I got my wife an easy email program called TheBat! (with the exclamation point). One of their outputs is an activity log, much like the one in the boinc client. There is a check box at the bottom of the listing that says something like "Critical messages only". Click it off and you see all messages; click it on and you see the list with important messages only, where a glance will tell you whether your problems are temporary or have been going on for a long time. The actual messages aren't deleted, just selectively displayed. It's a nice, user-friendly interface idea.

Jon@chosiad.org