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Moore's Mac Email Client Roundup - 2003 Edition II

Email Clients O-Z

Email Clients A-L

Email Clients M-N

Friday, September 5, 2003


By Applelinks Contributing Editor Charles W. Moore

Email Clients O-Z

Outlook Express 5.0.2
Entourage For Mac
POPmail 2.2
POPmail/Lab 1.2
PowerMail 4.1.3/4.2 beta
QuickMail Pro 3.1.1
Zoe 0.4.6 Unique Email Client That Works Through A Web Browser

Outlook Express 5.0.2


(OS X; Classic PPC)

What can I say about Microsoft's ponderous free combined email (POP3/SMTP/IMAP) / Usenet news client?

It is an understatement to say that I'm not a Microsoft software fan, and I don't use OE. However, OE's a feature-laden beastie, for Microsoft masochists.

According to Microsoft's Website, Mainstream hotfix support for Outlook Express 5 was to end on June 30, 2003, and there would be no period of extended hotfix support.
Additionally, most products will receive at least eight years of online self-help support from the date of general availability. There is considerable ambiguity at this writing about Outlook Express's future.
ÊÊ
Features in OE 5.x include:
• Address AutoComplete
• Smart Attachments
• One Key Read
• An Info Bar
• Advanced Find
• Address Book Enhancements
• Account Setup Assistant (mixed blessing)
• Easy Importing of filed from other email clients
• Junk Mail Filter
• Schedules
• Mailing List Manager
• Multiuser Support
• IMAP Support

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 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.

If you regularly receive junk e-mail, 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.

Minimum System Requirements for Microsoft Outlook Express 5.x
- 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
- Open Transport 1.1.1 or higher

OE 5.x stores all messages in one huge database file -- definitely not my cup of tea. There's no way I'm going to entrust my e-mail files to Microsoft software!.

Entourage For Mac
(OS X)

Entourage for Mac is an offshoot of Outlook Express 5.x, retaining the interface, email, and newsgroups capabilities from Outlook Express and adding a personal information manager to keep track of tasks, notes, appointments, contacts, and more.

In other words, even more bloat in an already loaded to the gunwales application.

As I said, if you like that sort of stuff....

The latest update to Entourage now includes Exchange support for Mac users in organizations that use Microsoft Exchange Server for e-mail messaging and collaboration. Entourage lets you schedule meetings by accessing free/busy information, synchronize your Entourage calendar and address book with the Exchange server, and look up e-mail addresses in the Exchange global address list.

Entourage System requirements:
• PowerPC 120MHz or faster
• Mac OS 8.1 or higher. Mac OS 8.5 or higher recommended
• 32 MB of RAM with at least 1 MB of Virtual Memory for Mac OS 8.6 and earlier, 48 MB of RAM with at least 1 MB of Virtual Memory for Mac OS 9.0 and later.
• CD-ROM drive
• Display capable of 256 grays or colors at 640x480 resolution. Display capable of thousands or millions of colors and resolutions of 800x600 or higher recommended.
• 160 MB hard disk space. Will vary depending on how much data you store and the options you choose to install. You may require more or less hard disk space.

Running or moving to Mac OS X? You need Microsoft Entourage X, built specifically for Mac OS X. Entourage X seamlessly combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and tasks into one powerful program. Now offered in a box of its own, Entourage X sells for $99.

For more information, visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/
or
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/oe/

POPmail 2.2
(Classic PPC)

A simple email client from the University of Minnesota. POPmail supports POP2, POP3 and IMAP servers.

For more information, visit:
http://www1.umn.edu/adcs/help/email/MacPopmail.html

POPmail/Lab 1.2
(Classic PPC)

The Lab version of POPmail is a simple POP3 e-mail client optimized for use in computer labs and on kiosks. Here the idea is that roaming users (people on a shared machine in a lab or at a kiosk) should be able to read and compose mail without necessarily removing mail from the POP server and permanently storing it on the computer they are using. Since you can read mail without moving it off the mail server, you do not need to carry a floppy disk to keep a copy of your e-mail. Any mail you have not deleted remains on the mail server. Because POPmail/Lab was designed for computer labs and kiosks, the user interface was kept as simple as possible so that there is minimal training required.

For more information, visit:
http://www1.umn.edu/adcs/help/email/MacPopmail.html

PowerMail 4.1.3/4.2 beta
(OS X; Classic PPC)

PowerMail 4 is the latest release of CTM Development's Macintosh e-mail client, focused specifically on features requested by our users.

Built on top of the PowerMail Engine", a robust cross-platform foundation encapsulating 9 years of messaging and directory experience, PowerMail is continuously enhanced with the following objectives:

• Establish a lean, mean and efficient alternative e-mail client for people who care about e-mail
• Acknowledge the importance of our user's data accesibility by offering reliable storage, high-speed indexing and the ability to export to a variety of standard formats
• Design and implement a clean, robust Macintosh user-interface with best-of-class Mac OS X support
• Contribute to the on-going diversity of mail clients on the Mac
• Evolve our code base on a regular basis to meet customer needs
• Excel in supporting multi-lingual, world-wide mail using Unicode standards
• Support advanced Mac OS 9 technologies as well native multi-tasking and memory protection on Mac OS X
• Provide a smooth migration experience to users of Microsoft Entourage, Outlook Express, Claris Emailer and Netscape Communicator 4.x

Beyond the classic PowerMail feature set (high-speed find-by-content using Sherlock" search technology, multiple accounts) PowerMail 4 includes user-experience and feature enhancements in the following areas:

Performance:
• Compact memory footprint, faster execution speed than other popular mail clients
• Background indexing of mail accelerates sending and receiving mail by 400%
• Multi-threading allows reading and writing of mail while downloading from multiple server accounts
• Virtually unlimited filtering
• Special attention paid to users on wireless networks (discontinuous connections, bandwidth constraints) and portable computing needs
• Support of POP3, IMAP 4rev1, SMTP protocols as well as APOP and ESMTP authentication standards.

Ease of use:
• Redesigned address book with true groups, folders and multiple e-mail addresses per recipient
• Ability to view mail databases with or without preview panes
• Import assistant
• "View only" filtering on any given column of a folder
• Redesigned scheduling: stored sets include master SMTP server to override current setting on a per-schedule basis
• Better error handling and notification
• Improved interaction with POP3 server-side message database
• Colored labels for folders and messages
• Contextual menus for folder lists, message lists and message bodies
• Multiple signature database with random signature functionality
• Spell checking using Word Services AppleEvent suite, allowing the user to pick spell checkers
• Inline input of all of the application's International text fields (not just text body), and improved support for right-to-left scripts
• Compatible with PGP" digital signatures and encryption
• Supports Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X technologies (Keychain, Unicode&)

System Requirements
PowerMail 4 requires an Apple Power Macintosh, iMac, PowerBook, iBook or other Mac OS compatible computer equipped with a PowerPC processor, Mac OS version 8.5 or later. Tha•, Indian, Hebrew and Arabic text support on Mac OS X is currently only possible in the Classic environment. Mac OS X 10.0.3 to 10.2.3 (Jaguar) supported, 10.2 or later recommended and required for new 4.1.1 features.

The PowerMail 4.2 public beta is also available for download.

New in the PowerMail 4.2 public beta (from version 4.1.3)

Now includes entirely new CTM FoxTrot high-speed search technology; benefits over previous PowerMail releases include:
• Ultra-fast indexing and searching: benchmarks show performance gains ranging from 300% to over 500%
• Instant on-the-fly indexing upon fetching messages
• New extensible search user interface with combinable fields - similar to Panther's Finder searches
• Supports the following search criteria:
- Entire message content
- Subject
- Body
- From
- To
- From or To
- other message attributes:
- Date sent [range]
- Date received [range]
- Label
- Account
• Supports the following combinable search operators:
- Ability to restrict searches to subject, to, from or body
- Includes all of the words
- Includes exact phrase
- Includes at least one of the words
- Does not include the words
- matches the search pattern (advanced mode):
- Search literal (ie: "the quick brown fox")
- Search words starting with (ie: quick brown fox )
- Omit words (ie: quick brown -shoe -typewriter)
- OR searches (ie: quick|rapid|fast brown fox)
• Offers colored hiliting of search results in a message's body
• Other improvements over previous searching in PowerMail 3 and 4:
- Gets rid of all former "Lady" errors
- Background indexing now fully reliable on Mac OS X
- Numbers are now indexed
- Supports Japanese, Chinese and Korean properly (entirely based on Unicode)
- Most of the re-indexing process occurs in a background thread, allowing simultaneous work in the application (this used to only be true for updating the index)

• FILTERING can now also occur based on a message's content (notably useful for creating customizeable built-in spam filters)

• IMAP SEARCHES now possible and very fast due to indexing of the local IMAP cache (once connected, the search dialog will allow restricting searches to the selected IMAP mailboxes)

• Still supports Mac OS X, Mac OS 9 and even 8.6

• Now compatible with the "Panther" (Mac OS X 10.3) preview builds

[Note: this test version is currently not localized in French, Japanese, Dutch or German; these translations will be included in the final 4.2 version.]

For more information, visit:
http://www.ctmdev.com

QuickMail Pro 3.1.1
(OS X; Classic PPC)

QuickMail Pro is a reliable, affordable POP3 e-mail client for Macintosh, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms, including XP. QuickMail Pro is perfect for home, office or school; anywhere you need a powerful e-mail client to communicate. Plus, you'll have all of your e-mail available whether booting into Mac OS X or Mac OS 9. If you are looking for an e-mail client that's easy to set up, has an intuitive interface and plenty of powerful features -- look no more.

QuickMail Pro includes features like SMTP Authorization support and Mail Manager rules for filtering e-mail and reducing SPAM. QuickMail Pro also includes support for multiple accounts in one window and a powerful address book that doubles as a contact manager. For more of what QuickMail can do, check out the Data sheet.

New in version 3.1
• Mac OS X 10.2 is here. Check out our Jaguar Compatibility page to see just what that means for you.
• QuickMail Pro client 3.1 for Macintosh is now available. This new version provides support for built-in viewing of HTML messages within the message window and Message Peek. Version 3.1 is available as a free download to registered users of QuickMail Pro 3.0 for Macintosh.

QuickMail Pro 3.x for Macintosh sells for $34.95.

System Requirements

v3.0 for Mac OS 8.6-10.x
• 20MB of RAM
• 20MB free hard disk space
• TCP/IP network or Dialup PPP

v3.1 for Mac OS 9.1-10.x
• 32MB of RAM
• 40MB free hard disk space
• TCP/IP network or Dialup PPP

To download QuickMail Pro 2.0 for Macintosh 30-day demo:
http://www.cesoft.com/products/qmpro.html

Zoe 0.4.6 Unique Email Client That Works Through A Web Browser
(OS X)

Zoe is a web based e-mail client with a built in SMTP and POP3 server and Google-like search functionality that lives on your desktop. Zoe uses Lucene technology to provided instant searching and threading of your e-mails.

New in this version:
CHANGES
- J2SE 1.4 dependancies
- Internal data storage

BUG FIXES
- browser launches before the server is ready to handle a request
- display not updating properly after discarding a mail
- attachments parsing when there is only one mime part
- multipart/mixed text parsing

ENHANCEMENTS
- http response gzip encoding
- html parser
- html encoder
- uri encoder
- url parser
- mailing list detection
- message navigation
- smtp import
- mail bundle

NEW FEATURES
- multipart/alternative views
- purge
- mail composer
- bug reporter

This release is not backward compatible. For instructions on how to migrate your data from an earlier version, refer to the mailing list.

New in version 0.4.5
• "More for less": half the size of previous version
• New http server
• New application server
• HTTP Authentication
• URL as UI
• short URLs
• easy-to-type URLs
• URLs that visualize the application structure
• URLs that are "hackable" to allow users to move to higher levels of the information architecture by hacking off the end of the URL
• persistent URLs that don't change
• Updated ZOEService.service with enhanced integration with Mac OS X system service
• Updated ZOEMail.bundle with enhanced integration with Apple's Mail

System requirements:
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higheror
• Mozilla 1.2 or higher
• Java 1.4 or higher

Zoe is freeware

For more information, visit:
http://guests.evectors.it/zoe/

***

Email Clients A-L

Email Clients M-N

Charles W. Moore

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