Both of the application boasts a lot of features, Google’s client offers the possibility to read attachments from the phone, and movamail makes it possible to attach pictures from the phones camera to the email.
I tried installing both on my aging Nokia 6610i, but none of them would install when accessing the website from the phone. Google stated clearly that the java client did not support, and with movamail I got an error on the phone when trying.
Luckily for people like me the also both support web access. I have not tried Movamails, but I’ve used Googles for a couple of month now with the Opera browser installed on the cell phone.
From my point view, Google entering the market makes it tough for Movamail. I will continue to forward my regular to my gmail account and use Gmails mobile browser access m.gmail.com to access the email because it works very well and it is free.
When travelling digital copies of important documents can come in handy
When going on my last travel, I realized have many documents I had to bring and how vulnerable I was to losing these documents, this being passport, plain-tickets, hotel-vouchers, insurance and so on. In order to accommodate this vulnerability I scanned the most important documents saved them to PDF a brought them with on a USB-storage. This storage was kept separate from the documents in order to reduce the risk of losing both, and it was encrypted so that the sensible information keept on it would not be accessible to others in case it was stolen.
Scanning the documents
In order to get a digital copy you need access to a scanner (surprise!). Watch out that you don’t scan the documents in to good quality (I use 300dpi, 256 Gray tones). After scanning the documents I would save them in PDF-format since in PDF since it is very versatile while still keeping the print-out an exact black & white copy.
If your scanner software does not support export to PDF this can be accomplished by installing pdf995, which appears as a printer in windows, but in fact saves your print out as a PDF. In other words it should be possible to get an exact copy in most internet cafés Storing the documents
In order to keep the documents accessible one can either keep them on a USB device or online.
If you decide to keep the documents on a USB device they will be safer if encrypted. Travelling-forever has made a small guide on how to encrypt part og a USB device The USB device be either external an hard drive, a small flash USB stick or an mp3 player like Apples Ipod (it can likely be a burned cd-rom too - but I have not checked to se how truecrypt reacts to not being able to write).
The other way to go is to keep the documents at an online service you trust (and save the encryption). I one has not access to a ftp server this could be accomplished by signing up at Box.net, sending all the documents to the Gmail account or any other online way where you trust the documents are safe while still being accessible.
Opera has for quite some time been a player in the browser market, and especially their mobile browser has been getting attention. I tried this browser out on the Nokia 6610i.
Installation is pretty easy, I just had to find the version compatible with the cell phone. Once got used to it, I definetely prefer Opera to the builtin browser on the phone, it looks better, I find it easier to use and Gmail mobile works. I could however not detect any difference in speed in these first tryouts, but it could still be there.
I’ve just noticed, that Google has opened for mobile access to Gmail. This means that by pointing any cell phone browser at http://m.gmail.com it should be possible to check any Gmail account. This provides a nice alternative for the email applications for cell phones I’ve posted on ealier.
After trying it out I had some positive and negative experience. First of all I could not make it work on my Nokia 6610i but it seemed to work fine with the Samsung E330. Secondly it seemed to take just a little longer, and be a little more difficult to check mail than using my current favourite, Flurrymail. On the positive side it did a very nice overview of the complete mailbox and had the familiar Gmail-look.
The premises are still, that I’m limited to my Nokia 6610i phone, and the apps which function on that one. Furthermore, there seems to be a significant difference between what the website getjar reports compatible, and what I can’t find compatible (maybe a firmware problem).
I’ve been trying out three applications which I could make work: the hardcore no nonsense email, and the servicebased Flurrymail and Movamail.
Yesterday I was very positive about Simon Judge’s “email”, and I still really like that it takes up so little memory and that it is a fully blown client without the need for signing up for a service. It has however some series limitations. First of all, it does not support html mail. Second I could not make it work with several of my email accounts (including my Gmail), my guess is that this is due to Gmail only accepting encrypted connections. The application serves its purpose, if one can accept these limitations and that the look isn’t “polished”.
Flurrymail is the first of the service based email systems; I covered this in detail yesterday. I will just say that the interface is absolutely excellent. It not only looks, but it seems that everything has been thought through. On signs up very fast with the email address and the password for the email account. I did so with my Gmail account and it worked right away. Adding to this the interface on the phone is very intuitive.
If one goes to the website it is possible to add further email accounts and to news feeds via rss. Yesterday I was very positive about this feature, but I only tried it today. I signed up for my 6-7 favourite feeds, and when I tried it on the phone this morning it turned out that the feeds a shown as emails on the phone. This makes it very hard to find the emails and apparently caused some of my mails to not be loaded to the phone, since I encountered a limit around 60-70 messages. So this is absolutely not a full rss client, I’ve unsubscribed to all the feeds now, and is just using it as a mail client.
Movamail are in some points very similar to Flurrymail, since it is also a service. It just takes a lot longer to sign up, and depending on where you are from in the world it is only free for 60 days. The app looks very well, but I don’t find the control as intuitive as Flurrymail (but this probably differ according to the phone). It is claimed on the website that Movamail is faster than many other apps, I would guess that this should be due to compression, but I do not see this difference in loading times between Movamail and Flurrymail. If any I would say that Flurrymail is the fastest.
After trying the apllications a little more, there is very clear which one I will be using from now on. The limitations in Simon Judge’s email are too big, even though it does count in its favour that it is a complete client. Flurrymail seemed to be the most functional in the interface, both on the website and on my Nokia, and it is free.
That was just my 2 cents let me hear what you have to say.
