The Scoop on Treo Email
| Unlike some other mobile devices such as the BlackBerry 7100 series, the Treo 600/650 separates text messaging from email messaging. Apparently, Palm's logic is that email communication is different enough from Short Message Service/Multimedia Messaging System (SMS/MMS) communication that they shouldn't be combined. I don't necessarily disagreeif nothing else, the Treo's separation of text and email messaging makes it a little easier to understand how each form of communication works as well as how they differ from one another. The end result is that you use two different applications for email and text messaging: VersaMail (email) and Messaging (text messaging). To use the VersaMail account on your Treo to manage email effectively, knowing how many email accounts you want to use and how they are set up is important. Maybe you already have an account or two on a desktop or notebook computer, or maybe you're starting fresh with an entirely new account. Either way, it's worth covering some email basics before jumping into the specifics of the VersaMail application. Examine Email ProtocolsThe first email concept you need to get straight is email protocols, which are important because they govern the structure of email messages and how they are delivered. Although a single protocol is used for sending email messages, there are a couple of options for receiving email messages from a mail server. Following are the email protocols VersaMail supports:
SMTP is used to send email messages from the VersaMail application and is the only protocol available for this purpose. In other words, learn to love SMTP because it's your only option. Fortunately, SMTP is a capable protocol and serves your email sending needs just fine. Note If you choose to synchronize the VersaMail application with a Microsoft Exchange Server email server, you won't use any of the email protocols mentioned here. Instead, your messages are sent back and forth directly with the Exchange email server. This approach typically applies only to corporate email accounts, as opposed to individual accounts on services such as Hotmail and AOL. Both POP and IMAP are used to retrieve email messages from a mail server (not an Exchange mail server). These protocols handle the details of downloading email messages from a mail server and making them available to the Inbox. There are some differences between the protocols that will likely influence your choice of which protocol to use. However, the ultimate decision as to which protocol you use might come down to which one your mail server supports. Most Internet service providers (ISPs) support POP, so it's probably the protocol you will be forced to use unless you're connecting to a corporate mail server that supports IMAP. IMAP is more powerful than POP, in that it provides a finer level of control over how email messages are retrieved from a server and stored on your device. IMAP allows you to synchronize the VersaMail application directly with a mail server, which alleviates the issue of deciding whether to leave copies of messages on the server or remove them after they've been retrieved. IMAP also supports multiple mail folders for organizing incoming email automatically. Before you get the idea that IMAP is the ultimate email protocol, let me back up and say that POP is a perfectly good protocol for retrieving email with your Treo. POP is popular and is quite likely the email protocol you'll find yourself using because it's the only option for retrieving email from many mail servers. The point to take from this discussion is that, should you have the option, IMAP is a more powerful protocol, and you should consider using it. However, in the absence of IMAP, POP will serve your needs just fine. If you have a dial-up Internet service, a broadband cable modem, or DSL service, you will likely use POP; IMAP is typically available only in corporate environments with dedicated mail servers. You might forgo SMTP, POP, and IMAP if you're using either of the following:
If your email is running on Microsoft Exchange Server, likely through work, you use a special feature of VersaMail called ActiveSync to synchronize email directly with the Exchange server. Alternatively, you might be using one of several Web-based email accounts, such as Google Gmail. In this case, you'll probably just forgo VersaMail entirely and access your email through the Blazer Web browserjust open the Gmail web page and log on to access your email, just as though you were on a desktop or notebook computer. Check out Chapter 10, "Browsing the Wireless Web," to learn more about using the Blazer Web browser that comes with your Treo. Email Synchronization UncoveredEmail synchronization is the process of reconciling email messages on two computers so that they match each other. More specifically, when you synchronize email between two computers, their email folders end up looking exactly alike. Unfortunately, Palm uses the term "synchronization" quite loosely when describing the email capabilities of VersaMail and HotSync. The Palm documentation gives the impression that the Treo 650 email synchronization features are much more powerful than they truly are. But first the good news: If you're using an email account on Microsoft Exchange Server, you're in luck because VersaMail and HotSync support true email synchronization for Exchange through a built-in software component called Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. This software takes care of wirelessly synchronizing your email, contacts, and calendar with an Exchange server. Wireless synchronization is a powerful and handy feature, but it has a nagging limitation in that you can synchronize only the main Inbox folder, not subfolders. So if you move messages around and organize them into folders on your PC, the changes aren't synchronized to your Treo. However, possibly this limitation will be lifted in a future version of Exchange ActiveSync. The bad news for email synchronization is that you can't truly synchronize email on your Treo 650 via a POP email account. I know, the Palm documentation says that synchronization via POP is possible, but the word synchronization should be enclosed in quotes. Palm is simply talking about using your Treo-to-desktop connection to send and receive email messages directly with a POP mail server. In other words, there's no actual connection between VersaMail on your device and Outlook on your PC. What makes matters worse is that Palm has been less than forthcoming in admitting to this limitation, opting instead to allow VersaMail users to flounder and try in vain to get synchronization to work when it really doesn't. The real problem with the lack of true POP synchronization is that there's no good way to keep your Treo and your desktop computer on the same page if you use a POP email account. Remember that POP email is not a server-side email solution, meaning that email only passes through the mail server instead of residing there. Typically, a POP email client downloads messages from the server and then instructs the server to delete the messages. In other words, the email messages ultimately live on the client; Outlook Express is a good example of an email client that works in this manner. This approach to storing messages on the client presents a huge problem for synchronization because it means that clients must communicate with each other. Compare this setup to IMAP, in which mail always stays on the server. Synchronization across multiple clients is no big deal because all they have to do is connect to the server and grab everything; clients don't have to know about each other to stay synchronized. Note It's worth pointing out that some Treo users have reported success in synchronizing POP email with Outlook, but I've never seen it work in person. Numerous other users, myself included, who have been unable to get it working can attest to it being a tricky feat at best and potentially impossible in many situations. I'm left to conclude that the feature either isn't present or is extremely buggy at best. In either case, the net effect is that true POP email synchronization between VersaMail and Outlook isn't really an option with the Treo 650, at least not with the software available as of this writing. I have some hope that a future version of HotSync or, more specifically, the Outlook conduits for HotSync will allow true POP synchronization. In the meantime, you're better off not trying to share a POP email account between your Treo and another computer unless you don't mind keeping them in sync manually. There are some workarounds involving blind-copying messages to yourself and then filtering them according to the sender, but I'm not sure if these methods are worth the trouble. Probably your best bet for now is to turn off email synchronization entirely for POP accounts, set VersaMail so that it leaves messages on the server, and then manually delete messages on both your Treo and your desktop computer to keep them in sync. Sent messages still aren't synchronized, but you can at least keep your two Inbox folders more or less on the same page with each other. |
