Running my own server vs hosting elsewhere

With all my problems with my server, you'd think I'd give up and just host my server somewhere else and make it someone else's problem. After a little thinking, I've come up with the pros and cons of running my own server.Pros--------------Physical security of serverMusic server - I need a server to run my SqueezeboxesUnlimited bandwidth (at 1 MBps upstream, but unlimited)Full backups - I backup the server to an external drive and take it offsiteLots of storage (currently at 300 GB, but only about 15% used)It's a learning experience5 static IP addressesFull control over serverAbility to run my own PBX and have good voice qualityCons------------Electricity usageI have to keep it runningLimited upstream bandwidthPotentially more costly (it costs about $50 per month for me to host my own server); however for the hardware I have, a hosting service might charge more for RAID 1 and backupsWhile there are more items I'm missing here, it's pretty clear to me that running my own server is the right way to go. My issues last week appeared to stem from drives that were failing; it just happened that when I was putting in the new drives, the drive I left running was failing causing some issues. I'm now up and running on my 2 new drives and have been for about 5 days now. Lesson for the future...replace drives about once a year if they need it or not as the drives are relatively cheap ($150 for both drives) and run 24/7 which puts a lot of wear and tear on the drives. Now the question is, what do I do with the old drives? Would a reformat on the drives do the trick and keep them running? What less mission critical role can I put them in?

The new world of IMAP

I realize that IMAP isn't new, but I just started using it yesterday. I've resisted for years as I've always had one main store for my email. However, lately, I'm checking email using web based email and everything I've heard about IMAP make it sound like it is perfect for using in multiple locations. So far it's working OK, but I'm getting used to it. For instance, if Mail on my Mac filters messages out of the Inbox, they're pulled off the IMAP server which kind of defeats the purpose of using IMAP. Most of my email is filtered. I created a rule in Mail that moves all messages < 1 day old into my Inbox and made it my first filter. This should leave everything in my inbox, but when I run the filters over my inbox manually later, it should put everything in the right spot.

Hopefully I'll get used to this soon; I've been using POP3 for close to 15 years ever since I started using Eudora in college. It's hard to change my thinking, but since I started using POP3 over SSL, I could no longer telnet into my server and issue commands (I know the POP3 commands as I've written 2 POP3 email clients in my life), there really is no advantage to me using POP3.

I'm alive!

Yes, it's true, I do have a heartbeat and this EKG proves it:

Useless application?

I downloaded and installed Little Snitch today to give it a spin as it was part of the bundle of software I bought it (which brings me to the question, why did I buy it?, but that's another story). The program is well implemented, but just about every application makes outgoing network connections these days, so it is always popping up basically saying "xyz application wants to connect to abc server. Allow?" After click always allow more than a few dozen times, I finally disabled it (for now). I'm sure after I train it, it will be less annoying, but how can I really tell what applications are making legitimate requests and which are not? This seems like the little boy who cried wolf.