand why they refused to pay, the fact that the MOT expired
while the bike was under repair is irrelevant to the claim. Presumably the
bike had a valid certificate at the time the damage took place. If this was
recent, take it up with the insurance ombudsman.

I don't understand why your system thinks it is 26th Aug 2009? You
might want to correct that!

[Graeme Wall]

Post by Darren Griffin - PocketGPSWorld.com

Post by Graeme Wall
I don't understand why they refused to pay, the fact that the MOT expired
while the bike was under repair is irrelevant to the claim. Presumably
the bike had a valid certificate at the time the damage took place. If
this was recent, take it up with the insurance ombudsman.

I don't understand why your system thinks it is 26th Aug 2009? You
might want to correct that!

I don't understand it either, it's reading 23rd Feb now...

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by Darren Griffin - PocketGPSWorld.com
I don't understand why your system thinks it is 26th Aug 2009? You
might want to correct that!

I don't understand it either, it's reading 23rd Feb now...

And now it reads 23rd Jan.

MST

[Graeme Wall]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Graeme Wall

Post by Darren Griffin - PocketGPSWorld.com
I don't understand why your system thinks it is 26th Aug 2009? You
might want to correct that!

I don't understand it either, it's reading 23rd Feb now...

And now it reads 23rd Jan.

Doh! I meant Jan, I think my brain needs rebooting.

[Peter Ceresole]

Post by Graeme Wall
Doh! I meant Jan, I think my brain needs rebooting.

I think mine needs a new board. But after Sara's post, I don't think
I'll take it into the Bentall's Centre...