... in response to E-mails.....time to receive, posted by madmal on Jan 13, 2002E-mails often seem to have a delay in them. I have recently received e-mails from the phils that took 5-6 days to get to me. You have to remember that message transmission is often not instantaneous. My former employer had their mail server configured to batch all outgoing e-mails and send the batch out every 30 minutes.
One thing that you might consider is both of you opening e-mail accounts at one of the free web-based services like Yahoo or Hotmail. This would keep your e-mails within the same system, so they would get to each other quicker.
You could also use ICQ or other messaging service. The system can hold messages for you until you connect again. This requires that the other person configure the software on the computer that they are using, which is not practical on a shared system.
You could also have the other person send the message with one of the internet phone packages. I recently have a conversation with a person from Brunei that was using this system at an internet cafe. The audio quality was acceptable, and there was only a slight lag from the signal transmission time.
The ultimate solution would be to run your own e-mail server, but that is not a viable option for most people. But, you can get the next best thing... control over your own domain. I recently published two web sites for a client with a hosting company. As part of the service, the hosting company provided 250 e-mail accounts for the client, along with FTP and web hosting service.
What you could do is register a domain name, and establish a site with them. This would give you a site to "market" yourself, if you so chose; it would also give you a way to rapidly communicate with one or more people. You could establish an e-mail account for each person that you wished to communicate with. As with the web-based systems, the e-mail would not have to leave the originating server, so delivery would be much quicker. As a downside, the other person would need to configure their e-mail program to access this account, which is not practical on a shared or company-owned computer. You could, however, set up a simple web-based messaging service; this requires that you either have the skills to build the site yourself, or that you "rent" them from someone that does. 
Running your own system is the most expensive option. It would cost around $70 for the domain name, $20 or so for the initial site set-up fee, and around $20 per month; all prices in USD. It would pay to shop around; I selected the provider that I chose because of their ability to support high-end databases and to provide redundant connections to the internet backbone. You can find services available at differing price and quality levels.
Just my thoughts, when I really should be sleeping.
Jeff2
