Traveling and E-mail

[les & des]

A while back there was a lot of discussion about traveling and
retrieving e-mails. We, personally, have used cellular, and digital
modems. Both have a lot of drawbacks, mostly cost and reliability
depending on location. A lot of campgrounds are not modem
friendly, but this is changing.

We are now playing with a new toy! We just bought a"Sharp
TelMail TM-20." This is a small device that looks like an organizer
with built in (updated version) acoustic coupler. Here is how it
works. You have to subscribe to a service called PocketMail
(http://www.pocketmail.com) for $10.00 a month. You then receive
an 800 number. You dial the 800 number, wait for the voice
response, place the TelMail to the phone and it will beep, hum, and
sing for a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on how much
data you are transferring, and then you are through. You can only
retrieve or send e-mails, and not access the internet (although you
can download text-only versions of web pages). There is no extra
charge for how much you use it. You can use a pay phone, motel
phone, regular phone, or cell phone (analog, not digital). You can
reach your different e-mail accounts (even AOL) depending on how
you set it up in advance. The downside is that all info is contained
in your TelMail. It can not be transferred to your computer at this
time (although you can backup data to the PC and restore it
again). E-mails remain on the pocketmail server for 30 days and
can be retrieved from any POP3 mail client. It is also fax capable,
but we have not used that feature. It also contains an address
book, scheduling function and notepad function. The TelMail cost
$149.00.

It is important for us to be able to retrieve our e-mail as we travel,
and so far this looks like it is very promising. There is even a small
e-mail list for Pocket-Mail that is very informative. For more
information, check out the pocketmail website
(http://www.pocketmail.com) or go to the pockemail news site
http://www.gravityhome.com/pnakada/pocketmail/ for user
perspective.

Hope this is helpful.

BTW - We do still have our digital modem for sale for those looking
to go that route.

We just though we would pass this on!
Les and Des
73 Painted Desert
Rocky Mount, NC

mailto:lpraisee
vist us at: http://www.livingpraise.org

 

[david l greenberg]

Ahhh, but Les & Des, will that little hand held modem kabob have enough
capacity for one hundred "Net" msgs per day or 300 if you don't stay in
one place for long periods?

Sounds like a good approach for me and the Registry.

David Lee Greenberg F22009
GMC Motorhome Registry
200 MacFarlane Drive PH4
Delray Beach, FL 33483-6829

 

[les & des]

Don't know, Dave. We haven't played with it that much, but there
are a couple of ways of looking at it. We just got an e-mail from a
man who had downloaded 73 messages off of a pay phone at the
airport without a hitch, hopped a flight from NY to Toronto, and sent
the e-mail that we received from the plane using the air phone.

He said that his memory was about 50% full. As we said, there
are a couple of ways of looking at it. The messages stay on the
pocketmail server for 30 days unless they are specifically deleted,
either from the TM-20 or from another pop3 client. If you delete the
messages on the device, they remain on the pocketmail server for
30 days, so you can later download them from a pop3 client.
Since you use Juno, that might not be an option since Juno is not
pop3 compliant. There are, however, web-based e-mail services
that are (such as rocketmail, netaddress, hotmail, etc.)

Also, you have the option of downloading only the headers and
then selecting which messages to download in total. There is a
4000 character limit. If messages are longer than that, they will be
truncated to 4000 characters. However, one of the people on the
pocketmail e-mail list is working on 'mailbot' to parse messages
longer than 4000 characters into multiple messages. If you have
any more questions, let us know.

> Ahhh, but Les & Des, will that little hand held modem kabob have enough
> capacity for one hundred "Net" msgs per day or 300 if you don't stay in
> one place for long periods?
>
> Sounds like a good approach for me and the Registry.
>
> David Lee Greenberg F22009
> GMC Motorhome Registry
> 200 MacFarlane Drive PH4
> Delray Beach, FL 33483-6829

Les and Des
73 Painted Desert
Rocky Mount, NC

mailto:lpraisee
vist us at: http://www.livingpraise.org

 

[roger black]

Which do you recommend for just email receiving and sending? No need for
bells and whistles. You brought up this at a rather appropriate time as I
will be in Nashville tomorrow. There should be both models there. Here,
most folks don't even know what email is.{:>)

Anybody else with recommendations?

Roger

 

[neely butler]

Roger,
Understand you are headed back this way. Give us a buzz if you have time.
like to know of your progress toward a purchase.
Neely B. Tenn
- -----Original Message-----
From: Roger Black
To: gmcmotorhome
Date: Wednesday, February 10, 1999 1:35 PM
Subject: Re: GMC: Traveling and E-mail

>Which do you recommend for just email receiving and sending? No need for
>bells and whistles. You brought up this at a rather appropriate time as I
>will be in Nashville tomorrow. There should be both models there. Here,
>most folks don't even know what email is.{:>)
>
>Anybody else with recommendations?
>
>Roger
>
>