gmail troubles

PM sent. 

My problems with email started on Saturday and increased during the week.

Last night our Intern tried to send me an email:

1st by Hotmail - It did not arrive. This did not surprise me as I had not been able to open Hotmail since Saturday. Sometimes the page would open showing about 5 emails, but nothing functioned

2nd by gmail - She could not open gmail on the office system (everything Chinese including the operator). This did not surprise me as I had not been able to access gmail for days, but that morning it at least showed me the Inbox.

3rd by QQ - her email, and a file, blazed through before you could say 'Great Walls of Fire."

This morning I tested all 3 email systems and they worked perfectly.  

Still not sure if it is me or them, but I do know:
- I am using the latest Adobe Flash Player
- I tried using Chrome, Firefox and IE

I tend to think they were running a trial to see if they could close down a targeted area rather than the whole country - or maybe an individual like me   ... just joking ... I think  

Anyway, you might think gmail is running ok in your area but maybe that is an electrical illusion. Check out:

http://shanghaiist.com/2011/03/24/gmail_now_44_times_slower_than_qq_i.php
      

I tend to think they were running a trial to see if they could close down a targeted area rather than the whole country - or maybe an individual like me   ... just joking ... I think

This kind of shit does make you par

for now its not too bad.

Use Outlook or Outlook Express (or whatever) to fetch your Gmail rather than using the web interface if you can. It's much, much faster that way.

Use Outlook or Outlook Express

I would love to do that but every time I see Outlook I cringe and run away. I have been doing that since it was invented and I do not think it has changed over all those years.

It is something to do with having to enter stuff like POP(?)before I can even get to use the programme. Even if I knew what to do I often do not have the time to stuff around setting it up.

Maybe it is time I went retro and learned how to master the bloody thing. 

Gmail setup in Outlook 2003. 2007 and 2010 aren't much different.
The bottom windows come from clicking on the "More Settings ..." button.

Outlook is a freaking pain in the tuckus... granted, Microsoft has made it a bit better recently.
I would go for thunderbird instead ( open source, same as firefox) and it deals with gmail beautifully

They're messing with yahoo mail today.  can't open mail. 

Gmail I still can only access chat occasionally.  I normally chat with friends - or I guess I should say I used to chat with friends. 

Thunderbird, Outlook Express, etc, are all fine for casual email use, but if you're a real email junkie like me Outlook is the only way to go. None of the other email apps can handle really large amounts of email.

Currently my .pst is over 2.1 GB ( I get a ton of graphics attachments for work) and I pretty much killed Thunderbird and O.E. within a week of use.

ccvortex  - thanks for the info. Looks dead easy      I will give it a go over the holiday

Nolefan - Thunderbirds are Go! I have been with Hotmail since it got invented but accessing it in China lately has been problematic. I got forced into using gmail by our office and it just pisses me off every time because using it is like unravelling a ball of string. I will have a look at Thunderbird. 

No problem x.

Also, you could forward all of your Gmails to a China-safe email service like 163.com or w/e.
But I think that's only a temp stopgap to the inevitable.

If you access your mail from more than one device, for example from your home computer, from your laptop (if different), from your office computer, from a classroom computer, from an Internet bar computer, from a smartphone, from an iPhone or iPod or iPad, or any combination of the above, set up the Email program you're going to use (Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Eudora, etc.) for IMAP rather than POP. Then you can have the best of both world's - getting your email on your home computer but able to check it from the Internet when you're away from that AND everything will stay synchronized because the mail will stay on the email service's servers (Gmail, Hotmail, etc. except Yahoo which charges non-Australians for POP and IMAP service).

Also, as Pashley mentioned, make sure you access your email through the internet on an HTTPS connection, especially if you are in a coffee house or net bar. If you use an email program, it will be using SSL which provides a level of security better than the naked net. But recently there's a program going around which allows others on your Wifi connection to tap into your account whether through the internet or your email client. Using a VPN in a public place can impede this, so if you have a VPN, turn it on when you are in a public place, regardless of whether you need it to deal with separate GFW issues.

This is probably more information than xw wants right now, but the bottom line for all is take the 15 minutes to set up an email program using ccvortex's lucid instructions. The time you spend waiting for your Hotmail or Gmail or Yahoo mail to connect could have been well spent RTFM.

The time you spend waiting for your Hotmail or Gmail or Yahoo mail to connect could have been well spent RTFM.

Exactly. Also, good point about using https - Ch1n4 is famous for snooping Gmail accounts.

I set up a 163.com account tonight (after spending an hour translating all the links and instructions) and tried out the forwarding aspects and it works pretty good. My Gmails go through and I am able to fetch them  via Outlook. However, since 163 is a fully Ch1n3s3 email provider you can bet they are being screened.

I now have a Hotmail account and have to somehow get a brief access to my  gmail so I can tell all my contacts I have a new mail....sometimes I do really, really want to get my battle-axe and go to Beijing to do some good, old-fashioned skull crushing...