Traces of Oliver

Gmail POP works again

Apparently they fixed the problem - whatever it was. I hope it'll stay this way for some time. In the meantime, I changed my e-mail address for quite a number of newsletters, web accounts etc. to the e-mail account on my own server.

Password problem (3): Gmail

After configuring Thunderbird for Gmail IMAP, I receive a message saying that my "credentials" weren't correct. I guess that's IMAP slang for "authentication error" - the same problem. Gmail's help pages and Google Groups help group don't provide any clues either.

Best to get out of Gmail altogether, I guess.

Password problem (2): Gmail and Thunderbird

Thunderbird, too, gets an authentication error message from the Gmail server when it tries to download e-mails. I still don't understand why this problem first appeared after I changed my Gmail password but it't pretty obvious now that something's wrong on Gmail's side.

Apparently the Gmail guys are having trouble enabling IMAP support for all users ("If the option to enable IMAP isn't available in your Google Mail account's 'Forwarding and POP' settings, you can enable IMAP for your account by simply enabling POP access. We're currently working hard to make enabling IMAP easier for all our users."). So maybe my problem is somehow related to that.

Password problem: Gmail and Evolution

I changed my Gmail password, now Evolution Mail can't log on and download my e-mails anymore. That's extremely annoying and I've already spent more than an hour trying to solve this problem. I learned that in 2005 apparently there was a bug in Evolution which prevented the program from changing its saved passwords; I guess this has been fixed since. In any event, this is obviously not the cause of the problem I've encountered. I even changed my password back to what it was before; the error persists.

Is it a Gmail problem? Does Gmail's POP server return an authentication error although Evolution sends the correct username and password? Message forwarding to a different e-mail account isn't working either. But why would this problem start after I changed the password? Strangely, I can access my Gmail account on the web and Google Talk works fine, too.

How safe is Hushmail's e-mail encryption?

The company Hushmail provides different e-mail encryption services: one where e-mails are encrypted by a Java applet before they leave the user's computer, another one where e-mails are sent over https to Hushmail and then encrypted on the server side. Neither service precludes the company decrypting users' e-mails and handing them to courts - so Hushmail does not protect data of people engaging in illegal activities. (A story on Wired.com)

Activated my own e-mail account

I've activated an e-mail account, accessible by IMAP, on my own server. Step by step getting out of Google. I learned in the process that SpamAssassin is already installed on my server, I just had to click "Enable". Nice.

So from now on it's oliver dot engelen at tstigers dot net.

An e-mail service provider

Probably very good, but definitely not cheap: US$ 11.34/month (1 GB, spam filter).