Another Eudora->Mail switch question

--On 10/12/2007 6:13 AM -0700 Charles Harrison wrote:

> Often I receive mail with advertising and a lot of clutter I really
> don't need or want along with a reference I want to keep.
>
> I turn a 22K message into a 2 or 1 K message by deleting graphics or
> formatting and save the important parts. I know I could copy and
> paste some small bits of information for later use into another app
> but this way I get to keep the original thread and sender info.

Disk space is much cheaper than human time and effort. I can't imagine a
case where the time I'd spend deleting graphics or formatting would be
worth the disk space savings.

(A 500GB drive is roughly $150. That works out to $0.0003 per K; that 20K
you saved is worth less than a cent.)

I can see a case for deleting large attachments or storing them somewhere
other than on a mail server, but that's something you CAN do in many mail
programs (including Outlook under Windows).

Dave

On 10/12/2007 09:13 AM, "Charles Harrison" <charlesinkmkr.com> wrote:

Often I receive mail with advertising and a lot of clutter I really
don't need or want along with a reference I want to keep.

I turn a 22K message into a 2 or 1 K message by deleting graphics or
formatting and save the important parts. I know I could copy and
paste some small bits of information for later use into another app
but this way I get to keep the original thread and sender info.

I will fight for Eudora! turns 200 K or a meg into 2 to 3K

Whom exactly, are you fighting? Are the hordes of evil Mail users at the gates, ready to storm your house and delete Eudora?

--
John C. Welch

On Oct 12, 2007, at 9:13 AM, Charles Harrison wrote:

> Often I receive mail with advertising and a lot of clutter I really
> don't need or want along with a reference I want to keep.
>
> I turn a 22K message into a 2 or 1 K message by deleting graphics or
> formatting and save the important parts. I know I could copy and
> paste some small bits of information for later use into another app
> but this way I get to keep the original thread and sender info.
>
> I will fight for Eudora! turns 200 K or a meg into 2 to 3K

Apple Mail has a remove attachments feature, which is great when you
get an email with huge attachments.

On 10/12/2007 09:13 AM, "David Silbey" <silbeysilbey.net> wrote:

> As someone else pointed out, there are many tools in life that can be
> used for illegal actions. I dislike blanket assumptions, whether by
> people or software, that such capability will ALWAYS be used that way.

It is the existence of that feature that is a problem under SOX et al. Usage
is quite immaterial.

--
John C. Welch

On Oct 12, 2007, at 6:13 AM, David Silbey wrote:

> As someone else pointed out, there are many tools in life that can be
> used for illegal actions. I dislike blanket assumptions, whether by
> people or software, that such capability will ALWAYS be used that way.

John Welch has been busy defending me--thanks, John. (I had decided
not to.) I didn't make or imply any such blanket assumptions--I
merely pointed out that in some contexts, Eudora's ability to improve
incoming messages is a negative, not a positive.

I experimented last evening with Entourage--dragging a received
message into Drafts did not allow me to edit it (and I didn't find a
switch, although there could be one--I didn't look for hidden things
like option keys). (The exercise found a 5 year old folder
containing 729 messages for which I have no need--they are gone now.)

   --John

My email addresses are not earthlink.net notice inkmkr.com also inkmaker.net also well you get the idea . . . So earthlink.net's SMTP would only allow mailearthlink.net - their change came Oct 1. About the same time I had a hard drive crash and rebooting to send mail thru Earthlink ran into a blank wall so I just changed to Charter.net. They still allow authentication with SMTP while Earthlink requires a AUTH SMTP. Hope that helps.

I have Earthlink, and use Eudora, and am still able to send mail with a From: address as, for example, a .mac account. The only requirement is that the actual SMTP server be mail.earthlink.net. I do have occasional "550 Relaying to...prohibited by administrator" problems, but those are solved by power cycling the DSL modem and the router (much less frequent a problem with Airport Extreme than with my old D-Link, but still happens). Yes, it's still a pain, and I've contacted Earthlink about it several times...they just tell me switch from port 25 to port 587 (doesn't work, tells me "Server not found") or to switch to SMTPAUTH (also doesn't work, don't remember what problem it causes)...finally they suggested the power cycling, which does work.

I'm now considering switching to AT&T U-Verse, though, so perhaps this won't be an issue. Although...I wonder if Eudora will work...that could be a deal-breaker for switching.

--Steve--

> At 3:03 PM -0700 2007/10/08, johnbaxterlistsmac.com wrote: >> As to Eudora's ability to edit incoming messages--that capability >> should instantly disqualify use of Eudora within any entity subject >> to Sarbanes-Oxley. It's bad enough that email can be trivially >> forged--with Eudora, even if the message wasn't forged the recipient >> can make it appear to have said anything that was convenient. > > Mail is stored as plain text files in so many places, it can be > trivially edited anyway. I suspect that S-O rules require that the > server > keep copies of the messages, not that the client does. Presumably > editing > the server copies requires a bit more work to cover one's tracks.

Yes...S-O retention is increasingly managed at the server level, and increasingly with Exchange servers (which, in the latter part of this decade, actually work, although I expect never to manage one).

--John

I've confronted large entities about their Email retention during litigation, and for exchange listed companies whose stock is publicly traded the rules are pretty clear. Save ALL your Email.

For the rest of you, delete or change incoming Email at your peril. Don't even think about doing that, and don't use an Email program that is capable of modifying Emails.

In litigation, I'd like nothing better than to have evidence that my adversary trashed/deleted/modified key Emails and other documents. In one case, mid-stream during the relevant time period, the adversary changed their Microsoft program (Exchange) to make sure it did not automatically delete Emails older than 30 days. We were able to argue that after such date key documents transmitted by Email had been deliberately deleted. Their Division IT director admitted as much.

Dave Clark

On 12-Oct-2007, at 06:21, johnbaxterlistsmac.com wrote:
> Sufficiently old Eudora versions are unable to select port 587

I don't think this is true. You just set the server to
'mail.mydomain.tld:587' and it works. Of course, that is digging
back 10+ years, but I'm almost positive that's work in Eudora since
before pro.

On 12-Oct-2007, at 07:13, John C. Welch wrote:
> For any publicly traded company, SOX is not an option, it's a law,
> one with very specific penalties. If you have customer data, or
> worse, medical information, the legal eyes looking at your email
> handling increase exponentially. Your (dis)like of this doesn't
> change the reality of it, and JohnB was correct to point out that
> issue for anyone managing email in a corporate situation.

But this is irrelevant. SOX does not apply to the client computer,
it applies to the mail-servers keeping every piece of mail, in and
out, that pass through. Editing the email on Mabel's machine does
nothing to the archival copy kept by the server to satisfy the law.

>> As someone else pointed out, there are many tools in life that can be
>> used for illegal actions. I dislike blanket assumptions, whether by
>> people or software, that such capability will ALWAYS be used that way.
>
> It is the existence of that feature that is a problem under SOX et al. Usage
> is quite immaterial.

Of course, any email program that allows local mail folders without using a
proprietary binary or encrypted format for those files effectively has the same
feature. Particularly if it allows both server-to-local and local-to-server
message copies.

Dave Scocca

Google Kreme wrote:
> On 12-Oct-2007, at 07:13, John C. Welch wrote:
>> For any publicly traded company, SOX is not an option, it's a law,
>> one with very specific penalties. If you have customer data, or
>> worse, medical information, the legal eyes looking at your email
>> handling increase exponentially. Your (dis)like of this doesn't
>> change the reality of it, and JohnB was correct to point out that
>> issue for anyone managing email in a corporate situation.
>
> But this is irrelevant. SOX does not apply to the client computer,
> it applies to the mail-servers keeping every piece of mail, in and
> out, that pass through. Editing the email on Mabel's machine does
> nothing to the archival copy kept by the server to satisfy the law.
>
>
SOX is about how a company operates. Not any particular servers. Employees and their computer and other items used for business are covered.

Good or bad, SOX is life in the US for now. Ignoring it when it applies can wreak your life for a long time. Now just avoiding situation where it would apply is a valid way to lead a life but it will curtail your employment opportunities.

David

"John Welch has been busy defending me--thanks, John. (I had decided not to.) I didn't make or imply any such blanket assumptions--I merely pointed out that in some contexts, Eudora's ability to improve incoming messages is a negative, not a positive."

You quoted my line above yours, which was a bit odd, since I _wasn't_ responding to your message but to the following:

Yes it is your email. But if you want to modify it you'll need to work at it. Otherwise >these programs would not be allowed in many business situations.

To be honest try dragging the email to the drafts folder, work with it, then put it back in the inbox."

To which my response--that the blanket assumption of capability=illegality in the above is offensive--remains true. That I *can* edit incoming email does not mean that I *will* and that I *did* edit incoming email doesn't mean that I will try to dishonestly pass it off as unedited.

It is my email, thank you very much, and if I want to make notes in it or put keywords at the bottom of it, then I will do so. I'd also note that the implication of potential fraudulent activity that such things might lead to in a court case is not the same thing as actual fraudulent activity.

For the rest of you, delete or change incoming Email at your peril. Don't even think >about doing that, and don't use an Email program that is capable of modifying Emails.

Uh, shall we avoid all programs that save things in editable form: word-processors, other mail programs, text editors, etc.?

It is the existence of that feature that is a problem under SOX et al. Usage is quite immaterial."

Ah. Then despite a number of other commentators suggestions, I can happily munge my email via a text-editor and a little judicious mbox editing, as long as whatever mail client I use doesn't have a "Violate Sarbanes-Oxley Here..." command?

--On October 12, 2007 6:13:56 AM -0700 "John C. Welch" <jwelchbynkii.com>
wrote:
> Nice strawman, but RIAA and SOX have little to do with each other beyond
> being acronyms. On a corporate email system on a corporate computer, it's
> not "your" email. The things that make Eudora great for your needs can in
> fact, make it rather horrid for corporate use.

Hmmm, if this ability would disqualify use of an e-mail client in an
Enterprise setting then I expect Outlook to be outlawed very soon. Perhaps
the capability can be disabled on the server side, but Outlook 2003 allows
me to edit messages I've received. For rich text and plain text e-mails I
just open the message and start editing. For HTML I have to right-click
the message and select Edit. When I close the message it asks if I wish to
save it. I do and the server version is then modified. As far as I'm
aware Outlook and Exchange is the #1 e-mail/calendaring system in the
Enterprise (or perhaps best selling, Lotus Notes is still pretty big.)

I too use the ability to remove attachments. Mainly the 4 MB 1280x1024
screenshots people send with a 120x120 pixel error message in the middle of
the screen. My work mailbox is artificially constrained at 300MB in size
(3x larger than most employees), so this approach allows me to keep working.

Yes disk space is cheap but in an enterprise you don't just go out and buy
500GB of disk space. Buying disk space for an enterpise you have to ensure
that you have proper fault tolerance for the additional space, plus the
ability to backup whatever space you buy. Not to mention costs if you
overflow your capabilities (i.e. server is already full of max sized
drives, do you buy a new server, but a slower but cheaper add-on tower,
move to a SAN, etc...; or if your backup system is currently 1 tape and
you overflow that do you now buy a robot system or move to another backup
methodology.) Storage management in an enterprise involves many more
variables than just the fact that a 500GB hard drive is available for a
$200 at the local computer store.

On 10/14/2007 06:46 AM, "Google Kreme" <gkremegmail.com> wrote:

>> For any publicly traded company, SOX is not an option, it's a law,
>> one with very specific penalties. If you have customer data, or
>> worse, medical information, the legal eyes looking at your email
>> handling increase exponentially. Your (dis)like of this doesn't
>> change the reality of it, and JohnB was correct to point out that
>> issue for anyone managing email in a corporate situation.

> But this is irrelevant. SOX does not apply to the client computer,
> it applies to the mail-servers keeping every piece of mail, in and
> out, that pass through. Editing the email on Mabel's machine does
> nothing to the archival copy kept by the server to satisfy the law.

It creates the perception that it was possible to do so and then replace the
server version. Whether that actually happened is not as material as getting
a jury or special master to believe it could have and may have in the past.
That's far simpler than explaining the dry details of how a specific email
system works.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

>>I guess I assumed that
>> email records in court were somehow retrieved from original
>> "unedited" copies saved on a company server or perhaps from the ISP.
>> Interesting issue.
>
At 6:13 AM -0700 10/12/07, John C. Welch wrote:
>It's one reason why any IT person with a clue won't run POP. That system
>leaves you open to too many problems with various agencies.

        Even with POP, the server can be configured to keep un-modified
copies of all incoming and outgoing email.



--
* Johann Beda - contact link: <http://xri.net/=j-beda> *

On 10/22/2007 21:04 PM, "Johann Beda" <johannbeda.ca> wrote:

>It's one reason why any IT person with a clue won't run POP. That system
>leaves you open to too many problems with various agencies.

 Even with POP, the server can be configured to keep un-modified
copies of all incoming and outgoing email.

However, it’s not what POP is designed for, and POP is a really inefficient protocol for such things. POP has its sweet spot, but patching it until it’s almost IMAP but not quite ends up being rather silly.

--
John C. Welch

At 5:51 AM -0700 10/23/07, John C. Welch wrote:
>On 10/22/2007 21:04 PM, "Johann Beda" <johannbeda.ca> wrote:
>
> >It's one reason why any IT person with a clue won't run POP. That
> >system leaves you open to too many problems with various agencies.
>
> Even with POP, the server can be configured to keep un-modified
> copies of all incoming and outgoing email.
>
>However, it's not what POP is designed for, and POP is a really
>inefficient protocol for such things. POP has its sweet spot, but patching
>it until it's almost IMAP but not quite ends up being rather silly.

        Retaining unmodified copies of all incoming and outgoing email is
not "patching" anything until it is almost IMAP - it is what is necessary
in ANY system to follow data retention legislation in a variety of regions
(not only the USA).

        As most are probably aware, POP is designed to allow a remote
client to download copies of email, essentially a one-way transfer. IMAP is
designed to allow a remote client to interact with email stored on a server
- more of a two-way interaction. Neither of them is designed to comply with
data retention legislation - they both must be "patched" to ensure
compliance.

--
* Johann Beda - contact link: <http://xri.net/=j-beda> *
* Johann's MostlyMac Computer Consulting - <http://mmcc.beda.ca/> *

I am a long time user of Eudora and put up with its quirks for one major reason. I have lots of folder into which I filter email. When Eudora recieves and filters email the mailbox opens and I have access and am alerted to the new email. However, when I tied to use Mail I found I had no easy way to know when new mail was in and filtered. Now this may work if I read every e mail that gets filtered so the number is always zero. Too much trouble or am I missing something about Mail? One major advantage is the ability to search with Spotlight though the Eudora search is not too shabby.

Martin

I have great hopes for the new Mail. I have been trying to get off Entourage for years for no better reason than it's Microsoft and I'd like to feel there was an alternative. And yet I keep coming back to Entourage because it does all the things I want, does them all in one place ... and does them rather well.

One of the things it does at a keystroke is a range of basic message editing: rewrap, de-quote, uppercase, lowercase, remove all attachments, save attachments. Also you can assign priorities, flags, follow-ups and all sorts of things I rarely or never use. But I don't want to make it sound like a Word-style bloatfest. It's fast and slick and Spotlight searchable, and you can exchange invites and event information with Outlook users in distant corporations, amongst many other things.

The MBU's efforts and achievements with Entourage almost give me a warm feeling about Redmond. (Okay, Excel's quite good too.)

Oh yes, you can also edit incoming messages, should you wish to.

On Oct 25, 2007, at 7:32 AM, mweiss wrote:

> I am a long time user of Eudora and put up with its quirks for one
> major reason. I have lots of folder into which I filter email. When
> Eudora recieves and filters email the mailbox opens and I have
> access and am alerted to the new email. However, when I tied to use
> Mail I found I had no easy way to know when new mail was in and
> filtered. Now this may work if I read every e mail that gets
> filtered so the number is always zero. Too much trouble or am I
> missing something about Mail? One major advantage is the ability to
> search with Spotlight though the Eudora search is not too shabby.

I use a smart mailbox for unread mail. The shareware plugin DockStar
will let you add indicators in the dock for different mailboxes, so
you can have one for inbox and one for all unread using that smart
mailbox.