Re: Software infrastructure

[Johan Helsingius <julf@penet.FI>]

> Well, now I will describe how I send/receive mail on my system, the killer
> 8086-8 from Hell! ;^)  I've been hyping my setup on this list for about a
> month.
> But since I've partially implimented a system like what we have been
> discussing, I'll give more details.


I'm rather surprised that nobody has mentioned UUPC. It's PD, runs on
plain-vanilla DOS, and allows automatic, batched mail traffic (and even
netnews) to/from your local PC.

On your host (typically an UNIX box) you configure
sendmail/smail/binmail/whatever to forward your mail over uucp to your
home machine. On the home machine, you simply configure UUCP to poll
when needed, and transfer the stuff down onto your local disk. From
there you can use UUPC's local mail reader (or any mail package you
want), and the replies get spooled to a spool directory, and uploaded
automatically the next time you (or the software) opens the connection.

Automatic polling, automatic bi-directional batch file transfer,
insertion of encryption trivial....

I use it to read and reply to my mail while on the beach, using a
notebook computer and a cellular phone... The ability to efficiently
batch transfer the stuff makes a *big* difference if you are paying
cellular rates...

	Julf