Max The IT pro » GMail

GMail Defaults to HTTPS access

MaxTheITpro — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 16:40:56 +0000

[Gachie, Kenya]
AFTER THE FRACAS with the Chinese about Google’s refusal to filter its search results behind the “Great Firewall,” they decided to give its millions of users worldwide HTTPS (HyperText Transmission Protocol Secured) access by default. What does this mean? Well, all of your data communications between GMail’s servers and your computer is encrypted so that anyone eavesdropping will say, “what the heck is this useless gobbledygook?” Once again, Google takes the lead against its rivals (Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, et al) where it matters the most.

Since we’re talking about SECURITY, I’d suggest you take a peek at the OpenBSD project that’s based in Western Canada. It’s an open source Unix-like Operating System (O/S) that’s hailed by many as the MOST SECURE O/S on the planet. It shares a lot of similarities with the NetBSD and FreeBSD projects (which came to life from some of the greatest Computer Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley…BSD = Berkeley Software Distribution), but focuses fanatically on SECURITY. Heck, it’s almost IMPOSSIBLE to hack into a computer system running OpenBSD. Hackers just move on to something that’s a lot easier to compromise — like Windows. Oh, isn’t Puffy, the OpenBSD mascot, a cutie? Don’t mess with him though…he’s armed and dangerous — to hackers. Not even the CIA, FBI or NSA can hack into an OpenBSD system!!!

BTW, the US government secretly envies China for its tight control over its “citizens.” Don’t think for one moment that CIA/NSA/FBI attempts (Carnivore, Echelon, Clipper, et al) to invade your privacy is a laughing matter. The majority of Westerners are so fuc#ing naive most of the time simply because they “elect” their leaders. After watching The Obama Deception documentary (download it for offline viewing via ClipNabber) on YouTube, I really don’t know if “democracy” is all it’s crack up to be.

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Yahoo does FREE POP3 & Forwarding

MaxTheITpro — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:58:12 +0000

[Shimoni, Kenya]
WOW, I’M totally shocked! Yahoo now offers UNLIMITED email storage, POP3 mail access or email forwarding (you can only choose 1 option) to an external address — for FREE. I just have one question for the kind pioneering (during the 90s) folks at Yahoo!: What took ya so fu*k!ng long??

Lead or get out of the way…
Google (via GMail) has been doing this like since the beginning of time. This is why, incidentally, Yahoo and HotMail (now Windows Live Mail and an annoying piece of Windows centric crapware) has lost so MANY users to the 20-steps-ahead GMail web app that’s oh so addictive. BTW, I like Yahoo’s new YMail.com addys. It has a nice ring to it. Yes, I know Yahoo offered these goodies “back then” for a $19.95 yearly premium. But how can you compete against FREE? Seriously! One other thing…I can tell a lot about a person by the email provider he/she keeps. If they’re with Yahoo or Hotmail, I know they’re behind the times and most likely are not risk takers with new technologies. That’s just a generalization though, which might get me into some hot water. Oh well!

The good ‘ole days…
Anyhow, I can’t really knock Yahoo too much since I lost my Internet virginity with them back when I was studying Computer Science. We frequently used the GAUL labs (Middlesex College building) with its expensive Sun Microsystems workstations running the powerful and sexy Solaris flavour of UNIX. Boy, those were truly great times, and Yahoo’s innovative directory was my portal into Cyber Space. For that, I will always be grateful to Yahoo. I’m still kicking myself for not buying stock when they first went public. Oh well!

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Get Free POP/IMAP from GMail

MaxTheITpro — Fri, 30 May 2008 05:37:00 +0000

[Nairobi, Kenya]
I REMEMBER when I used to be a Yahoo! Canada email whore. I had the choice of downloading my mail via POP in any of my favourite email clients like Thunderbird, Eudora, Pegasus or Outlook Express.

Anyone with a yahoo.com email address didn’t get this privilege though. Instead, you had to pay something like $19.95 per year, which also increased your email storage to 1Gb. And Hotmail teased you a bit by allowing you to download your email into Outlook, but no luck if you were using a competitor’s email client. Thank you Microsoft! Back then, it would’ve taken a miracle for netizens to get free POP and IMAP service. In fact, Hell would have to freeze over first.

Hell freezes over…
Well, I was shocked when Google first announced it’s revolutionary GMail service. The fact that they gave you 2Gb of space totally screwed Yahoo and Microsoft. But they also included a lots of FREE goodies that everybody else was charging for. Overnight, paying for POP and IMAP services became a thing of the past. I haven’t looked back since.
In short, I’m a GMail addict. Yes, I still have my Yahoo Canada email addy, but I’m in love – with GMail. It’s like meeting the woman of my dreams who’s smart, sexy, witty, creative, dignified, a great cook, charming, yet “naughty” under the sheets. Once you find a woman like that, you can never let her go. Ditto for GMail in the realm of email hosting. Yep, I’m hooked for life.

POP vs IMAP…
To quickly find out the differences between POP and IMAP, just peek this blog post on the GMail blog. For those of you blessed with a constant, reliable broadband connection, IMAP is the way to go. In all honesty, now that Google gives me a whopping 6771 Mb (6.8Gb) of storage space, I haven’t used POP/IMAP services in a looong time. What’s shocking is that I’m a power user and I’ve only used 10% of my space so far.

Besides, I’m here in East Africa so I just check GMail on my Nokia 6070 via Safaricom or Celtel’s EDGE/3G/HSDPA mobile network. I surfed to gmail.com/mobile and downloaded a tiny, slick app right onto my Nokia that feels like a tiny desktop email client. Heck, it’s fast as hell!! Those Google programmers sure know how to write “gooood” software that goes down nice.

You are currently using 728 MB (10%) of your 6771 MB

Well, at least I know of a top notch POP and IMAP service that’s free when I’m ready to use it once again. For now, I’m quite happy using GMail either in the Mozilla Firefox browser or on my Nokia.

Now, imagine being on a safari or hanging out somewhere remote in Kenya and you’re still able to read your email since most of the country is covered by EDGE…and the cost is only something like 10 or 12 Kenya Shillings per megabyte. That’s a paltry US 20 cents for sending and receiving a ton of emails or web browsing. Simply amazing!

Thank you Safaricom, Celtel and Google.

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