Choice of support forums

The UI/UX for news vs email is defined by the mail/news *client*. The protocols are effectively similar (in terms of how the client can *build* that UI and the quality/feel of the UX).

An email client can "peek" on the server to see how many messages are present meeting a specific set of criteria (e.g., raw count, unread, unseen, etc.). So, checking to see what *might* be present on the server requires only the lightest of touches (no data traffic).

A "message" can be decomposed into headers, body and attachments. So, the client can elect to defer downloading portions of the "message" that are not of interest to the user at the present time.

It can choose to examine *just* the headers of those (or some SUBSET of those) *without* bearing the cost of transferring the entire message body (incl attachments). Again, allowing the email client to only impose the cost of looking at those things that may be of interest to the user to keep traffic light.

As such, it can present "summary information" about the mailbox's content to the user WITHOUT actually fetching that content:

- originator of message

- intended recipient

- subject

- date/time

- size

- whether it has been read or not

- whether it has been *seen* previously (i.e., "new")

- if it has been *answered* (replied to)

- if it has been deleted

- if it represents a draft (not yet intended to be "sent")

- the identities of any "co-recipients" (Cc)

- the GLOBALLY unique identifier of message to which it is replying (if any)

- the presence of attachments (if any)

It can allow the user to *search* the messages on the server (read or unread) without having to download all of that content just to find which message(s) are of interest. For example, all UNSEEN messages containing the text "Order Form". Or, any message containing "meeting with client". Coupled with the summary information above, this lets the client refine his interests. Handy for a slow connection or one where you "pay for traffic" (e.g., "data plan") -- why download messages with huge attachments? Perhaps just download the *message* and leave the attachment for later!

It can allow the mailbox user to create folders *on* the server in which to organize received (AND PENDING) messages -- handy if you want to start composing an email using a colleague's computer and finish it, later.

With all of this information available *before* the body is even present on the local machine, the email client can present that summary in any way the user deems appropriate. E.g., want to *thread* your email conversations? ("View | Sort by | Threaded" in Tbird) Want to list them in the order they were sent? Or, sorted by sender? Recipient? Examine only those that contain the text "Monthly Invoice for Services Rendered"?

[Try doing that last one with a USENET client! I.e., you would have to download EVERY message body and perform the search "locally". So, you have to *rely* on folks to always put information that you might want to search for in the *subject* line if you want to avoid looking through all that body text! Search for "bug fix", "workaround", "update", "new release", etc.]

(POP can't do many of these but can do some -- with a bit of creative coding. NNTP can't do many of them, either.)

If you're not *providing* support, then the choice isn't yours to make! :>

Because *mail* and *news* are very different media -- with very different capabilities.

I can wish a friend "Bon voyage!" by:

- telephoning

- sending a greeting card

- sending a letter

- sending a postcard

- sending a telegram

- sending an email

- taking out a full-page ad in the newspaper

- buying a "spot" on a local TV/radio channel etc.

*All* will get my message across. Should he choose to reply, would he really want to use the same medium that *I* did?

"Thanks, Don! See you in two weeks. I left a house key under the mat..."

News (USENET) is a broadcast medium. Email is a point-to-point medium. I.e., to *approximate* a broadcast, you would have to email to a LIST of known recipients -- you can never broadcast to "The World at Large". The flip side of that is you can never know who has *seen* your USENET message (email will at least tell you if it has not yet been *delivered*, assuming you don't enforce return receipts).

Think about that difference and you will see the multitude of things that you can do with email that just have no counterpart in USENET.

Web portals try to walk a middle ground -- giving you the worst of both worlds...

Thanks for the summary. I do see the advantages of IMAP and it's on my long term wish list for email. But first I have to get some other things going, one of them being to coax a very recalcitrant Windows 7 into doing what older (and IMHO better) OS'es always did with ease and without having to spend days of wrestling with it.

Thing is, I do not need to do fancy stuff with Usenet. NNTP does everything I want and if I am happy with something I tend to keep it.

POP3 has worked great so far and I can live on with it. But I do see some advantages in IMAP, potentially making a switch worthwhile. However, first I'll research that because I don't want to get into a nasty mess like I just did with the transition from XP to Windows 7. In hindsight I should have stuck with XP. Learned a painful lesson there.

IMAP would make a lot of sense if I ever got a smart phone. I am not sure if I ever do though because right now I don't have too much use for it. Plus I do not subscribe to the concept of technology just for technology's sake. There has to be a large enough upside in it for me.

Sure it is. I make the choice with my check book like I did when buying the CAD license. The company with NNTP forums got my check. A CAD decision is pretty much final when it's done.

I know, and that's why NNTP is just fine for news. Has been for decades.

Why should they have a counterpart when they are not needed?

Web portals are typically somewhere between clunky and useless.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Ahm ...

Quote "Thunderbird doesn't support converting a POP account to a IMAP account. Its possible to hack the files in the profile to convert the account, but its tricky and time consuming and requires knowledge most users don't have".

I think I'll wait a while :-)

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

This is an over-simplification intended to cover "all" possible cases.

POP and IMAP are just mechanisms for *communicating* with your mail server. I.e., you could access your (single) email account from a mail client that "talks POP" and, later, from another mail client that "talks IMAP" (assuming the server understands both protocols).

But, as they support different features, you can end up in a "confused" state.

For example, POP users tend to download their messages off the server as they read them (this isn't a requirement but, as POP doesn't support a way of marking messages ON the server as "read", "seen", "replied to", etc., leaving them on the server means you keep seeing them as "new" long after you've read and even replied to them!). Your mail client can emulate these features with the *downloaded* copy of each message (because it can tag them as read/unread, answered/unanswered, etc. LOCALLY on your disk!)

The "sent" folder that you see in your POP email account is actually a LOCAL folder on your disk drive. POP has no concept of folders so there is no way to "store" your "sent" messages on the mail server (for later reference). IMAP can "push" a copy of each message that you send *onto* the mail server so you don't need to keep that copy on your local disk. (i.e., you can send messages from 5 different PC's each accessing that one IMAP account and be able to see all of the "sent" messages from

*any* of those PC's!) [In Tbird, if you look under "Copies & Folders" for the account in question, you can see that you have a choice as to where you want to keep copies of "sent" messages -- in a "local folder" (i.e., "Other") *or* in the "Sent" folder on ]

Likewise, your "InBox" holds *the* copy of each received mail -- even if you have NOT yet read/replied it. Think of it as walking to the USPS mailbox each day and blindly taking all of your mail and dumping it on the kitchen table in a pile. This can go on for *days* and, as far as you are concerned, there is no difference between the stack of mail on your table and leaving it in the mailbox where you only fetch it once a week.

So, the first "problem" when trying to "convert" an account is: "How do I push all of the messages that were previously *downloaded* via the POP connection onto my local disk *back* onto the server?"

*If* you have diligently left *all* your messages in your InBox *on* the server, then you can delete your local copies, change the connection protocol to IMAP and now see those messages (still on the server) in the "InBox" folder -- ON THE SERVER.

But, few folks do this as the mailbox grows quickly (and, gets cluttered with lots of content).

I've never "converted" an account but frequently *cancel* accounts -- and don't want Tbird to discard all of the messages that I've accumulated, still have "pending", replies I've sent, etc.

So, prior to terminating the account (regardless of POP or IMAP), I create a LOCAL folder called "Name of the account". Then, I drag all of the "folders" (local or server side) from the account that I am canceling

*into* this local folder.

Once that is done, I clean off the folders on the server (make sure no old mail lingers there) and delete the account (in Tbird *and* on the mail provider).

If I want to preserve all of this content in some *other* account, I can then move the folders (contents) to the new account -- drag and drop. With an IMAP account, this results in the creation of a *real* folder on the mail server! So, my local copy doesn't need to be saved.

[E.g., you could create a folder under IMAP called "My Music" and "upload" your MP3's, there -- if you ran out of storage on your local disk (silly idea but is intended to show you that IMAP folders are *real* folders AS IF they resided on your computer!]

If the Tbird folks were more aggressive, they could automate this process. But, it seems pretty low on the "needs" list -- you can effectively do it all "manually". There are lots of little pitfalls that can screw you over if you are trying to do this with "live" accounts. E.g., if Tbird keeps checking the folder on your account while you're trying to drag files into it, you can just end up re-downloading what you are trying to UPload.

The article you referenced suggests ways of manually moving the ("hidden") folders ON your local disk to effectively perform the same operation as "drag and drop" to the IMAP service does. It hardly seems worth the effort unless you have a bunch of *huge* local folders that you wanted to preserve

*under* that account.

You could always donate some of them to a food bank, before letting any go to waste. :)

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to 
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

Citrus *never* goes to waste, here! :>

[Well, actually, we end up with way more limes -- about 400 count per crop -- than we can ever use. But, we bring those to the folks in the "Laundry" at a local hospital. The workers there apparently love them! Cut a wedge and let it sit *on* their teeth while they work. Apparently destroys their tooth enamel in the process...]

A friend gifted us a "Juicerator" many years ago:

(note the juicer attachment, below)

It makes (relatively) quick work of juicing the buggers. OTOH, when you have several trees and several gallons of juice for each tree, you can quickly grow weary of the process! Thankfully, each crop comes due at slightly different times. E.g., the Valencia's won't be ready to juice for another month or so...

There are some groups who will harvest (citrus) fruit that you'd otherwise leave on the tree. But, IME, if you aren't planning on harvesting the fruit, you probably haven't taken good care of it through the growing season, anyway.

E.g., our limes are bigger than store-bought *lemons*; lemons bigger than oranges; oranges bigger than grapefruit; etc. Neighbors, OTOH, have little *dinky* fruit... why bother growing it if you aren't going to grow it *well*?

the process goes like this set the pop account to not delete emails off the server (there's a check box for that)

set up the imap account as a new account

in thunderbird, copy or move your inbox and sent emails (etc) into the new account (you may have to do one email at a time) this could take hours.

Delete or disable the pop account.

There's probably a way to script step 3: thunderbird's UI is written in XUL which is XML forms and javascript logic.

--
umop apisdn

So, they post the *binaries* of software updates TO the newsgroup?

Or, do they direct you to a WEB SITE where you manually download them?

And, have you "access your account" to check on the status of a bug that you reported?

And, send individual emails to fellow newsgroup participants when you want to discuss something "off list"?

The "directed", one-to-one nature of email handles all of these cases with a single interface.

The vendor can "broadcast" announcements to all "interested parties" (i.e., those who have subscribed to the "product-announce" mailing list).

Participants can similarly "broadcast" questions (or replies) to those "members" interested in questions of a particular type (based on the mailing list chosen -- e.g., "product-new-users", "product-advanced-users", "product-suggestions", etc.).

Participants can reply "off list" *through* the list server to other "members" -- so your email address never has to be disclosed, publicly (e.g., this is also how "web portals" operate).

Participants can sanction "misbehavers" -- and, have their sanctions visible so they can be sanctioned by other participants if they get too aggressive (this is also available in web portals -- but not in unmoderated USENET).

"Resources" can be made available over the same medium by the vendor (Subject: New FAQ available. Reply to this message to automatically have a copy of the new FAQ emailed to you!)

Resources can be tailored to the individual querant because your email address uniquely identifies *you*. So, folks who own a model 123 AND ONLY THOSE FOLKS can receive a directed broadcast pertinent to that product (Subject: New Model 123 Firmware available. Reply to this message to automatically have a copy of the new firmware emailed to you along with instructions for its installation.)

Etc.

And, all of this is "invisible" to search engines, etc. (unless someone explicitly posts the content to a web site that *they* choose to maintain!)

Best of all, you can administer and implement this through a tiny pipe. No need to set up a web server that is online (and available for attack)

24/7/365. Just set up *an* email account and arrange to pull messages off of it regularly, process them and push replies back!)

I first implemented this for a "beta" product. It was amazingly successful. The folks testing it (the product) were probably more highly motivated than "casual users" (selected expressly for that reason). And, really enjoyed being able to share their thoughts "in private" (i.e., amongst the group and ONLY the group) as well as "one-on-one" (i.e., message each other directly without the rest of the list seeing the conversation).

It is much superior to a simple "support" web site as you (the vendor) can hear what people are saying about your product -- instead of just looking at "hit counters" and "download counts". Allowing resources to be delivered via that same channel (there is a "command" that facilitates this) gives the functionality of a browsable web site yet the directness of an email link (also has the advantage of letting the vendor schedule when the "replies" are sent instead of having to deal with huge variations in "web traffic")

As I said, earlier, I suspect the complaint from the client that sparked this thread is largely bogus (I don't watch his mailing list to know for sure if folks are *really* griping about the issue he mentioned).

I'm confident enough in the technology that I've started designing a "How-to-manage-a-support-site-from-your-smartphone" document in much the same way that the original Majordomo release was described. An interesting twist on modern technology!

That's where it has to be. If I'd leave my email on the server it would very soon stall out because of constipation. I receive some large design files.

It says whether I've read it. That is all I need to know. I tag it if I have to respond tomorrow.

There indeed isn't.

Trusting the cloud? No way. Absolutamente not.

I do not entrust this stuff to third parties.

I've got to keep it local. I remember enough cases where people said in meetings "Oh, let me quickly look that up because the FAE emailed me this information" and then "Dang, can't get a connection!". Or you need to look something up wile doing a design on a flight, it's on the IMAP server, you can't get to it and the flight will continue for another eight hours.

So what I do is POP3-download my emails on the road but these come from a fwd account. So I have all those files at home as well. It's just that none will be marked read as you said but that isn't a real problem for me.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Right now I don't want to do anything because I just had to move to &%#!! Windows 7. Now even deleting a message will cause Thunderbird to be non-responsive for up to two minutes. Sometimes have to CTRL-ALT-DEL it. Too risky to touch that anywhere right now.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

All I ever want to post is an LTSpice sim and that's ASCII. Flows right through.

Too cumbersome if it requires log-in. Smat systems have automatic notifications.

Occasionally I do that. It's easy.

I usually rather quickly unsubscribe from those. Too much noise and fluff.

I thoroughly detest such censorship. Just like I despise the concept of gated communities. I would never live in one.

That an ordinary mailing process and I sometimes use that. Very sporadically and only if it's very low traffic. Mailing lists are not low traffic.

If it's a small circle of professionals I can see that work well. But not with hundreds. There I prefer properly threaded discussions.

Everybody has their preference. The newsgruops format is my preference so I gravitate towards vendors that use it.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

I pay zero for the same amount of spam. ;)

--
(Remove the obvious prefix to reply privately.) 
Gemaakt met Opera's e-mailprogramma: http://www.opera.com/mail/

---------------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ah, enforcing AUP's is "censorship". But, spam filtering *isn't*? I guess the spammers don't have the same rights as folks who want to post off-topic, distribute copyrighted materials, hijack threads, post HTML, etc.

Wikipedia claims: Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions. I.e., a vendor-supported forum in which the vendor effectively eliminates criticism of itself or its products.

You'd also lump activities that chastise participants who use that forum for activities other than those laid out in its AUP. E.g., posting video clips of cats chasing their tails in a forum dedicated to a particular eCAD product. Or, posting original song lyrics in a forum devoted to supporting bug reporting in .

So, is there even a *concept* of an AUP in your universe? Or, is *everything* legitimate? (if so, why discriminate against "spam"?)

It seems that CADsoft has a pretty blatant expression of how *they* handle violations of their AUP (they call them "Guidelines"): 11. Messages found in violation of these guidelines are subject to cancellation without notice Censorship?? I guess you already live in that gated community -- *and* PAID MONEY to gain entry!! (yet, if I opt to give the *participants* that same sort control/influence, it's "censorship??)

Cf.

Ah-ha! I've got it! I'll just call THOSE behaviors "spamming" and then we'll be in complete agreement! And, let the list provider do all this filtering UNILATERALLY instead of leaving it to the discretion of the list participants! I.e., just like *your* USENET provider!

That depends entirely on the list. As I said previously, mailing lists are much finer-grained. Some with hundreds of messages per month, others with a handful.

I've already indicated that an IMAP account can *appear* identical to a user compared to a USENET account (in terms of the UX). So, you're willing to ignore a similar amount of USENET traffic but *not* the same volume of email traffic?

Again, email allows threading. Just tell your client to do so. Or not. Click on; click off.

Well, it's unlikely you would have participated in the lists I've set up thus far. One was for a "niche" product; another for very high end kit (a few year's net income). And, if I adopt this approach for my home automation system, you've previously indicated your dislike for automation, so... :>

[and, I'm reasonably *sure* you aren't writing code for any of the FOSS OS's (all of which use mailing lists) or larger FOSS projects...]

I figure you probably want to go send a note to the CADsoft folks to complain about their censorship policies, now... And, maybe vote with your wallet and find another CAD vendor that *doesn't* engage in this!

IOW: Go big, or go home! :)

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to 
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

Oh you are lucky we live at the other side of the globe, I would have insisted on a lemonade party were we somewhat closer :D .

Dimiter

I just finished installing my spiffy new waterproof 12-volt LED RatLamp (tm).

The critter had been skinning our Meyer lemons

and the light seems to keep them away.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   laser drivers and controllers 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Yikes! *Just* wants the skins/peels? I'd not have thought it possible to "peel" a Meyers! Ours (Modified/Improved Meyers) have skins that are so thin that it makes juicing them difficult (the skin provides very little barrier between your fingers and the juicer!). By contrast, the Lisbon had considerably thicker skins -- more like an orange (in thickness).

I've never made lemonade. Besides its use in tea, I use the lemons in some baked goods (juice and zest) and lemon sherbet. There are never "enough" on the tree to satisfy our needs over the course of a full year (we freeze the juice to preserve it beyond the immediate time when the fruit are harvested). Poor tree is confused, this year. I see a few score fruit have already started to develop (shouldn't happen until Spring -- so, they'll be "lost")

Equally disproportionate need for the oranges. We've planted different varieties (for different purposes) to ensure the crops come due at different times (though all are "winter fruit").

The *limes*, OTOH, are overly abundant -- easily 400 "lemon sized" fruit on a single tree -- and there's only so much you can use fresh lime, lime juice, etc. *for*!

Maybe they have a recipe that calls for lemon zest.

The location where some of those are hanging, the rat must have a ladder or a tiny helicopter to skin them so perfectly.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   laser drivers and controllers 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com