A suggestion along these lines:  set your browser to only download a
specific number of messages at a time and/or restrict the number of KB
you will accept in a message (50Kb is reasonable if you don't want large
attachments, or even less if you don't want any with attachments).
 
Sylvia
 
Stewart Jones wrote:
>
> Got a question.  A downloading charge of $6.00 an hour seems like a lot, but
> I downloaded 15 messages today in 30 seconds and 30+ yesterday in less than
> a minute.  That translates into 5 or 10 cents a shot, which isn't all that
> much.  I imagine if you downloaded 2 or 3 times a week the cost-per-message
> would be even less.  Granted, this costs a lot more than downloading for
> free, but it doesn't seem that expensive either.  Am I missing something?
>
> Another comment.  The greatest offenders (in cluttering up our email) are
> those who send personal messages, meant for one person, to our entire list.
> I'll bet they outnumber the off-subject messages by 5 or 10 to one.  Even
> so, it's easy enough to scan  subject titles and scrap the ones you don't
> want to read.  I doubt if any of us read ALL the messages.  Some folks just
> aren't interested in Caribbean shelling sites or Spondylidae--even if they
> are shell-related..
>
> sj