Monthly Archives: August 2006

It has been a while since I last used the services of mail2web.com, but I was recently reminded about how good of a service it is. And once again the price is right!

I recently forgot all about one of my spam accounts on my other domain and after about 2 months of not checking there was a ton of emails there (over 2000). I tried downloading everthing off of the server but Outlook Express would hit about message 600 and fail. I left it for a while to see if it would work and it ended up trying and failing several times. The problem with Outlook Express is that if it doesn’t get all the messages and fails the next time it starts, it tries to download all of the messages again. After a few hours I can back to my system to see about 12000 new emails there and it was still trying. No big deal I will log in to webmail and delete them that way.

So I logged into the webmail cient (Uebimiau) which is a great php based webmail program i offer my hosting clients. Unfortnately it would continually time out and fail as well. Even when it is working it’s best it is a touch slow.

Next step was to try Thunderbird. Set up the account and it would fail as the others but at least it deletes messages as soon as it pulls them down (unless you have the flag set). In the meantime I had contacted my server support to see about getting the whole email box deleted and they suggested trying to mail2web.com.  

I used to use this great free service all the time before I had a webmail client on my servers, and had forgotten about them. I went to the site, put in my email address and the account password and boom I got in. I was then able with 1 click to delete all the emails that were sitting there!

While there I looked around at some of the services that they offer for free and was impressed. While they offer the Pop to Web email interface, they also offer the same service to make your email available on your mobile phone or pda. Now they have added a personalized home page so you can see all your email addresses from the same spot (including your own media blog) and have also added a free email services based on MIcrosoft Exchange 2003 and Outlook Web Access! With OWA you can keep your contacts in one spot as well as your email and acces it from there. The only word of warning is that your email address will be at mail2web.com

Like I said I forgot all about this service and it was great to go back and see what was there again. I would highly recommend that if you wish to check your email from a PC you can use this easy system if you don’t have or don’t like your web based client

 

Stephen

Ever want to watch the big game but are caught away from hme and away from your TV? Well worry no more with the new SlingBox from Slingmedia http://www.slingmedia.com The Slingbox usually sells for about 249 CAN but I have seen it on sale (and picked my own up for 199.00).

How dows it work? You hook up your Slingbox to the device you wish (Cable, Satellite Dish Receiver, PVR or DVD player). In the box you will find a couple of the cables you need as well as the IR blaster that you attach over the IR port on the device to control it. For now I just have my box connected to a standard cable feed. You plug the device into your home network, load the software on a PC or laptop. Run the initial configuration and set up a free finder service account (necessary for Internet Connectivity) and away you go.

When you want to watch TV all you have to do is find an internet connection. Start the Slingplayer software select the device you want to watch, change the channel and soon you will have your TV streaming to you. Using their proprietary software and streaming codec, the Slingbox and player constantly adjust the quality to give you the best quaity streaming you can get based on your high speed connection.

There are two disadvantages that I have seen so far, only one person can connect to the Slingbox at a time, and if someone is watching the device they will have to watch what you watch (the exception being a basic cable feed as the Slingbox has it’s own built in tuner).

What can you do with the Slingbox? So far I have used mine around the house on my wireless laptop to watch TV in other locations in the house. I have connected from hotels in various cities and watched shows. Another cool little trick is that I have copied the Slingplayer software to an USB Key and have used that. Simply plug the key into an Internet connected pc, start the softwre connect and away you go. I recently did this at my parents place to watch a football game while there house is under renovations and they didn’t have a TV set up.

I recently saw someone using the new slingplayer for mobile devices watching a golf tournament from a club while his kids were doing their activities!

Sony offers their own package called location free TV but it is also 150.00 more but does allow multiple users to connect at the same time.

The Slingplayer is ideal for travellers and sports fan you want to watch local TV while they are away from home. I give it a big thumbs up!