On 4/19/01 at 4:26 PM [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Will also check out Eudora and others later this week.
>
>Still looking for others' opinions as well. But let's leave OL and OLE out
of
>this equation for now. MS OL has made my last 3 days miserable :o)
Hi Peace,
I am proceeding on the starry-eyed assumption that you have or will have
multiple POP accounts and therefore require an e-mail client that offers
such support. There are a number of them out there, as well as lists of
both freeware and shareware email applications.
Try Dave Central for a staggering array:
http://www.davecentral.com/mailclnt.html
As for individual suggestions, there's Phoenix Mail, an open source client,
with a most pleasant interface, and quite easy to set up. However, the
programme has not even reached version 1. yet and is a tad buggy. There's a
user support forum at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phoenix-support/messages
whose archives are open to the public. You might want to have a look at
some of the problems that users experience with the programme (no viable
spelling checker, problems with filters etc.).On the other hand, it is free
and many of its users are quite devoted. The Phoenix home page can be found
at:
http://fox.hispeed.com/phoenix/us_home.shtml
There's another free e-mail client that supports multiple accounts called
"Poco" which has won a number of awards and was mentioned earlier on this
thread. It has a very 'snazzy' interface and is somewhat less buggy than
Phoenix.
http://www.pocomail.com/
With slightly fewer features but with a clean and simple interface, there's
the estimable Foxmail. While the current version will support checking mail
from a number of POP accounts, it only has provision for sending mail from
one. However, for ease of setup and operation, Foxmail is a model of
simplicity. The author's homepage has not been available for the past few
months, so it is becoming difficult to find a software list site that
actually has this programme on its servers, instead of a now defunct link
to the author's homepage. However, this one appears to be working:
http://5star.freeserve.com/Internet/Email-Clients/foxmail-download.html
For shareware e-mail clients that are worth the money there's The Bat!, an
extremely stable, feature-rich programme that will do everything and do it
well. It has an intuitive interface and is extensively customizable,
handling innumerable e-mail accounts with ease and with separate account
handling / listing for folders. There's a free download / trial version
available:
http://www.ritlabs.com/the_bat/indexpage.html
Saving the best (IMHO) for last, there's the little known but terrific
e-mail client, "Calypso". This is another shareware ($30 US ) programme
available for a trail period. The application has a marvellously intuitive
interface, that is visually pleasing as well. It is easy to organize
multiple accounts as well as multiple **versions** of the application so
that it can be shared, say within a family.
Its filtering system is superb. Incoming and outgoing messages can be
automatically placed in the folders of your choice through a number of
criteria and individual wav. files can be used to designate each filtering
action. (If I'm surfing while Calypso is doing a "mail run" a chorus of
'Hallelujah' informs me that my old college roommate has finally written,
while messages arriving from "SeeknFind" are announced by Jimmy Buffet
singing "the mail boat's in")
Its folder system is not plagued by the limitations of some e-mail clients
and can be set up to your own preferences. The spelling checker is very
good and has a customizable dictionary as well. You could take a look at:
http://www.calypsoemail.com/
This is probably way, way more than you wanted to hear (and my apologies to
the other members of the list). In summary, depending on your needs, the
clean-lined simplicity of Foxmail may be just the ticket and it's free. On
the other hand, Calypso can expand as your e-mail needs require and is
actually worth its price.
A - Calypso-ing when not shovelling in Canada
