[pmmail-list] Message Receive Interval [Was: PMMail mystery process pegs CPU]

[Carl Gehr]

Just for the record:
	I *STRONGLY DISAGREE* with this proposal!
	Just because YOU do not need a short interval,
	does NOT mean it is appropriate for everyone!

While I have a single PMMail/2 instance, I have the interval set to
FOUR MINUTES!  I do this for three reasons:

1)  It tends to keep my ADSL connection active enough so that the ISP
does not force it to inactive.  [They look for activity over a FIVE
MINUTE period!]
2)  I never have to actually sit down at this system to see if I have
mail waiting.  I have two systems, only one of which collects mail.  I
am quite often using my other system.  A simple glance at the PMMail/2
window, which is virtually always open and on top, and the icon for the
account and/or InBox lets me see if there is mail that I need to look
at.  If all the icons are 'off' then I can ignore them.  
3) Likewise, I have PMMail/2 set to 'beep' if new mail is received on
my primary business account.  If I hear the beep, then I can
immediately check to see what is there.  

I pride myself in trying to respond to my customers in a short period
of time.  Changing the interval to multiples of hours could
theoretically increase my response time from about TEN MINUTES [If I
respond on the first beep.] to almost TWO HOURS under the same
circumstances.  And, a message that arrives near the end of the day
might be delayed overnight.  [Not necessarily overnight for me, but
over night for the person asking the question, depending on their time
zone.  e.g., A question asked by someone at 4:00PM, who leaves work at
4:30PM, might not have their response until almost 6:00PM.  From my
perspective, this is NOT ACCEPTABLE, when I might have been able to get
a response to them by 4:15PM.]

NO!  If this change were to be made, I would immediately request a
patch to put the value back to minutes!  I would certainly have no
objection to either an OPTION to specify minutes or hours, or even days
for those so inclined.  But DO NOT MAKE THE MINIMUM TIME MORE THAN ONE
MINUTE!  And, I can actually understand why someone might want seconds.
 If I had a large number of accounts I might try to set them on some
cycle that would create a staggered retrieval.  But, that's not my
case.  I use four minutes on each of three accounts.  A fourth one [for
personal messages], I retrieve manually since I likely will not respond
to most of those messages other than off hours.

Carl


On Mon, 03 Sep 2001 15:20:01 -0400 (EDT), quaero@myrealbox.com wrote:

>
>The max value of "Check For New Mail Every XXX Seconds" be changed to
>hours instead.  I find this particular feature of MR/2 Ice to be very
>sensible.  I should think that most users with multiple accounts do not
>need all of their accounts to be checked within every hour. 

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