Nothing is Ever Easy
Have you ever embarked upon a tech related task that you consider to be a relatively simple undertaking, only to find it slowly becoming more complex and more involved as you progress. For instance, configuring software, upgrading your PC or changing internet service providers. I’m sure the answer is yes, because this seems to be life’s default position these days. Every endeavour starts with a simple premise, only to become bogged down in additional requirements and unforeseen issues that weren’t apparent at the beginning. The icing on the cake is often a cost that hadn’t been anticipated. To get the job done you have to put your hand in your pocket and pay someone or buy something. It is a pain in the butt, annoying and sadly, all too common these days.
Have you ever embarked upon a tech related task that you consider to be a relatively simple undertaking, only to find it slowly becoming more complex and more involved as you progress. For instance, configuring software, upgrading your PC or changing internet service providers. I’m sure the answer is yes, because this seems to be life’s default position these days. Every endeavour starts with a simple premise, only to become bogged down in additional requirements and unforeseen issues that weren’t apparent at the beginning. The icing on the cake is often a cost that hadn’t been anticipated. To get the job done you have to put your hand in your pocket and pay someone or buy something. It is a pain in the butt, annoying and sadly, all too common these days.
With this in mind, let me return to my recent aspiration to divest myself of Microsoft software. Specifically Microsoft Office. My plan hinged upon finding a replacement for Microsoft Outlook and I had decided on Mozilla Thunderbird. Everything seemed quite straight forward until it came to exporting my existing mailboxes from Outlook to Thunderbird. Outlook uses a proprietary file format, the Personal Storage Table (.pst) which is incompatible with Thunderbird. It needs to be converted to the .MBOX format before it can be successfully imported. However, conversion tools and apps tend to be mainly designed for corporate mail migration projects. Hence they have limited free access and often rename header details as part of the “free trial” restrictions. Full licences tend to cost several hundred dollars. Let it suffice to say that this development stopped my plans dead in their tracks.
Ringo Starr has wise words about things not being easy
So rather than waste time trying to work around the above solution, the path of least resistance has led me to another approach. I shall see if I can find a lifetime license key for Microsoft Outlook and negate the need for a subscription. Then I’ll uninstall the remainder of Microsoft Office. I may have to roll back to an older version if necessary. It’s not an ideal solution as such keys can be “questionable” in provenance and you can on occasions find them being blacklisted. Alternatively, I could just use Gmail to handle all my mail related requirements but that is basically just swapping one corporate behemoth for another, which doesn’t ultimately resolve the issue. The Mozilla Thunderbird option would be fine if I was starting from scratch but I have quite a substantial archive of mail that I don’t want to have to abandon.
Tech problems are often rabbit holes, as I found out recently with video editing and the problem of “variable frame rates”. I can think of no other industry where known bugs, incompatibility issues and paid service gating are just an accepted part of the associated landscape. Mind you, it’s not exactly plain sailing everywhere else. Our family car recently had some tire related issues. As a result we discovered how wheel nuts are not a common standard and there is often an adaptor required by independent garages before they can remove a wheel. The UK is also still debating whether to introduce legislation for standard USB-C chargers across a range of electrical devices. So it would appear that from a business perspective, it is financially lucrative not to make things easy for customers. However, this is a status quo that the public is far from happy with.
Emails are still a reality of daily life for many of us. Although social media and other platforms are now the preferred method for informal communication, business and administration still relies heavily upon email. It is often the primary means of setting up an account for any online service. And it is also a source of unending junk, spam and pointless communications. Despite the numerous benefits, emails are often a source of annoyance and frustration. At present, I have 8 accounts that I use for various purposes. Between them I receive about 100 plus emails a day, most of which are marketing or spam. However, some of these are important and require action. Hence I have to check throughout the day as to which emails should be kept and which can be deleted. Being an organised person I’ve created various folders for archiving.
Emails are still a reality of daily life for many of us. Although social media and other platforms are now the preferred method for informal communication, business and administration still relies heavily upon email. It is often the primary means of setting up an account for any online service. And it is also a source of unending junk, spam and pointless communications. Despite the numerous benefits, emails are often a source of annoyance and frustration. At present, I have 8 accounts that I use for various purposes. Between them I receive about 100 plus emails a day, most of which are marketing or spam. However, some of these are important and require action. Hence I have to check throughout the day as to which emails should be kept and which can be deleted. Being an organised person I’ve created various folders for archiving.
Although a lot of email is superfluous, a percentage is relevant and needs to be retained. As well as banking data, order confirmations, receipts and communications with HMRC, more recently I’ve had a lot of solicitors correspondence while dealing with my Father’s estate. This is important data. The kind that’s a major headache to replace if you lose it. So considering the nature of such emails, I find it odd that many of us still rely upon free services to manage them. Gmail, Yahoo Mail and GMX all serve a purpose and suit our needs. They provide access via phone, tablet and PC and don’t cost a penny. Which is great until they go wrong, suffer an outage or the service is “retired”. Then there’s a problem. For example,Yahoo Mail recently changed their authentication protocols for 3rd party access to their mail servers. Webmail was not affected but if you used Outlook or some similar service, you need to add a new password, generated via Yahoo. It took a while to get this to work and the instructions were hardly user friendly for the layman.
This temporary interruption of service got me thinking as to whether I should move away from these free accounts. I have two registered domains that have hosted email account services. One I used when I was self employed and reflected the business name. The other is associated with this website. Like all services that you pay for, there are SLAs, helplines and support when required. But because I didn’t want to use the email addresses associated with these domains when registering for online services, I ended up creating numerous free accounts as a means of segregating junk email. Which has led to the situation I find myself in at present. Trying to access and manage 8 email accounts using Microsoft Outlook on my desktop PC. I have the same access on my Samsung Galaxy S10 5G.
I understand that the subject matter of this post is somewhat dry. But emails are a reality for many of us. As well as just keeping an eye on the ebb and flow of communication and weeding out the relevant from the irrelevant, we now have to battle against the “overzealous spam filter”, which will often consign important emails to the junk folder in error. I realise that the best solution to my situation is to log into all those accounts for things like Feedly, Mega, Uplay etc. and change the registered email address from Yahoo Mail or GMX to one of my hosted mail services. That way I won’t be inconvenienced if these free services close. The only downside to this plan is that it means amending details on about 250 plus accounts. That is no small task. And If I’m doing that chore I may as well go through my password manager and clear out any old records there. It would appear that being organised is a job in itself.