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> Spam Protection Guide - 07
Spam Protection Guide - 07
EMAIL - Software And Resources
The trend will grow for email programs to make it easy
to turn off HTML and switch to text-only. Also we suspect, email programs will
develop the ability to check mail on the server before downloading. How far along
this path Microsoft is with Outlook Express we don't know, perhaps readers will
drop a line with their experiences.
If you find that your current email program doesn't adequately
serve your need to preview email in text, there is a perfect piece of Free
Software that has been a modest cult hit for some years, called Popcorn.
You can find it here:
http://www.ultrafunk.com/products/popcorn/
Here are all the nice things about popcorn.
- It's free.
- It works, and it's very stable.
- It's very small (less than 200K) - you can carry it on a floppy disk and actually
run it from a floppy disk if you want.
- It's portable - see above.
- It doesn't install, it's an executable that simply runs from wherever you
have it on your computer. It therefore doesn't use the Registry, and it has no
default installation path (no virus is going to find it). It has its own little
"ini" file to hold your account information. If you're curious you can
read and modify this file in Notepad, it's very simple.
- You can have multiple "installations" of Popcorn, each in its own
folder with separate ini file.
- It handles multiple accounts. You can scan and clean all your email accounts
easily, one by one.
- It reads the FROM and Subject lines on the server and displays all the email
on the server as a list of one-liners.
- You check which ones to delete, unread if you want - it only deletes email
from the server when you tell it to.
- It doesn't handle attachments (we call that a plus, see more below)
Many people use Popcorn to clean the server and then download
the welcome mail into their final "for record" email program. You can
check your email at work in Popcorn and then download it for real when you get
home. Or the reverse.
Many people use Popcorn as their primary email program.
Two issues then arise: what about attachments, and how do you use an address book?
Attachments
Popcorn does not handle attachments. The program's author
has debated for years whether to develop this capacity. Finally he has decided,
no, never.
We support this decision. If you're interested you can
read the various debates at the forum:
http://www.ultrafunk.com/support/forum/
Popcorn doesn't download an attachment as an attachment
(i.e. as a binary file). It reads the ASCII text that all binaries are composed
of. In this sense you can "read" an attachment - useful for seeing the
header of the attached file.
But Popcorn will never be able to send an attachment for
you.
There are utilities that will decode and encode binaries
into ascii and the reverse, for sending as a text stream through email protocol.
ONLY if you are interested in an approach this
technical, take a look at Fastcode:
http://fileutil.tripod.com/Fastcode.htm
and also Wincode:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,1770,00.asp
Most people will find it simplest to use a different email
program to retrieve or send attachments, even if they use Popcorn as the primary
program.
You don't have to use Outlook Express,
or any program that is "installed" and using the Registry, or residing
in all the standard locations on your C drive.
If you like the idea of having an email program that doesn't
install, simply an executable that runs from whatever folder you create for it,
then you'll like a little Chinese program called Foxmail. You can download the
older version of it from us, right-click on this link and save the zip file to
your computer.
http://hunterhost.com/foxmail21.zip
note that this is Version 2.1, an older version.
Extract the file to a folder of your choice, and set a
shortcut or click directly on the executable file, foxmail.exe. The program will
open, ready for you to configure a new account. It's that simple. You recall from
How Email Works that you need to enter your POP
and SMTP information, and you should add a real name in the FROM field, and a
reply-to email. Version 2.1 doesn't allow multiple accounts, but you can easily
have several different configurations of Foxmail set up in separate folders, pointing
at different accounts.
The newer version of Foxmail can be found
here:
http://download.com.com/3000-2367-9692109.html
This is version 4.0. This version now installs into Program Files, so if you wanted
a program that was portable and ran from wherever was most useful, this is not
for you. Reviews of this latest version are very good, you may want to
use this as your HTML email program.
AND NOTE that Foxmail 4.0 has the ability to read headers on the server
without downloading the email. If you try it let us know how you like
it.
Address Book
What about an address book if you don't use Outlook Express?
Most email programs will have address book capability, so if you settle on a different
program you can build your address book in it.
If you use a text-only program such as Popcorn for your
primary email program, you won't have an address book at all. This doesn't have
to be a problem. You could keep a text file of your contact addresses (there's
no law against it).
A text file would contain a simple list of email contacts
like this:
John Smith <jon@hotmail.com>
Daisy Chain <daisy@springnet.com>
etc...
Instead of one click on a name to add to your TO: field,
you would have to copy and paste one line into the field.
This may strike some people as inconvenient. Probably few
people will choose to go text only as a primary mechanism. For those who might,
we have offered this information, and our encouragement.
We hope you found these pointers useful to break out of
slavery to the current state of email. Enjoy your freedom!
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