The only clients we talk about

2006-01-08 3-minute read

Some of you have heard us correct you when you refer to yourself as our client (not client, member!).

Well, this blog is about a different kind of client: an email client (for abh’s definition of client - and there is no better, see below).

I got a support call from a member (and a suggestion from another member) - both of which have inspired this blog.

The member support call was about the particulars of our webmail program. The request went something along the lines of “In Yahoo, it does this - why can’t yours do that?” Well, the answer to that particular question was - “it can do that and let’s do it together so you know how.” However, after fielding these types of calls for years, I often get the sense of when a member really really really wants it her way. And this was one of those examples.

What I didn’t explain on the phone, is that if you want it your way (resisting the obvious joke), you really need a different email client then web mail. While we offer both SquirrelMail and IMP/Horde - two of the best webmail clients around, if you want to really have control over your email and fully integrate it into your computer, you may want an email client like <a href=-“http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/">Thunderbird .

Thunderbird installs on your computer. Depending on how you configure it, you can access all your email, even when you are not online. There are more powerful and faster ways to search and sort your email. And - you never have to worry about taking up too much space on our server.

Furthermore, May First/People Link fully support all the major email clients.

For more information on setting up an email client, please see our support pages.


So what’s a client? In the words of abh:

When you’re talking about computers and the internet, you’ll hear the word “server” all the time. You don’t hear “client” quite as often, but it is a good word to know. Internet services like web pages and email operate on a client-server system. Somewhere, out there, there is a server, a computer running software that allows it to take requests for information and pass out bits and bytes. To interact with a server, you have to have a “client” – software on your computer that knows how to read the information the server is passing out, and how to send information back to the server in a way that the server can handle. You use an email “client” to send and receive email, and to read and store it. Webmail programs like Horde and Squirrelmail are examples of clients, as are programs like Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird and Kmail.