Standard Mug

Everyone will probably laugh at me for this one but I just have to say it. I have found the ultimate water bottle to have at my desk. There is always the standard coffee mug and I have seen other engineers use these. The problem with the mug is it is too small. When I am writting code I don’t like to stop to get more water and will often forget about the water because I’m more focused on the programming than anything else.

My prefered water container needs to hold a good amount of water since I should be drinking somewhere around 10 cups of water a day. Most water bottles contain around half of that amount which means only one (maybe two) trip to refill per day.  This makes a water bottle a good solution to have near the computer.

Now the problem with most water bottles is that they are easy to spill. Some have caps that you unscrew and then drink the water. As soon as I unscrew the cap there is a high chance that I won’t bother to put the cap back on. When developing software I am often shuffling books, papers, pens on my desk. With all of the shuffling my chance of nocking over the water bottle is pretty good. Considering I have a fairly expensive computer under my desk that would be a very bad thing! I just need to find a water bottle that is easy to use and won’t spill.

After a bit of searching I found the perfect water bottle to have at my desk it is called a CAMELBAK. This water bottle has a great design. You can drink from it and no longer worry about spilling water on your important documents, books, or computer equipment. You can hold it upside down and no water comes out. Then when you want to drink from it you bite the nipple and suck (was there a better way to say that?). The bottle comes in different sizes ranging from .5 Liter to 1 Liter and a wide variety of colors. I bought the black 1 Liter and have been very happy with it.

Determining the best email client is not a clear cut decision as there are quite a few ways one might manage their email. Although, I do think it is interesting that Thunderbird comes up first when searching Google for the phrase What Is the Best Email Client. I have to admit I agree with Google on this one Thunderbird is really good!

The thing I love most about Thunderbird is it’s IMAP support. I believe IMAP is the best way to read email since the email is kept on the server. This allows the email to be accessed from any computer (home, work, friends house, etc). With that definition it doesn’t sound like it is much different than a web based email client (SquirrelMail, GMail, Hotmail, etc) but it is!

The main feature that makes me believe that Thunderbird is better than a web based email client is the way email accounts are accessed. I can have 10 different email accounts that exist on 10 different servers and only need 1 application (Thunderbird) to access them all. Also, since the application is running on my computer it tends to run a little faster than a web site that will need to reload the page anytime I click something.

GMail does have a good user interface and page load time is pretty quick with their use of ajax. Although, if you are using dial-up Internet you will definitely notice a difference as the first time Google loads it can take quite a while which can be seen in the screenshot below.

GMail is probably my favorite web based email client but I really like to have more control over my email than what Google gives me. I like to know that if my email starts consuming 100 gigabytes of space that I won’t have a problem. Since I run my own mail server, I like knowing that my email is backed up and where it is backed up. So I don’t have to worry about Google one day saying sorry we lost half of your email. I also like knowing that I have control over my email and Google can’t one day decide to hold my email for ransom (not that I really believe Google would).

Google has recently started offering IMAP support (where they were only offering pop). I have been waiting for that feature for a few years and am very glad that that started supporting it. Now I can access my GMail account in Thunderbird too!

So, what about other email clients like Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail. Although, I do like a lot of the features that Outlook has like managing appointments and contacts. It’s support for IMAP is pretty bad. Since IMAP is what I like using there really is no good competition.

Actually, I can think of one other email client that I have considered moving to in the past due to its speed and quick access keys. That client is Pine developed by the University of Washington. It is a text only email reading client and it supports IMAP. I love how fast I can read my email’s in Pine and I also love that I don’t have to wait for large HTML email’s to load or worry about some hidden link (phishing) or virus that could be hidden in the HTML. Unfortunately, I also like reading some email’s that come in an HTML only format. So, that one reason alone is enough for me to not use it.

That said, I would love to hear what email client you are using and why you have chosen to use it?