Slashdot Mirror

Samsung's success has come largely from making good copies of other people's phones. As we've just seen, they copied the iPhone in numerous examples. We know they've copied the Motorola RAZR with the Samsung Blade (example). We know they copied RIM's Blackberry with the Blackjack (resolution).

Samsung has a history of copying successful phones from other manufacturers. The claim of "the design is obvious" really starts to fall apart when one recognizes that the company has a history of doing this...

But, hey, let's pretend that Samsung is successful because they make great phones. Let's ignore the facts that history has laid out for us.

Yeah, that could only have been done by an utter design genius.

Why the dripping sarcasm? This is true. Good industrial design has always been about stripping a thing down to its essentials and making it as simple and focussed to its task as possible. And that does take an utter design genius.

Before the iPad, tablet design was like this and this and this.

The hallmark of good design is that after we see it, it seems "obvious", and design illiterates think there's absolutely nothing special about it. But they can't explain why nobody thought of it before then.

The nomic looks pretty cool, might be adding that one later. Don't know who posted it, kinda got lost :S From top to bottom: all in English except otherwise mentioned. I'm using google reader.
1. Swedish travel journals of friends from resdagboken.com
2. Job that fits my search criteria at monster.ie
3. The Vinyl Café at http://cbc.ca/podcasting
4. CDFreaks News http://www.cdfreaks.com/news
5. Friend's blog
6. Another friend, probably not updating anymore. Book in blog form about a helpdesk. In Swedish. http://contactcentret.blogspot.com/
7. http://www.idg.se/ Swedish Computernews.
8. Another friend's blog.
9. Another friend's, probably not updating anymore.
10. Detroit Red Wings news.
11. Slashdot.
12. The Goliath Expedition. This dude is walking around the Earth. http://blog.goliath.mail2web.com/ Stalled at the moment though due to Russian VISA issues.
13. http://musicvsmusic.blogspot.com/ Pop Rock Indie Blog. Usually a bit emo music but sometimes they get it right. Sparsely updated.
14. non-working RSS feed for a Cybernations Alliance.
15. Three Panel Soul http://www.threepanelsoul.com/ Comic
16. http://www.tjuvlyssnat.se/ Swedish overheardit version
17. http://www.wulffmorgenthaler.com/ Another comic.

You can access just about any mailbox with http://mail2web.com/

I've seen the url somewhere before but didn't know what it is. Thanks, maybe I can pass it on to others.

You can access just about any mailbox with http://mail2web.com/

2. You still need a telnet client. Since most people don't use them there's a fair chance that some locked-down PC you try to use will let you use a web browser, but not the command line/telnet.

I also faced the same choice between Gmail and Pine. I stayed with Pine for an extra 6 months. Then the only reason why I switched was that I got pissed off when with an unfortunate keystroke I accidentaly erased my sent-mail folder on the linux server (6 years of sent emails are gone). Yes, this is an argument from stupidity, but sometimes it counts.

I have been accessing google and other wap sites for a long time, including my school email, gmail, weather, mapquest, yahoo and more. With verizon, WAP / wireless web only uses minutes (free on nights/weekends), as long as you use your own proxy server (or a free one). What you pay verizon $5/month for is use of their proxy server. Note that there are exceptions to this: some of the newest phones require a data plan and wireless web may not be charged as minutes.

I run my own proxy server on my PC and log on to that with my phone. I set up a free WAP homepage, with links to a bunch of useful sites. If you set up or find a reliable proxy server, it is just a matter of doing some very basic on-phone "hacking", which usually just consists of accessing hidden menus. More information than you would ever need about phone hacking is available at Howard Forums. Mail2Web is a site that lets you check virtually any email through WAP.

Noob note: if you are going to run your own proxy, make sure to password it, especially if you are on a network. Slashdot may not let you post if you are running a proxy.

There's also mail2web for those like me who won't give up the POP3.

Mod parent up! Free web based email services such as www.mail2web.com and www.mailinator.com are invaluable resources!

If you don't want to use Outlook Express just to check some POP mail, I'd suggest trying something like Mail2Web.

There's a great service called mail2web that will allow you to access any pop3 via the web. Of course, that means you have to trust them not to read your email, so it's probably not good for a privacy freak, but they wouldn't use webmail anyway, would they?

And now you can also check your AOL email via Mail2Web, with a much cleaner interface than AOL's own webmail.aol.com. I'm not complaining...

There are a few sites, including this one which allow you to check any pop address from a web interface. Also seems to do imap and ssl, but I've not tried those.

Tres useful. Doesn't help your email forwarding situation though, sorry.
L

It is in fact possible to check ANY POP3 account through a web browser. It's as easy as entering your email address and there's your messages. This would be an effective way to check and delete messages safely. This one for instance is very good: Mail2Web

http://mail2web.com/

Works well. One of my corporate clients has an irritatingly restrictive web proxy that won't let people get to most known webmail sites (among many, many other things) but they were unable or neglected to block https://www.mail2web.com so I'm still able to check my personal mail while there.

http://www.mail2web.com

Check any POP mail account from mail2web.com. Free! No registration required! Just enter your e-mail address and POP password. Access your e-mail from the web, and you can keep the messages on the mail server so you can download them later into your e-mail program. It does require trust to submit your POP password, but I've been using it for over a year and have seen no signs of abuse.

To answer the actual question, I use Netscape webmail.

Yep, ever heard of mail2web ? Ben

> Just about every webmail I've seen has been on an https connection,

*Buzz!* Wrong. Just about every webmail user uses either Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail. Well, not quite that large a proportion, but those are likely the two most guilty parties responsible for this webmail trend.

Anyway, both those services only use SSL (https:) for half a second while you log-in. The rest is sent in the clear (I should know, I used to sniff packets when bored, but unfortunately, it was even more boring).

Maybe nicer webmail services let you encrypt the whole session (I know the POP3/IMAP-to-Web service Mail2Web does), but most people don't use nicer webmail services. Most (but of course not all) webmail users are clueless n00bs. Most webmail users have accounts for free with lots of ads that do not afford them any additional security, nor allow them the option to use POP, IMAP, SMTP or any other standard protocol. This is not real e-mail.

On the other hand, many users of real e-mail can choose an SSL or otherwise encrypted login.

Just FYI, a good place to get your POP mail while on the road (at the price of a banner ad or two) is Mail2Web. Check 'em out.

Try mail2web. Access your POP/IMAP accounts. I think they support ssl. I rarely send email via their service, but I don't think they stick any ad blurbs on.

My friends who use Yahoo all also have other ISPs, including web pages, and only use Yahoo so that they can check their mail from anywhere.

FIPR has a rather nice article on how you can protect yourself. The article is aimed against RIP, the draconian UK legislation that is currently winding it's way through parliament, but it is genrally useful.

It is a well written, balanced, and informative article, with useful pointers to resources on the internet.

The two mail services that offer encrypted e-mail are probably worth mentioning explicitly:

• http://www.messagerx.com
• http://www.mail2web.com

The article concludes:

The technical thinking behind the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill is inept. Criminals can easily circumvent the measures envisaged and the ways in which they are likely to react will actually pose much more serious problems for UK law enforcement authorities than the problems the legislation is intended to solve. At the same time the measures will damage confidence in cryptography and this will be detrimental to the privacy, safety and security interests of honest individuals and businesses and to the UK's aspirations in e-commerce.

---

"Where do you come from?"