The gang over at CTM Development must greet even the rainiest, murkiest of days with a smile. They must just laugh off paper cuts, Martin Lawrence movies and drivers who don't use their turn signal. Bring on the famine, locusts and festering boils, because CTM Development is having good time. And just think; they owe this all to MacOS X.
I've been using OS X since the public beta, and with each passing application, I find MacOS 9 to be fading off into the distance much as my fandom for Van Halen; they just serve no purpose anymore. The classic MacOS served me well, but its day has passed. There are better worlds out there.
Trouble is, until recently, there weren't better e-mail clients out there. As I mentioned in my review of PowerMail v3.09, Apple's included Mail program is useless to everyone except those who only pretend to send e-mail, and Outlook Express is still by Microsoft. Even worse, it's still an OS X no-show. The closest Microsoft has come to bringing it to OS X is to update the web graphics to be more Aqua-like. Glad you guys are keeping busy over there in Redmond.
There are other OS X compatible e-mail programs on the market, such as the unique Nisus Email, but for those who want the features and familiarity of Outlook Express or the venerable Claris Em@iler, PowerMail is the way to go.
Now, some of you all might be asking yourselves, "Say, Kirk, why would we want to leave our current e-mail program in the first place?" In a word, OS X...or is that three words? Or no words? They didn't teach jargon back in the English department of Ohio Northern, although I did learn an awful lot about George Eliot. Get this...he's a girl!
Anyway, Claris Em@iler will most likely never see an OS X version, Eudora just recently hit beta (no estimate on when it'll go final), and, as mentioned earlier, Microsoft doesn't seem to know what to do about Outlook Express. If you feel like waiting around for it, Outlook Express for OS X will no doubt be powerful and free. So why pay to make the switch to PowerMail now? It's a matter of size. When you're a small company with one product, you have to listen to your customers. If they call for a new feature, you include it. And if not, you at least give them the option to include themselves.
Before we get to that, though, let's talk about what, in my opinion, is the best new feature of PowerMail; the interoperability between OS X and Classic OS. I can boot up in X and download my e-mail with PowerMail, then boot up later in 9 and still have those e-mails sitting in my in-box. This is a huge improvement over PowerMail v3.09 which was also OS X compatible. Now, my messages don't get forgotten in an e-mail in-box I check only once a week. Users will also be pleased to know that PowerMail supports POP3, IMAP 4rev1, SMTP protocols as well as APOP and ESMTP authentication standards.
With my previous version of PowerMail, I had tremendous difficulty getting my Em@iler addresses and message database imported. It's a good thing I kept Em@iler around because I had no problems with importing the information to PowerMail v3.1. It was a fairly slow process (due largely to the amount of information I was importing, of course), but at least there were no crashes during the process. The import assistant also allows for the import of messages from:
Outlook Express 4.x
MS Entourage exported mailbox
Eudora (and Eudora Japanese)
Netscape Communicator
Unix Mailbox
Mac OS X Mail or AppleShare IP Mailbox
PowerMail Exchange
Once you've completed the migration from your previous e-mail client, the features of PowerMail start to impress and, in some cases, annoy. I've grown to love PowerMail's search feature, which is based on Sherlock technology. As my database of Applelinks e-mails grows, PowerMail continues to have no problem searching through the thousands of messages to display what I need to see. Each time you perform a search, PowerMail shows you how many messages have not yet been indexed and asks if you like to do so. This takes little time to perform, and it greatly speeds the process of future searches.
There are other, smaller features hidden within the program that can improve your e-mail experience. For instance, PowerMail allows you to customize the views of individual folders. If you don't need to see the attachment size or status of your sent mail box, for example, shut them off. You can easily set the preferences of one box to be your default then assign any other box to use the default. If you don't like preview panes, turn it off. If you do, you can even customize the way in which the pane is displayed and what information is included.
Individual e-mail accounts can be assigned to use the Apple Keychain for access, and each account offers its own set of limited POP3 settings. I'm still disappointed there's no "maximum download size" feature, however. If someone sends you a 3MB file, you can't block the attachment while still pulling in the e-mail to see what it's all about, deciding later to download the entire thing or delete it from the server. And with the number of PC using friends I have, the ability to delete all those ridiculous .exe files of Bill Gates throwing gerbil pies at Bin Ladin without having to download them first would make me a much happier man. Download the files, I mean...not the gerbil pies. On the other hand, because PowerMail is multithreaded, you can at least check your other accounts and even write e-mails while these files are downloading.
I'd also like to see a printed manual, if at all possible. PowerMail has many unique features and does some traditional tasks in non-traditional ways. Unless you enjoy scrolling your way through the Apple's Help Viewer or your Internet browser, discovering them is currently a matter of trial and error or simply stumbling across them. More often than I'd like, I found methods of organizing files or performing a certain function that could've made my life easier from the onset. Even a "quick start guide," if nothing else, could've prevented this.
CTM sort of...slightly...makes up for this with their mailing lists. Pretty much any question you have can get answered here, but the answer is never immediate. I don't know why developers feel that printed manuals--even in PDF form--are no longer needed. Is it arrogance? Ignorance? Indolence? If it's the latter, that may have worked to our advantage. By allowing users to add features to PowerMail through AppleScript, a bevy of useful scripts have been created and are available for free download...just like with Em@iler.
From this database, you can also access Tim's PowerMail FAQ. You'll want to bookmark this one, trust me. It's well organized, it explains a lot that isn't covered elsewhere, and it offers some really great tips. In fact, it even explains how you can find the PowerMail manual which is buried away deep inside the installed folders. Curiously enough, this HTML manual was not where it should've been in OS X, but was in OS 9. I think someone's trying to play with my mind.
And speaking of playing with your mind, the act of registering PowerMail could also use a major overhaul. I understand developers wanting to prevent software piracy, but the process of reinstalling PowerMail or moving it to another system requires more work than it should. These days, I want to click that install button and type in a registration number. There. Done. I don't want to have to move files into their proper place and perform multiple downloads just to get an application running.
There are some other annoying aspects to PowerMail (no keystroke to delete files, for example) and there are other pleasant ones (the ability to rotate the toolbar). These are the types of small things that either make or break a program for individual users, which is probably why CTM offers a thirty day demo. The $49 price will probably, for many users, negate any benefits the program may bring them. For people serious about their e-mail, however, especially those who have reason to boot up in both of Apple's operating systems, that thirty day demo will most likely result in years of devoted use.
Review: PowerMail v3.1
Once you've completed the migration from your previous e-mail client, the features of PowerMail start to impress and, in some cases, annoy. I've grown to love PowerMail's search feature, which is based on Sherlock technology. As my database of Applelinks e-mails grows, PowerMail continues to have no problem searching through the thousands of messages to display what I need to see. Each time you perform a search, PowerMail shows you how many messages have not yet been indexed and asks if you like to do so. This takes little time to perform, and it greatly speeds the process of future searches.
