Fetch Your E-Mail from Anywhere

Dead BlackBerry battery? No wireless signal where you are? Problems like these could spell trouble if you're a mobile worker who desperately needs access to e-mail. Thankfully, there's an easy way to tap your inbox: Just find any Internet-connected device, be it a computer in a Web cafe, a co-worker's notebook, or even a friend's smartphone, then surf to Mail2web.com. Type in your e-mail address and password for any POP or IMAP account, and the service fetches your messages, just like that. (Note that this may not work with some corporate servers.) You can read your mail, send replies, and even compose new messages. There's no charge to use Mail2web, and you don't even have to register with the site.

Of course, you could always sign up for a free Gmail account and configure it to retrieve mail from your POP account(s) whenever the need arises, but I like Mail2web's fast, easy approach. Keep it in mind the next time you find yourself in a mail-challenged environment.