All Forces

Today is my 35th birthday. That’s right, I’m entering a new demographic. I know how to go to the next pulldown menu. I am half way through my life and I will be celebrating big next week in Hawaii.

And for those inclined, my Amazon Wish List is up to date.

The iPhone comes with probably the best email application on a mobile device. The problem is that if I read and delete an email on the iPhone, when I get to my laptop I need to do it all over again because my email uses the POP email protocol. And this is cramping my style. With the POP protocol, email is downloaded from the server and stored on my computer. The most recent emails stay on the server usually for a week or two and that’s why multiple devices re-download the same emails. A more productive system is to use the IMAP email protocol. With IMAP, all email stays on the server. If you delete an email on the iPhone, it is deleted when I get to my computer. I only have to do things once and that’s the beauty of it.

In this tutorial I’m going to show how to switch an account from POP to IMAP. And to be honest, you don’t need an iPhone to benefit from this setup. IMAP will allow you to check your email from work or some one else’s computer and have access to all of you email folders and sent emails. This is not for web services like Google or Hotmail, although as long as it supports IMAP it doesn’t really matter.

This example uses Apple’s Mail in Tiger. But, I believe IMAP was supported in Panther as well.
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Here’s the proof of my new acquisition. I waited in line for an hour at a local AT&T store only to realize their sense of speed is not the same as Apple’s. So I broke off the line and headed out to the Apple Store in SOHO were it took only 10 minutes to go in the store and walk out with an iPhone. I even went back a couple of hours later and got one for my wife, it was her birthday on Sunday after all. I was very impressed with Apple’s efficiency and preparedness. They had an employee in almost every turn just like the parking lot at Disney. Plus they had an army of employees with portable wireless checkout devices and were checking out people in less than 2 mins. Much better than the 20 people an hour I experienced at the AT&T store. I wasn’t able to transfer my L.A. number and I didn’t have the patience to call and work that out. So we are now official newyoricans with NY IDs and phone numbers.

And the iPhone… well, it’s all the hype and more. Truly revolutionary. I’ve already set up twitter with iPhone and I am hooked.