Apple has done a reasonably good job of making ZCN (Zero Configuration Networking) a reality; now what we need is “ZCE,” Zero Configuration Email. Or at least Minimal Configuration Email.
Isn’t email easy enough? Well, no. My wife has been pretty troubled by ever-increasing rates of spam on her trusty Yahoo webmail account, so it is no more. Instead, she’ll take advantage of an account provided by her web host. Here is where the trouble begins. It seem that her email address and email “mailbox” must have different names, and she’s got to juggle the various names and passwords and security minutiae to get even the friendliest of email clients running smoothly. Since she’s not a techie, the “annoying technical inconveniences” ceiling is rather low, and I’m afraid I just helped her whack right into it by suggesting she use more than one mailbox, one personal and one commercial. It would be ideal if she didn’t have to dirty her hands with this, while somehow protecting her privacy by not divulging passwords, etc. to a third party (such as myself).
I’m not sure how best we would securely transfer the necessary settings, however. Many email clients can import email accoutn settings from one another; maybe if there was a standard (or de-facto standard) format, a host could slap together a little packet of settings for download?
