Dear Joe and Vicki:
In the May issue you explained how RVers can send and
receive e-mail while on. the road. But ... "I was astounded" ... 'You blew it big time!" ... "I thought you guys were the experts." ... "What were you (not) thinking?" "You didn't say a thing about PocketMail!"
Joe: And that's just a printable sample of the many-e-mail (and, surprisingly, snail-mail) messages we received from the PocketMail lovers of the world. In our defense, please note that the first paragraph of our reply in that column read, "RV travelers have a variety of ways to do their e-mail. Most simply carry their laptop to a campground's telephone connection, plug in, go online and transmit their e-mail." Then, in only 500 words, we went on to describe the basics of that particular process. Please note also that along with PocketMail, we did not mention that RVers also use cellular, satellite, Wi-Fi, cyber cafes and other methods to send and receive their e-mail.
But before all of you lose faith in Vicki and me, before you throw away your collection of back issues of Highways and, most importantly, before PocketMail cancels our subscription to its service, we'll discuss PocketMail.
Vicki: Essentially, PocketMail is a hand-held device that, coupled with PocketMail's Internet e-mail service, allows you to send and receive e-mail using just a telephone.
The PocketMail device is a small, battery-operated appliance. It is 6 inches long, 3 inches wide and about a half-inch thick. One of the long edges is hinged. Open it up and it resembles a small computer. The upper half of the interior is a computer-like screen that displays seven lines of text at a time. The lower half is a small standard (QWERTY) keyboard.
To send e-mail, all you do is type your message(s) on the PocketMail device, just as you would on any computer. Then you dial a toll-free number on a telephone (house phone, pay phone, cellular phone), hold the PocketMail device up to the telephone handset (no wires, no attachments) and press a button. The device sends and retrieves your e-mail. Open the device at your convenience, turn it on and you can read your incoming messages. It's that simple.
PocketMail can be used as a stand-alone e-mail system. You don't need a computer or Internet service provider. The device, the service and any available telephone are all you need to send and receive e-mail. You can also use PocketMail in conjunction with your computer and existing e-mail service. The instruction booklet details a variety of ways to customize the e-mail device and service to your own personal needs.
Joe: When we signed on for PocketMail, we wanted to use it in conjunction with our laptop and existing e-mail system. We already had a primary e-mail address (joeandvicki@rvknowhow.com) routed through our Internet service provider. We wanted our incoming PocketMail messages to go to that e-mail address so we would not have to check two sources for our incoming e-mail. This was accomplished by changing our PocketMail return address to our primary rvknowhow.com e-mail address. Anyone replying to one of our PocketMail messages has their e-mail automatically sent to our rvknowhow.com e-mail address.
We then selected a feature called e-mail consolidation. While all our e-mail goes to the rvknowhow.com mailbox at our Internet server, a copy of each e-mail is also forwarded to our PocketMail mailbox. That gives us the option of being able to pick up all our e-mail at either mailbox. The messages remain in our Internet server's rvknowhow.com mailbox until we delete them using our computer. So we have the ability to read a message using the PocketMail device and, later, we can revisit that same message by going online with our computer.
Finally, we programmed our PocketMail device to download only the message title (date, sender and subject line) of each message rather than the full message.
This means that on one toll-free phone call to PocketMail, we download the message titles of the incoming e-mail. Then we select which messages we want to read, ignore the messages we prefer to download later and delete any junk mail. A second call is made to download the full text of the messages we have selected to read. This procedure saves us the time it would take to download messages we don't wish to receive and mail we would rather read late.,
Vicki: When we're on the road, we check for incoming e-mail from the comfort of our RV by using the PocketMail device and our cell phone. This can occur in a campground or while we are driving down the road, If cell service is poor, we go to a pay phone and use the toll-free number. It doesn't take long to download the message titles. Then we delete the trash mail and download the messages we want to read. We respond to those requiring an immediate reply by using our PocketMail device and cell phone. The others we can reply to at our convenience by using either our laptop and sending them when we have a modem hookup (telephone connection), or by using PocketMail.
It's possible to connect your computer to the PocketMail device. This allows you to compose and read your messages on either the device or the computer and transfer messages from one to the other. The advantage here is the ability to type your messages on your computer's larger keyboard and send them via PocketMail. Incoming messages picked up on the PocketMail device can be transferred to your computer and then printed on your printer.
The PocketMail device can also double as a personal organizer. It has an address book, calendar, memo pad, to-do list and calculator.
There are some limitations to PocketMail. It cannot handle attachments; that's not a big drawback for most. Once in a great while, you might run into a telephone handset that isn't compatible with the PocketMail device. That means going to another telephone. Nothing's perfect.
By the way, we used our PocketMail when we traveled around northern Europe in an RV While others searched out cyber cafes in the cities, we used the campground telephones and our PocketMail device to send and receive e-mail.
To get onboard with PocketMail, you have to purchase a PocketMail device and sign up for its service. To order, or for more information, go to www.pocketmail.com or call (877) 362-4543.
E-mail is important to us. It's comforting to know that with PocketMail our e-mail is as accessible as the nearest telephone.
![](%22http:/statse.webtrendslive.com/dcsclwxf66twkfgmsg9zfh9ri_4f6u/njs.gif?dcsuri=/nojavascript&WT.js=No/"){kind=small}