Shane M Coughlan writes "Mobility Email Beta 4 has now been released. It is the fourth beta release of the portable distribution. It is stable enough for people to use as an every day email client. This version changes a configuration option in Mozilla Thunderbird to prevent crashes with the new in-line spell checker. Mobility Email is a full version of Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5b2 with added OpenPGP and Webmail extensions. It is portable, and can run from a USB drive without being installed on a computer. "Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='communications,mozilla,it';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; Mobility Email reaches Beta 4 Log in/Create an Account | Top | 57 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 57 comments 0: 54 comments 1: 44 comments 2: 26 comments 3: 12 comments 4: 7 comments 5: 3 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Configurable Crashes... (Score:4, Funny) by turnage (543637) on Monday October 17, @07:27AM (#13808195) (http://slashdot.org/) "This version changes a configuration option in Mozilla Thunderbird to prevent crashes with the new in-line spell checker."See, that's where Windows goes wrong. People like their crashes configurable. [ Reply to This Unintentionally true (Score:4, Funny) by gunpowda (825571) on Monday October 17, @07:29AM (#13808200) Simply plug your USB key into any Windows computer in the world and boom. Only to be expected I suppose! [ Reply to This Gmail has this feature (Score:3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17, @07:31AM (#13808206) Gmail can run without being installed into a pc. [ Reply to ThisRe:Gmail has this feature by Bambi Dee (Score:3) Monday October 17, @09:25AM The Future Looks Good (Score:5, Insightful) by Bad to the Ben (871357) on Monday October 17, @07:31AM (#13808207) For those of you particularly worried about privacy (like me), I found this in the FAQ [shaneland.co.uk]:To make Mobility more secure, we'd like to develop a system log-in application that encrypts your profile and email until you enter a password (as you can imagine, this would make losing your USB key with Mobility Email on it less of a problem). That's an excellent idea. USB keys are so easy to lose, I don't like the idea of carrying around a whole bundle of potentially compromising emails on them. I think I'll be waiting for this functionality before I start using it, but so far I like the direction the team is taking. [ Reply to ThisRe:The Future Looks Good by Jedi Alec (Score:1) Monday October 17, @08:24AMRe:The Future Looks Good by Taladar (Score:3) Monday October 17, @08:47AMRe:The Future Looks Good by jsolis (Score:1) Monday October 17, @10:11AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. How is this any better... (Score:2) by IANAAC (692242) on Monday October 17, @07:34AM (#13808216) than a decent PDA email client?I guess I don't get it. I can't se the advantage of having an email app on a thumb drive, other than for reference purposes, in which case you don't actualy need the app. [ Reply to This Re:How is this any better... (Score:5, Informative) by Star_Gazer (25473) on Monday October 17, @07:53AM (#13808259) I don't use it but I easily see the advantage. I have 5 different IMAP accounts configured in my mailer. All of those are needed for different purposes. Without my notebook, I have to check five different webmail pages when I am at friends places or at an internet café and I can't send gpg signed mails at all. With this program, I just use the USB port, open the app and voilá - there is my mail.A PDA is not an option because it won't work when there is no connectivity for external devices (like in most non-geek homes) and it's much bigger than a USB stick. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:How is this any better... by Fred_A (Score:2) Monday October 17, @08:36AMRe:How is this any better... by Star_Gazer (Score:2) Monday October 17, @09:46AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:How is this any better... by KingVance (Score:1) Monday October 17, @10:46AMRe:How is this any better... by Fred_A (Score:2) Monday October 17, @08:43AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Windows Only (Score:4, Informative) by 12ahead (586157) on Monday October 17, @07:58AM (#13808277) It is kind of hard to find on the linked page, but this is Windows only. [ Reply to ThisRe:Windows Only by joemadeus (Score:1) Monday October 17, @08:18AMRe:Windows Only by Mistshadow2k4 (Score:1) Monday October 17, @09:15AMRe:Windows Only by Mozk (Score:2) Monday October 17, @08:21AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Windows Only by hey! (Score:2) Monday October 17, @10:38AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Windows and Linux versions (Score:4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17, @08:04AM (#13808295) I was a tester for this software, and I can tell you that the Windows version is excellent. Smooth UI and generally a joy to use.The linux version, unfortunately, is very buggy and pretty much unusable. Hopefully they'll bring the Linux version up to scratch soon.Until then, I'd stick to a Windows client for email reading. [ Reply to This Linux (Score:5, Interesting) by javilon (99157) on Monday October 17, @08:20AM (#13808347) (http://slashdot.org/) Would it be possible to include the linux executable in the distribution as well, so if you are in a windows machine you run the windows .exe and if you are in a linux machine you run the linux binary, but both access the same data?That would be great. Now you are Machine _and_ operating system independent! [ Reply to ThisRe:Linux by Inkieminstrel (Score:1) Monday October 17, @12:56PM hrmm.. the usb drive option (Score:1) by jkind (922585) on Monday October 17, @09:05AM (#13808504) (http://www.milliondollarsweethearts.com/) So I can just load this on my cruzer sandisk usb drive, and check my email whenever I'm near a working USB port?? [ Reply to ThisRe:hrmm.. the usb drive option by shanecoughlan (Score:1) Monday October 17, @11:48AM ok, so... (Score:1) by CDPatten (907182) on Monday October 17, @09:44AM (#13808732) I just tried it and really don't see anything to special about it. The usb thing is kinda cool, but its not the only app that can run without being installed on a machine. Why is a big deal? [ Reply to This Standards (Score:2) by Donny Smith (567043) on Monday October 17, @11:03AM (#13809225) > It is stable enough for people to use as an every day email client.There are many clients that are "stable enough" - why use this particular client?Are such news newsworthy? [ Reply to This OMG wtf (Score:1) by Pichu0102 (916292) <pichu0102@gmail.com> on Monday October 17, @11:38AM (#13809496) (http://pichu0102.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 30, @12:06AM) This would be great, except whenever I put a USB drive in my computer, it asks for the drivers, even though I already have the drivers on the USB drive. Stupid computer. [ Reply to This This is new to everyone (Score:1) by neclimdul (252554) on Monday October 17, @12:12PM (#13809723) I've been using Portable Thunderbird [johnhaller.com] for over a year [ Reply to This Looks suspicious to me... (Score:2, Interesting) by suspicious!one (923557) on Monday October 17, @01:17PM (#13810202) I could not see any polite nods to the original Portable Thunderbird project by John Haller: http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_thunderb ird/ [johnhaller.com]Or to John Urbanek who originally put together Portable Thunderbird with Enigmail/GPG ages ago: http://dev.weavervsworld.com/projects/ptbirdeniggp g/ [weavervsworld.com]Is this a complete rip-off or what? [ Reply to ThisRe:Looks suspicious to me... by jurbanek (Score:1) Monday October 17, @06:16PMRe:Looks suspicious to me... by shanecoughlan (Score:1) Monday October 17, @06:47PM Editors and Submitters: WTF Rule (Score:2) by fm6 (162816) on Monday October 17, @01:29PM (#13810297) (http://picknit.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 09, @03:53PM) People, the most important rule in newswriting is what I call the WTF rule: in the first sentence, you make it clear WTF you're talking about, so people know whether they want to read further. As in "Mobility Email, the Thunderbird extension for virtual goat sex" or whatever. [ Reply to This quotes from the website (Score:3, Insightful) by moosesocks (264553) on Monday October 17, @02:38PM (#13810917) (http://www.wm.edu/projectrelief) "Mobility Email is the hottest email product in the world.""The best thing about Mobility Email is that it's totally mobile. ""Simply plug your USB key into any Windows computer in the world and boom."These guys have a remarkable talent for overstatement, redundancy, and frightening users. [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Or just the old fashioned way ... (Score:1, Insightful) by Hurricane78 (562437) <hurricane@cyberworldz . o rg> on Monday October 17, @08:23AM (#13808359) Well, then tell me where to find an internet cafe or a default home user pc with an ssh client installed... [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Or just the old fashioned way ... by imemyself (Score:2) Monday October 17, @08:55AMRe:Or just the old fashioned way ... by alan.briolat (Score:1) Monday October 17, @11:54AMRe:Or just the old fashioned way ... by Hurricane78 (Score:1) Monday October 17, @12:25PMRe:Or just the old fashioned way ... by linguae (Score:2) Monday October 17, @01:40PMRe:Or just the old fashioned way ... by alan.briolat (Score:2) Monday October 17, @02:25PM Re:Or just the old fashioned way ... (Score:3, Informative) by chrisgeleven (514645) on Monday October 17, @08:42AM (#13808408) (http://chrisgonyea.com/) Unless you use a computer from 1998, the following Windows versions should work with any USB stick without asking for a driver disk.ME, 2000, XP, 200398 SE needs a driver, but those are easy to burn onto a CD if you really need to use a 98 SE computer. The original 98 and 95 have crappy USB drivers, so they aren't usually supported anyways for this kind of stuff.I know MacOS X can use USB drives fine, probably MacOS 9 too (although I cannot verify this).I have no idea about Linux, but I imagine most Linux computers that are up-to-date can use USB drives with no driver issues. Besides, how many Linux computers on the road do you expect to find? [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Or just the old fashioned way ... by b10m (Score:1) Monday October 17, @03:56PMRe:Or just the old fashioned way ... by amightywind (Score:2) Monday October 17, @03:59PM Re:Windows only (Score:1) by tezbobobo (879983) on Monday October 17, @10:13AM (#13808913) (http://www.iinet.net.au/~tezbo | Last Journal: Thursday June 09, @11:20AM) But it is good to see OSS for windows, especially windows only. I was hoping for an OS X version. However, if people start to recognise OSS they may be more inclined to jump in feet first to something like GNU/Linux. Too often these things are like Gimp - a great program, grafted horribly into a new OS. Ever tried using OO.org on OS X? [ Reply to This | Parent Coming soon: (Score:2) by Spy der Mann (805235) <spydermann.slash ... m minus language> on Monday October 17, @11:45AM (#13809547) (Last Journal: Wednesday October 12, @02:42PM) Its Windows only - count me out...Coming soon: Portability Email, Beta 1 :P [ Reply to This | Parent6 replies beneath your current threshold.