When I was at univesity, I did all my email through the college server using Pine. No matter where I was I could always telnet to the server and pick up my mail. Now I use a popular web based email service, which is fine, but can be a bit tedious if I’m using a computer with a slow web connection. Are there any free email services that can be accessed with telnet? Failing that, are there any web based text only services?
I used to telnet to several different library catalogs because it was a lot faster than using the web-based catalogs. Over the last 6-12 months I have noticed that the web-based library catalogs are now generally faster.
This site has information about Pine.
Web-based, text-only? You’re joking, right? Every trend on the Web points toward giving up on literacy entirely and communicating by means of colorful spinning objects.
Sign up with a local ISP that charges $20 a month or less and ask for a Unix shell account that you can telnet to. Use Pine in the shell. That’s my advice. If nothing else, it will afford you pretty much total insulation from PC viruses. I laugh at Melissa. I spurn ILOVEYOU.
There’s actually a version of Pine for Windows called PC Pine (or Pine PC, I don’t remember). I don’t know how good it is, but try searching for that.
It’s free in the sense that you can download it legally, but I think it has some weird restrictions that won’t affect most users.
There’s nothing wrong with text-only web access, though, Geenius. I use Lynx all the time, especially for sites like SMDB that only contain textual content anyway. The navigation and loading is much faster, and it rarely crashes or leaks memory.
And it allows you to use a whopping 7 percent (and falling) of all Web sites!
Not a problem with Lynx – a problem with Web design.
I really miss not having a Unix shell account. Nothing like fast, efficient, and intuitive commands. Sure, graphics and a well developed user interface (these are very rare) go a long way, but I’m sick of waiting 8 seconds for my mailer to load and it taking up plenty of ram and diskspace because of its bloat features I never use. How about I propose HorseloverFat’s law: The faster computers get the slower new software runs.
Then again its mostly my fault, I should get a second computer to run Linux on.
As to the OP, do a google search for “free unix shell” and you’ll find a couple. Most want some form of ID sent in or a small “donation” and have a decent amount of lag or you could goto a Linux newsgroup and ask someone there if they’re willing to give you a mailbox, if you’re nice mayne you’ll get one.
You miss not having it? So you do have one now and you regret it?
Or do you mean “I really miss having…”
Try reading the rest of the post, the context should speak for itself. Nice that you have nothing to add but to point out a typo.