Forwarding Problem--Onebox and SprintPCS
MS
with it, I've posted it to several related newsgroups. Sorry that it's
rather long, but it's complicated to explain.
I'm about to change my e-mail address (used Bigfoot for years, as of 9/15
they'll start charging, unless you agree to get spammed by them), and have
been looking at alternatives.
I found two ideas I liked a lot, and tried to combine them, to get the
benefits of both. I tried this last night, and it didn't work. Perhaps
someone might have an idea how to make it work.
I have Sprint PCS wireless telephone service. That gives me a mailbox with
sprintpcs. I never used it before, but now I've experimented with it, and
it's pretty cool. I can have all the mail coming into that box forwarded to
my regular ISP pop3 mail, to read on Outlook Express. But also coming
directly to the sprintpcs box, it is much easier to read on the wireless
telephone. Yes, one can read just about any e-mail on the wireless
telephone, including the ISP pop3 mail, including Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. But
it's much easier and quicker to read the sprintpcs mail on the phone, using
less time online. And they send a message to the phone telling you that you
received the e-mail, including the sender and subject fields. And that
notification message is free, doesn't count against one's account in any
way. So, I was thinking of perhaps using my sprintpcs address as my main
e-mail address, so that I could much more easily look at e-mail on the
phone, see when I received new e-mail and from who, etc. And with the
forwarding, I could still read the mail in Outlook Express.
Last night, however, I came upon another intriguing possibility for
forwarding e-mail, Onebox (www.onebox.com). I'm amazed at what they provide,
totally for free. (Not even many ads on their web site. I can't figure out
how this organization supports itself. Anyone know?) What most intrigued me
was that you can hear your e-mail on the telephone, with a local phone
number. (Local numbers are not available for all areas.) I tried it, it
works. The computer's speech is quite intelligible, reading your e-mail to
you. They also forward for free to any e-mail address you give them. So, it
could also be worthwhile to have Onebox as my main e-mail address, they
would forward it all to my ISP address for me to read and respond with OE,
but I could also occasionally use that convenience of hearing e-mail on the
phone, from my Onebox mailbox (could be convenient when one is not near a
computer, and wants to check e-mail).
So, in trying to decide between both these options (Onebox or SprintPCS) as
my primary e-mail address, and have the mail forwarded to my ISP e-mail, a
light bulb flashed in my brain--- why not use both, get the benefits of
both? Have the Onebox address as my primary e-mail address, set it to
forward to the sprintpcs address, and have Sprint forward to my ISP pop3
e-mail account. Get the benefits of both. Seemed like a great idea.
I set it up that way, and tested it by sending myself several messages. Not
one came through to the final destination, my ISP e-mail account. I checked
on them--they did appear in my Onebox Inbox folder, they did appear in the
SprintPCS inbox folder, but they weren't forwarded by Sprint to the final
destination, my ISP e-mail. I checked if the problem might just be in the
sprintpcs forwarding, by sending a message addressed to the sprintpcs
account directly. That one was forwarded to my ISP account.
So, either forwarding worked in itself, but the double forwarding didn't
work. Sprint wouldn't forward mail forwarded to it by Onebox. I tried the
other way too, Sprint forwarding to Onebox to my ISP mail. Again, the last
step didn't work
One thing that could have a bearing on this--in looking at the headers of
mail forwarded through sprintpcs, I see that their mail system is somehow
managed by Onebox. In mail sent just through sprintpcs, not at all through
onebox, onebox is all over the headers. So, perhaps the problem is with
onebox not wanting to forward the same mail twice, even if one of the
mailboxes is sprintpcs.
Anyone have any insight into this, any suggestions on how it could be done?
I have written to customer service of both onebox and sprintpcs, but who
knows if they'll ever answer, and when, and whether the person who writes
back will really know anything about it, or even understand the question. I
have to make a decision on my new primary e-mail address within a couple
days. So, do any of you out there in newsgroup-land have any suggestions on
how one might be able to get this idea to work? I'd appreciate it.
If I can't get it to work, I guess I'll have to choose between the two,
added convenience of reading e-mail and notification of messages by cell
phone, or being able to hear my e-mail spoken on the phone. Anyone here used
one of those services as your primary e-mail address for a while? How were
they? Any problems with server outages, etc.?
Thank you,
Mike
PA Bear
Whew, there must be a forest in here somewhere but the trees are blocking my
view. I'd recommend you try to simplify your life rather than complicate it
more. I know that's somewhat OT but then again...
PA Bear
MS <m...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:tpkrbsg...@corp.supernews.com...
MS
"PA Bear" <robe...@NOTHANKSYahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ufJ0NkKOBHA.1044@tkmsftngp05...
> Yo, Mike!
>
> Whew, there must be a forest in here somewhere but the trees are blocking
my
> view. I'd recommend you try to simplify your life rather than complicate
it
> more. I know that's somewhat OT but then again...
>
> PA Bear
Sometimes things cannot be explained simply. If one wants to understand what
someone else is saying/writing, it sometimes takes a little effort to
understand. Perhaps due to our culture's heavy reliance on the 30 second
sound bite, it's harder to pay attention to more complex explanations these
days.
Of course, it is completely understandable that anyone might not want to
take the time and trouble to read my long post, understand it, and think of
possible solutions. In that case, just ignore it. Why waste bandwidth
writing a post like you did above, that says nothing about the topic being
discussed, but only says that you have a short attention span? If you're
interested, take the time and effort to try to understand what I wrote. If
not, ignore it.
joseph e wisdom
apparently being subsidized by the friendly folks at Openwave (nee'
phone.com, nee' Unwired Planet, etc.). There used to be a pay level
of service where you simply got your own telephone number without
extension, and before this, were simply offering telephone numbers
without extension. Now, you have to have an extension, seemingly.
Hope it still lasts awhile, it definitely is a nifty service.
--
Talk about the T900 Talkabout? t900-su...@yahoogroups.com
--
On Sat, 8 Sep 2001 12:05:07 -0700, " MS" <m...@nospam.com>
wrote:
MS
"joseph e wisdom" <ph...@phreebyrd.com> wrote in message
news:qnqlpt8mhqo6vtmsg...@4ax.com...
> At least for the foreseeable future, www.onebox.com (Onebox) is
> apparently being subsidized by the friendly folks at Openwave (nee'
> phone.com, nee' Unwired Planet, etc.). There used to be a pay level
> of service where you simply got your own telephone number without
> extension, and before this, were simply offering telephone numbers
> without extension. Now, you have to have an extension, seemingly.
> Hope it still lasts awhile, it definitely is a nifty service.
Yeah, because of the extension, it makes faxing to that number more
complicated. I don't think I'd use it for fax. I have another Internet Fax
service, Faxwave, that sends you any fax received via e-mail, and gives you
a number without extension, easier to fax to. They send the fax as a
graphics file attached to an e-mail, in the e-mail is one ad. I can't see
how they support that either--a person might receive a fax (including an ad
in an accompanying e-mail) once a month or two, yet they get a whole phone
line dedicated to them.
I'd mostly be interest in onebox for the e-mail, and perhaps occasionally
the voice mail. Do you know how reliable their e-mail is? Are the servers
ever down? Have they had any major problems? Has e-mail been lost? How well
does the forwarding work? Does the mail always get forwarded where it's
supposed to go, on time?