I have my own pop client, for which i used winsock.
I want to run this client in the background and check mails at regular interval (say 2 min or 5 mins).

I am not downloading any mails from this client - Just reading from the maail server.

How can I get an alert for New messages in always connected mode and in re-connect mode? Is there any command in POP to assist this? (I cudnt find any in the docs that I have)

Secondly, I want to use APOP. Is it a good way or can I use any other means to encrypt the pass over network send?