Do I Need A New Email Outlook Or Should I Just Go Green?

I have to admit that I'm quite smitten with Microsoft's new Outlook Express 5 email client. I like the attractive and polished interface, the pleasant alert chimes, and some of OE 5's comprehensive feature set would probably prove quite useful to me. The price is certainly right (free).

However, while I'm wavering a bit, I don't think I'll be switching right away from my old standby email program, Eudora Light -- or more specifically in my case, ten copies of Eudora Light Res-Edit hacked to respectively access separate Eudora folders for my various email accounts. I even run a moderated email listserv from a copy or Eudora Light.

Why? Well the two biggest reasons for my tenacious loyalty to Eudora are its flexibility and dependability. In the years I've been using it, I can't recall losing data due to a program malfunctions. During that time, I have promiscuously dragged my various Eudora folders containing archived mailboxes with thousands of email messages from one computer to another running a gaggle of different Eudora versions from Eudora Light 1.5.1 to Eudora 4.X betas.

Eudora's forward and backward compatibility is nothing short of amazing. I can make a copy of the Eudora Folder for one of my copies of Eudora Light 3.1.3 running on this G3 WallStreet PowerBook with MacOS 8.6, transfer it to my old Mac Plus running Eudora Light 1.5.1 on System 6 or 7, and the message files will open just fine.

Unfortunately, Qualcomm has not released a new version of Eudora Light for the Mac since v.3.1.3 in 1997, and one suspects that further development of the freeware version is unlikely. That will be OK as long as v3.1.3 continues to work under new Mac OS upgrades, and it performs flawlessly with OS 8.6, but eventually (perhaps with OS X?) the crunch is going to come.

One could always buy the $39.95 ($49.95 boxed) Eudora Pro, but with Outlook Express offering pretty much similar power and features for free, does Eudora Pro offer enough to justify its cost?

The latest version 4.2 of Eudora Pro does offer some useful stuff that OE 5 doesn't, such as a built-in, on-the-fly spellchecker that underlines spelling errors in red as you type. Eudora Pro's search engine has also been much improved (it needed to be).

However, as much as I love Eudora Light, Eudora Pro simply does not seem to offer $40.00 more value than Outlook Express 5.

I have been using Outlook Express 4.5 for about a year with several email addresses I have that don't get enough traffic to justify hacking a separate copy of Eudora Light to access them. OE 4.5 has served me well for this purpose, but I have not been tempted to switch whole hog from my Eudora Lights, which give me the degree of manual control that I prefer.

For example, I simply could not live with Outlook Express 4.5's insisting on checking every email address each time you send or check mail. With some 15 active email addresses, that would be a prodigal time-waster if I had converted to Outlook 4.5 whole hog. My gaggle of Eudora's allows me to check my email addresses one at a time, and to send or check mail without doing the other.

I hoped that OE 5 would provide an individual account check or send option. And yes! My hope was rewarded. There is now a pulldown menu that allows you to check each email account separately, and to send all queued messages without checking mailboxes. Not quite full manual control, but close enough. One less reason not to switch to OE.

My first impression of OE 5 when I downloaded it was "my, how you've grown!" The OE 4.5 application is a reasonable 2.6 MB and will run in a minimum 2,500k memory partition, although 4,000k is suggested (Virtual Memory on). The Outlook Express 5 application is a whopping 6.5 MB and wants a minimum 6,144k memory partition, with 7.168k preferred. The compressed OE 5 download file is 9.1 megabytes, and the entire unstuffed folder is 18.6 MB, which seems a bit ridiculous for a freestanding email client,

However, OE 5's memory demands are hardly an argument against it in my case, since my squadron of Eudora Lights cumulatively eats up 21.5 MB (including 6.5MB for the copy that handles the email list). Switching to OE 5 for most of my email accounts would eat up a lot less memory than I'm using with my current setup.

One of the worst aspects of Eudora Light is its basically horrible search function, which is better than no search function at all, but not much. Outlook Express 5 has a nice search engine -- another point in its favor from my perspective.

On the other hand, Eudora Light's handling of folders and address books is slick, intuitive, and unobtrusive. You can create a bunch of folders in Eudora Light, but they remain hidden out of the way in a menu until you want them. Outlook Express wastes space by having all folders appear to the left in the main interface window. The Outlook Express address book is OK, but I don't find it any more useful or convenient that Eudora Light's.

Speaking of interfaces, I prefer Eudora Light's flexible system of separate windows for each message or folder list to the "frames" type interface of Outlook Express.

New Features In Outlook Express 5

If you're already familiar with OE 4.5, new features in OE 5 include: Address AutoComplete; Smart Attachments; Improved Preview Pane; One Key Read; an Info Bar; Advanced Find; Address Book Enhancements; Account Setup Assistant (mixed blessing); Easy Importing of filed from other email clients; a Junk Mail Filter; Schedules; a Mailing List Manager; Multiuser Support; IMAP Support; and Synchronization with 3Com Palm Connected Organizers.

Address AutoComplete allows you to type an address in a message, upon which Outlook Express will show names and addresses of contacts in your Address Book that match, whether you type a first name, last name, nickname, or e-mail address.

Smart Attachments encodes attachments using AppleDouble format, which can be read by both Macintosh and Windows operating systems alike. Other encoding formats are also available.

The Improved Preview Pane lets you easily read e-mail and perform common e-mail tasks without opening a separate message window. For example, you can use buttons in the Preview pane to increase the size of text and rewrap text so that it's easier to read a message.

One Key Read helps you to save time by minimizing the number of key strokes and mouse actions required to read messages. Pressing the spacebar will scroll through a message. At the end of the message, press the spacebar again to move to the next unread message.

The new Info Bar, located at the top of messages you receive, contains information about the message. For example, if you replied to a message, the Info Bar includes the date you replied and provides a link so that you can view your reply. If you performed more than one action on a message, a link appears so that you can view the history of the message.

You can use the Advanced Find dialog box to search for messages by a wide variety of criteria, and by more than one criterion at a time.

In addition to storing email addresses and phone and fax numbers, the Outlook Express 5 Address Book has custom fields you can use to add any information you want, such as birthdays or names of spouses. The Address Book is also tightly integrated with messaging; for example, when you address a message, you automatically access addresses in your Address Book. And when you receive a message from someone, you can easily add the sender to your Address Book.

The Account Setup Assistant helps you set up mail, news, and directory service accounts. I prefer to do this manually in a preferences dialog, but it may be an attractive feature to new users.

You can import messages, contacts, rules, signatures, and account information directly from several other e-mail programs, as well as from earlier versions of Outlook Express. If you are switching from a program that Outlook Express can not import directly from, you can still import your contacts by exporting the information to a text file and then importing the text file. Outlook Express automatically matches data fields in the imported text file to its own data fields, so information stays exactly as you intended.

If you regularly receive junk e-mail (who doesn't?), Outlook Express 5 can automatically identify potential junk messages. In the Junk Mail Filter dialog box, you can specify how you want to distinguish messages identified as potential junk mail. For example, you can make the messages a different color than your other messages, mark them as read, or run an AppleScript to handle them.

In Outlook Express 5, you can automate certain tasks by creating a schedule that specifies what you want Outlook Express to do and when you want it done. Outlook Express then performs the tasks at the time you specified.

Outlook Express 5's Mailing List Manager helps you manage the messages you receive from the mailing lists you subscribe to. The Mailing List Manager can automatically sort and file these messages, so that you can keep them separate from your personal and business messages.

Outlook Express 5 also supports users who share a computer by storing separate account information and Preference settings for each user. Outlook Express also supports the new multiuser functionality available in Macintosh OS version 9.0 and later.

Outlook Express 5 makes it easy to manage multiple e-mail accounts. You can switch among a number of POP, IMAP, and Hotmail accounts.

IMAP is an email protocol that lets you store your messages on a remote server rather than downloading them to your hard drive. OE 5 now supports IMAP.

Outlook Express 5 includes built-in support for sharing contacts with Palm connected organizers ensuring that you have the most current information in both Outlook Express and your Palm organizer.

Additional Features In Outlook Express 5

- Drag & drop installation with self-healing lets you quickly install and start Microsoft Outlook Express 5.

- If Microsoft Office is installed on your computer, you can easily check spelling in your messages. You can choose to check spelling as you type messages or all at once when you send them. You can also switch spelling dictionaries without quitting and re-starting Outlook Express.

- The Mail Merge feature in Microsoft Word lets you easily address letters and envelopes to your Outlook Express contacts.

- Improvements to Unicode, character set encodings, and newsgroup encodings makes it easy to send attachments and receive messages composed in other languages.

- Individual signature for each email account.

Minimum System Requirements for Microsoft Outlook Express 5

- Macintosh with a PowerPC processor

- Macintosh OS version 8.1 or later

- 6 MB of available RAM with Virtual Memory on (7 MB recommended)

- 15 MB of available hard disk space for Outlook Express

- Internet Software

- Open Transport 1.1.1 or higher

- For dial-up connections, OT PPP or similar PPP connection

software (Control Panel) with PPP (extension)

Glitches And Bug Workarounds With Outlook Express 5

Microsoft recommends rebuilding your desktop after installing Outlook Express 5 to update the Outlook Express 5 icons.

One tiresome glitch with OE 5 is that if you have the 128-bit enabled version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, you will lose the 128-bit encryption functionality by upgrading to Outlook Express 5. To regain 128-bit functionality, you must download an updated 128-bit installer for Internet Explorer and Outlook Express 5.

If you use Apple Remote Access to connect to your Internet Service Provider, the dial-up option you select for an Outlook Express schedule might not work properly. This problem affects schedules that use the Return to Previous State option. In some instances, Outlook Express might not return to the previous connection state after a schedule runs. This means that Outlook Express might

either remain connected or unintentionally disconnect you. To avoid this conflict, you should choose either the Stay Connected or Close option for your schedules.

An oddball idiosyncrasy of OE 5 is that there is no close box in the main Outlook Express window, and least under the default installation, and Command-W doesn't work either. Sigh. More Microsoft mucking about with Mac standards. Fortunately, this one is easily fixable. In the Preferences dialog, under the General tab, there is an option to "Display close box in main browser window."

There have also been many reports of foulups in importing message archives, and address databases from other email clients when installing OE 5. I had no problem bringing in my messages from my copy of OE 4.5, although there were not that many to transfer. Some people found that importing message from OE 4.5 to OE 5.0 changed the date of every message imported to the current date, but this did not happen to me.

Even worse, some peoples' email message archives were erased entirely and irretrievably (at least by normal methods) during the import process.

As a general rule, you should make a backup of your mail files and anything else you can't afford to lose before installing or reinstalling OE 5. If you're moving from OE 4.5, your precious message files are inside the Internet Mail folder, in the Main User Folder (if you are the main user), in the OE User(s) Folder, in the Outlook Express 4.5 Folder, in the Microsoft Internet 4.5 Folder, somewhere on your hard drive.

Microsoft notes that if you do not have a Documents folder on your hard disk,

Outlook Express stores your mail in the Identities folder in the Outlook Express 5 folder on your hard disk. If you reinstall Outlook Express by recopying the Outlook Express 5 folder to your hard disk, you are warned not to the existing Identities folder. If you replace this folder, your saved mail and user data will be removed.

To maintain mail and user data when reinstalling OE 5:

1. Move the Identities folder from the Outlook Express 5 folder

to your desktop.

2. Copy the Outlook Express 5 folder to your hard disk and

replace the existing Outlook Express 5 folder

3. Move the Identities folder from your desktop to the Outlook

Express 5 folder you copied in step 2.

If you have a system Documents folder on your hard disk, Microsoft Outlook Express stores your mail and user data in the Microsoft User Data folder in the Documents folder.

In this case, to maintain mail and user data when reinstalling OE 5:

* Copy the Outlook Express 5 folder to your hard disk and replace the existing Outlook Express 5 folder.

In the immortal words of Doc Watson: "Life Get's Teedjus, Don't It?" Makes me nostalgic already for the ease and simplicity of "maintaining user data" with good old Eudora Light (and Eudora Pro).

Then there is the matter of how long it takes OE 5 to import message files. The worst case I've heard was a fellow who had 320 MB of archived email messages on a WallStreet PowerBook 266 (128MB RAM), which OE 5 took 48 hours and 50 minutes to import from OE 4.5. That is of course an extreme case, but reports of 3 hour imports are fairly common. Be forewarned.

Another caveat: OE 5 now stores all messages in one huge database file. In OE 4.5 version, a small database was created for each separate folder, meaning that when you did a backup, you only needed to back up folders whose contents had changed. With OE 5 you are obliged to back up the whole, humongous database every time..

These reports do not leave me with a warm comfortable feeling about consigning my valuable email archives to a piece of Microsoft software, and if I do switch to OE 5, I will certainly maintain my present Eudora archives as a backup. However, the future prospect of putting all my eggs in one database basket is worrisome.

There have also been a number of reports of problems with accessing certain POP email accounts or even sending mail with Outlook Explorer 5, even though the accounts were accessible/sendable from OE 4.5 and other email clients.

Nina Tovish, Senior Designer/Intranet Project Leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute kept me posted as to her progress in attempting to get OE 5 to work. The first thing Nina discovered after she downloaded and installed OE 5.0 on her Mac was that it wouldn't send email beyond her company's firewall. She'd had no problem with Communicator or OE 4.5.

In hope of getting some tech support, Nina went to the Microsoft Mac Website. She reported:

"I'll be happy to keep you up-to-date. I've just finished an extensive pow-wow with our Exchange server guy, wherein we tested all sorts of variations on a TCP/IP POP account theme, to no avail.

"I suppose now I have to enter the maze of Microsoft technical support. (*breaks out spelunking gear*) Have a good thought for me."

Next message:

"I challenge you to find your way through http://microsoft.com/mac/ to anything resembling meaningful support for Outlook Express 5.0. It's not listed in the Technical Support Resources in MacTopia. If you go the user area, you get a whole lot of nothing (you'll enjoy the "Reviewers Guide" I'm sure!). It's not listed properly in the pop-ups for regular product support.

"To add injury to insult, in order to make an incident report online, you have to enter a Product ID code. Guess what? The Product ID code provided in the About box in OE 5 doesn't work.

"To get phone support you need to enter a Product ID. Guess what? It doesn't work there either. Hmmm, nothing like a little customer service.

"Frankly, I don't have time for this; guess I'll be using Communicator. Not as feature laden, to be sure, but at least I can get mail over the transom and out into the wide world. Award-winning software my foot!

"It's entirely possible I'll write again with egg on my face saying "Ooops, there was an obvious configuration step I missed" or "Our server permissions were set wrong" -- it's possible. But I hasten to assure you I've tried all the usual troubleshooting, extension-swapping, rebooting, IP-checking nonsense. Why would one piece of software using SMTP protocols works fine and dandy and another not? (Gosh, would it have something to do with the way open standards are respected company- wide? Surely not.)"

Happy to relate, Nina persevered and finally did get OE 5 working:

"Hello Charles --

"As you may be able to tell from this message, OE 5 is in fact working for over-the- firewall messages.

"Our exchange server administrator removed all permissions and rules and reset everything back to default. Shazzam! Messages are relaying again.

"Which means, I guess, that OE 5 is much pickier about its SMTP protocols than Netscape. It's hard to know whom to blame in this instance, but my complaints about the impossibility of accessing meaningful customer support from Microsoft still stand.

All the best,

N.

Hmmmm. Doesn't exactly fill one with optimism and confidence, does it?

To Switch Or Not To Switch?

So, will I switch to Outlook Express 5? At this point I'm still riding the fence. Like most Microsoft software, OE 5 has a passel of interesting and intriguing features that are not all well-executed, and a few glaring faults. As I said at the beginning of this column, I'm wavering, but the rock-solid stability and speediness of Eudora Light is hard to let go of.

I am an intensive user of email, and my livelihood literally depends on it. I simply can't afford to fool around. Eudora Light has served me extremely well, and could continue to do so for the foreseeable future, although using eleven separate email apps. is admittedly cumbersome.

The question has also been complicated by my discovery of Green, a new, freeware Mac email client from France that is small, fast, has lots of features, and perhaps most important of all, the elegance of execution that Outlook Express lacks.

Green, doesn't have the incredible range of features that OE 5 sports, but it has the stuff you need and will likely use, such as hierarchical mailboxes to easily organize your mail, easy import of mailboxes from Outlook Express, Netscape, and Eudora, multiple email account support, multiple user configuration support.

I have been concentrating on OE 5 this week, but I gave Green a quick tryout, and my initial impression is that it is what Eudora Light might have become had Qualcomm chosen to continue the program's development.

Green is still a beta release, but I have encountered no bugs or stability problems so far.

For more information or to download a copy of Green, go to:

http://www.eware.fr/dev/what.html

You can download your own copy of Outlook Express 5 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/download/en/default.asp

Personally, I will be clicking the "Continue Test Driving Outlook Express 5" button on startup for a while yet, while I give Green a workout.

Charles W. Moore

.

Tuesday, 09-Feb-2010 14:09:17 EST