Yesterday I did a friend a favor.  I helped him move some emails away from an email address he had with my ISP (as he was a roommate of mine for 2 years) to his new domains. 

What struck me was the fact that it was difficult for me to do this activity.  It wasn’t that easy a task to move from where you have your emails to where you now want them.  I use Microsoft Outlook for home so all I have to do is add both accounts to Outlook and then move them where I want them in the account.  Now when you only have access to one account there is no good way of doing it, short of forwarding each and every email to the new account which is what I did.

I started this whole thing in the web client of my ISP which happens to be Cox Communications.  After about 50 or more emails it didn’t allow me to send anymore emails, which I found a pain in the butt as many of you would.   I know many of you at this point would wash your hands of it, saying it isn’t my email and leave it to my ex-roommate to fix.  This just made me more determined, so I connected my Outlook to the account and then forwarded each email.  I knew I could batch them up, meaning I could put 10 or so emails into one, but that kind of screws up my ex-roommate and his emails, so I did it the hard way. 

All of this got my thinking about email and what it contains of our lives.  Right now I have my email folders backed up on my server, but I don’t have them backed up anywhere else.  I used to create CD/DVD backup discs of my files just in case, but they would always be in the house.  That is fine and dandy if the computer fails, but is useless if there is a fire.  So this has got me thinking that I have to find a way to backup my files online. Not all of them mind you, but the ones that matter, like my financial files, my email.  I already have a password database that is backed up to Dropbox so I don’t have to worry about it.  With only 2GB of data storage in Dropbox I am not in a hurry to put my financial and email files on it (as they are growing bigger).  I am a little hesitant to put it on Microsoft’s Skydrive, even though I am fairly certain it is a secure place. 

LifeHacker named Dropbox as the best online backup out there.  I have to admit it is easy to use.  I use it on all my machines and it works.

One other thing to note about backing up emails, I was amazed at how hard it is to backup your emails from my ISP.  From what I have seen of other services, they are not much better.  I guess it is best to use Outlook or Windows Live Mail to download the emails then to move them around and back them up.  If you are not familiar with Windows Live Mail, it is a free mail client that is part of Windows Live Essentials 2011.  I have to say that suite of applications is wonderful. 

I hope that my frustrations with email help you.  If you have any questions please email me at rtarvin@nerdknow.com.  I would like your feedback that way till I put comments back up.