Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 23 December 2002

Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.

From: Sam
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Xtra POP3 Changes

3. Email service use

To be entitled to use our email service (whether to
receive, access, view or send any email (or part of any
email)), you need to have either:

An active Internet access account with Xtra and you,
personally, must be connected through that account at the
time of using our email service.
--------------------

What about those of us using the Ihug Ultra service still
using Xtra as our dialup isp! Now I will be forced to
change my dialup account to ihug!




From: Vincent
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Xtra Pop access

What get's me is that there was no warning.
They are quiet happy spamming me with their newsletter
(which I tried to get off) but not so much as a word to
say 'you have got no mail'
Our monthly spend with them is about 30k, so I'll as our
account manager if our connection can be "specifically
approved".
I'll let you know how I go.




From: Tim
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: E-Cards

Why is an E-Card such a horrible thing, but a cardboard one
isn't?

With an E-Card you get to include a personal message to the
person you're sending it to, the same as a paper card.
There is a silly/serious picture on them, same as a paper
card.  Why is one so much more terrible than the other?

I have to say I don't agree at all.

Or are you refering to those lame things people blindly
forward on to everyone, such as the virtual snowball etc?
If that's what you mean then yes, I totally agree.

Aardvark Responds:
Well for a start, some eCards generally involve the use of an attachment which is often on Macromedia Flash (or similar) format. This clogs ISPs pipes and consumes mailbox space on servers. It also potentially opens the recipient up to any number of security risks if they're not running the absolutely most recent patches.
The other e-Cards tend to refer people to websites where you not only get the gift of an e-Card, but also the gift of advertising banners or, in a few cases, pop-up ads.
At least a card printed on dead tree and delivered by the postman shows that you are sincere enough in your expressed sentiments to actually spend a little money when expressing them.
Besides which, as I suggested, it would appear that an unknown number of e-Cards will be gobbled up by spam filters this year -- leaving those you care about totally unaware that you even bothered.




From: Chris Brewer
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: What about hotmail?

What about Xtra's partner, Microsoft and their Hotmail
service? When I signed up with Hotmail years ago (before
they were bought out) one of the neat features I liked about
it was the ability to connect to several POP3 accounts and
download all your email into your Hotmail account.

If POP3 access has now been restricted to Xtra's network,
this feature will no longer work, not even if you're
connected to the net through Xtra's network.

What about Xtra's webmail. If their TOS says that users can
only access their email when connected to their network,
then a) What is the point of continuing the webmail
service?, and b) How will people who are away from their
normal computer going to be able to access their email?




From: Grant
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Microsoft critical updates

I can't believe what MS are doing now (and that there has
been no comment in tech sites).

I received two lots of 'critical updates' for my Windows
2000 (SP3) work computer this week. The one earlier in the
week took a very long time to download over a ADSL
connection - strange I thought. After rebooting (how do you
get more than a week average uptime on Win2K I wonder) I
now have a 'Windows Journal' viewer placed in a prime
position on my start up programs menu. Other Win2K users
have noticed the sudden appearance of the Windows Journal
viewer.

I have to live with continously patching Windows holes but
it pisses me off that now I have to put up with MS using my
bandwidth and sticking whatever they feel like on my
machine - without my permission and without asking.

I run Red Hat Linux at home and have now lent Mandrake 9
CD's to another Win2K user who will be installing Linux on
his home machine this Christmas to regain control of his
own computer.




From: Tom Scott
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: POP3 & Xtra

I use yahoo frequently and have a pop3 check to my xtra
account and now this is been closed off and the thing that
annoys me is they still make money from my dial up
connection so what the hell is there problem?????




From: Fran
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Xtra E-Mail work around

From the xtra webmail page you can select 'message forwarding' and
'forward and discard'. This surprisingly does a proper forward so you can
reply and it comes up with the original senders address.

It works, but for how long?




From: mike weitenberg
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: xtra monoply!

i have spoken with 3 xtra executives on this issue....they say it is
economic rationale - they have blocked vodafone gprs acess to xtra. fact
is they made it financially non plausible for them to contract to them.
Telecom is anti customer and monopolistic. Best they could do was get
their corporate counsel to phone me. I vote we start a national
'disconect from telecom' campaign.

they can reverse this adverserial decision- but are not concerned about
customers....their lawyer informs me those of us who want pop3 acess 'only
amount to 2% anyway'

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