I took "the pragmatic UNIX way" about 15 years ago with email. It works. I've not had to change it and don't feel compelled to bother changing it.
I host my own mail server. It's not hard regardless of the platform you use. I use debian+postfix+mutt as it pretty much works out of the box. I've changed perhaps two lines of postfix configuration (to set up maildir) and added a couple of lines to my muttrc to pick up maildir and view html mail using links.
I don't get SPAM at all. I don't stick my email address anywhere on the Internet where it will get snagged into a spam database. I never have. I've not had a single SPAM message in 15 years with the same email address. I do not use any spam filtering software.
I use aliases for mailing lists which are created and destroyed on demand using a couple of 2 line scripts ("append, newalises" -and- "sed, newalises").
I can get into it quite happily from anywhere using SSH on my mobile device using MIDPSSH or another machine with PuTTY, iSSH, or good old terminal SSH.
I don't keep emails ever. I action them, then throw them away. Those who keep everything are like the crazy old people who live in rooms stacked to the ceiling with newspapers. I have nothing to backup or care for in that department. If I lose my mailbox, I have lost nothing.
I do not manage my tasks with email. I use a text file in my home directory called notes.txt.
My contacts list is a text file called contacts.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped.
My calendar is a text file called cal.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped.
I probably spent about an hour in the last 10 years on email server configuration. That's considerably less time than some of my peers spend dredging through their 5 years of gmail junk.
If I want i.e. I can download offline gmail if I want to. If you see my follow up reply, I did trial Google Apps but it didn't cut it. Part of that trial was to use the MIDP version of Google Mail. I don't use it now but it's there if I wanted to.
It would be unfair of me to blindly criticise Google Mail without trialling it, which I did.
I unlike you, took the pragmatic way (without quotes or Unix). Email is part of my life and I don't want it going down.
I don't spend time configuring servers, updating packages, guaranteeing uptime. My email is [email protected], and I write it everywhere. I still don't get any spam. If I need an alias I just append characters to the email address and I don't have to fiddle with anything else.
I can get it quite happily through IMAP using Emacs or the client on my phone. I can search for past emails in seconds without worrying about the space they consume. I can share my contacts and calendar appointments with one M-x command.
I'm curious about your setup since Debian/Postfix/Mutt are not enough for POP3 or IMAP. How do you access your email from other devices (phone, table, etc)?
I hate Gmail, with passion, but Google Apps is the easiest way to keep all my email working without thinking about reliability/installation/etc.
Email augments my life but does not control it. That's where the distinction is. Much as writing letters is a tool, so is email. If it went away, the world would not end for me and I intend to keep it that way.
Availability? If mail doesn't get delivered immediately, thanks to the joys of SMTP, it will come later (when my ADSL line is back up). If it's urgent, someone can put mouth to phone rather than finger to keyboard.
Updating packages? Cron does this for me once a week. Maintenance? There is none. Everything is done properly once and automated.
I access everything via SSH if I have to which is rarely. I avoid email on the move where possible as there are more important things to do like looking in front of you and not worrying about stuff.
I make sure I don't need past emails. Not everything everyone has written is golden. In fact most of it is useless and just noise.
For reference's sake, I trialled Google Apps on a domain for 2 months as a possible replacement for my setup. It was a pain in the butt. There is actually no support worth anything if it does go wrong which it did terribly (gmail stopped working entirely with a server error). The entire domain approval process is problematic and time consuming and their contracts are disagreeable. Plus it didn't deliver any additional value.
Ultimately, if you look at it, there is actually more work to setting up a system to backup contacts and calendars and watching that than there is to operate my setup entirely.
I assume you are backing up your google apps accounts?
Unfortunately, your lifestyle can't work for all of us.
I currently freelancing my way through school. Not as a developer, but as a stagehand. The way I get work is through email. At any given moment, one of any number of production managers, lighting supervisors, technical directors, or production supervisors might be sending me an email. This email will say when and what types of laborers they are looking for. They may need labor tomorrow or 4 months from now. Usually, these positions are booked on a first come first serve basis.
I need my email. If my email went away or didn't go to my phone reliably and on time for an hour, I could miss an opportunity for hundreds of dollars. If it didn't go to my phone for a week, I wouldn't make rent that month.
Yea, it sucks that my life is driven by email, but this is so much better than the way things used to be for stagehands.
"Email augments my life but does not control it." I can't really say that the way self respecting hackers are, but self respecting people are.
I'm not a hacker, i don't plan to be one. I run my own server with a similar config as you do [i do run spamassasin]. I don't let telephone, mail, im, or letters run my life; as i don't let google, yahoo, facebook or whatever do the same. I'm not a hacker, but i share and respect the values Harald Welte wrote about, as a person.
If you ISP provides SMTP for their e-mail (almost all do), then barring outbound From address filters, you can set up your SMTP server to treat the customer facing mail server as a smarthost.
The ISP doesn't need to do anything specific to support it.
I was absolutely sure they did filter, but I've just tested and apparently they don't. Well, that's unexpected. I might switch to self-hosting again then.
"My contacts list is a text file called contacts.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped. My calendar is a text file called cal.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped."
I really like the sound of that. Can you elaborate a bit on the format, or provide a couple of sample lines from each?
I do something very similar for my calendar, but it's kept in markdown and instead of deleting the done items I move them under a heading for the date completed(along with any notes about the item). While I'm not required to submit a timesheet for my employment, I find it nice to have a log of my actions.
The contacts file sounds interesting, I'll give that a try.
Thanks for the information. Do you enter birthdays every year? Or just use sed or something to update the year? If you delete everything after the date, I guess you never need to refer to old appointments?
If it's a birthday, I actually manually add the birthday's next occurence to the appropriate point in the list. It helps keep the dates in mind as well!
So I guess you don't have Gmail's recipient autocompletion, or you do? This is the killer feature of Gmail for me, with its keyboard shorcuts and search.
I don't need to search. My inbox (my only folder) is 4 items at the moment. I rarely initiate an email conversation but whe I do it's simply select the addres from the text file and paste with the right mouse button.
Mutt has an autocomplete function but TBH I can't be bothered to set it up.
I host my own mail server. It's not hard regardless of the platform you use. I use debian+postfix+mutt as it pretty much works out of the box. I've changed perhaps two lines of postfix configuration (to set up maildir) and added a couple of lines to my muttrc to pick up maildir and view html mail using links.
I don't get SPAM at all. I don't stick my email address anywhere on the Internet where it will get snagged into a spam database. I never have. I've not had a single SPAM message in 15 years with the same email address. I do not use any spam filtering software.
I use aliases for mailing lists which are created and destroyed on demand using a couple of 2 line scripts ("append, newalises" -and- "sed, newalises").
I can get into it quite happily from anywhere using SSH on my mobile device using MIDPSSH or another machine with PuTTY, iSSH, or good old terminal SSH.
I don't keep emails ever. I action them, then throw them away. Those who keep everything are like the crazy old people who live in rooms stacked to the ceiling with newspapers. I have nothing to backup or care for in that department. If I lose my mailbox, I have lost nothing.
I do not manage my tasks with email. I use a text file in my home directory called notes.txt.
My contacts list is a text file called contacts.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped.
My calendar is a text file called cal.txt. Works on anything. Can be grepped.
I probably spent about an hour in the last 10 years on email server configuration. That's considerably less time than some of my peers spend dredging through their 5 years of gmail junk.
Self respecting hackers don't use Gmail and Co.