# My idea to read my email from my cell phone

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-idea-to-read-my-email-from-my-cell-phone/141108>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 22, 2008, 4:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-idea-to-read-my-email-from-my-cell-phone/141108 "2008-06-22T04:05:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2008, 4:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-idea-to-read-my-email-from-my-cell-phone/141108/1 "2008-06-22T04:05:45Z")

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I have an idea on how to read email from my cell phone, I want to do  
this from my main email which doesn’t have a mobile portal. There is a  
portal for yahoo mail, but the idea is, suppose I go out to lunch for  
a couple of hours, I want to check my main email to see if anyone has  
sent me any important messages and if I need to hurry back to my  
computer etc.

Here’s sort of what I came up with:

1. first of all, the ruby version between my laptop and my host can  
vary, so I don’t think I can use drb.

2. Also, I don’t think I want to store the password to my main email  
anyplace on my hosted site.

Given that, when I go out to lunch, I would start up a process on my  
laptop that reads my email using ruby net::pop  
class and then opens something like a socket to my hosted site, then  
it sends the emails and as long as the socket remains open, it allows  
them to be access through a cell phone browser.

That would mean my emails are visible (read only) for a short time  
until I shut down the socket connection.

I would also password protect the access through a simple 4 digit  
password, assuming I can get sessions to work with my cell phone, if  
not I could possibly figure out a scheme of generating keys and  
storing them in the rendered pages or something a bit complex.

Let me know if there might be a better approach.

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2008, 9:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-idea-to-read-my-email-from-my-cell-phone/141108/2 "2008-06-22T21:43:55Z")

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removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> vary, so I don’t think I can use drb.

I did something like this a while back, but without the 2nd requirement  
because I just hosted it on my home computer. I think it might be  
simpler if you can use IMAP, however.

What I did was use the Ruby IMAP library and coded up some rhtml pages  
to use with eruby. That was about all I needed to be able to read and  
delete mail from my cell phone. But then I got a new phone which had  
built-in email functionality so I stopped working on it. If you would  
like to take a look at it, I can send you the code in its current state.  
I stored the passwords, but you could just add a form to send it from  
your cell phone instead.

-Justin

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 5:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/my-idea-to-read-my-email-from-my-cell-phone/141108/3 "2008-06-23T05:30:44Z")

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On Jun 22, 3:41 pm, Justin C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> > 1. first of all, the ruby version between my laptop and my host can
> 
> I did something like this a while back, but without the 2nd requirement
> 
> -Justin

I can get yahoo email, but it seems usefull to be able to read my  
regular email that most people would send me email on.  
I actually just finished writing a plugin to help show wma content for  
my cell phone