I used to have an email account with my mobile provider who offered free SMS notification. It was brilliant when it worked but it was flaky and unreliable. Then I changed my email host and lost the SMS notification altogether. Now I want it back. I had a brainstorm with myself and came up with some ideas, based on dedicating a spare N900 for the job.

1. Using the N900 as a mail server
This would be the preferred method. I could stash it somewhere in the corner of the garage and use it as a mail/web server. If I find a suitably large external hard drive that it could manage to operate, then I could also use it as a NAS. The condition is that I could run a daemon on it to detect unread emails and send an SMS to a dedicated number.

Question: What mail server applications do people use on the N900?
Do they use any? Needless to say, the search did not reveal anything.

2. Using the N900 as a mail watchdog
Another idea, use the N900 as it is, sitting quietly in the garage or the loft, checking unread emails on an external server like the one I am using now, and tweaking something like Maenotify to send an SMS. This is less favourable than option 1 since the phone would be doing only one job which feels like a waste.

3. Err...
Any other ideas?

Note: In the light of the upcoming Neo900, the option 1 is definitely the most attractive. I could use just the main board and reuse the housing, camera and SD card holder for the Neo900.