Best free e-mail add-ons
How to send an email using any "From:" address
Subscriber Richard Dent writes " Gizmo, here's a website that your subscribers might find useful. It allows anyone to send an email from any "From:" address without registering or logging on."
http://send.arrowmail.co.uk
How to sync Gmail with Outlook
Here's a neat way for Outlook users to backup their data using a Gmail account. Apart from backup, it allows you to access your Outlook email via Gmail, and to access your Gmail mail via Outlook.
http://cnxn.ca/GmailMirror.html
How to backup your email for free
For most users their Email files are among the most valuable data items on their PC yet curiously, they are often the least frequently backed up.
The reason is simple: email archives are usually located in obscure locations on user's computers. In fact many users have no idea where their mail is stored.
The situation is made worse by the fact that many email programs have no inbuilt backup.
It's an unfortunate state of affairs but here's an excellent free solution for you.
MailStore is an email backup program for multiple email clients. Rather than backup in the normal way it works by importing you email into its own store. You can import from Outlook, Windows Mail, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Exchange, and SeaMonkey as well a file or any POP or IMAP account.
That means you can not only backup your email files on your computer but also backup the email in any webmail account for which you have POP or IMAP access, Gmail for example.
This approach not only provides backup, it also allows you to consolidate and duplicate your email into a single store rather than having it scattered across multiple locations. Furthermore, you can search this single store using MailStore's fast inbuilt search facility.
Mail held in the consolidated store can also be exported and imported back into your email program. So you have real backup.
It all works effortlessly provided your email is stored in the default location usually used by your email client. If not, you will need to tell MailStore where to find your files. Thankfully there is a guide [2] that will assist you in this process.
Overall, this is a most useful product. If you use one of the supported email clients and are not currently backing up your email then I suggest you try it out. I also suggest you read this short tutorial [2]. Thanks to subscribers Kent Fulton and Ender Wiggin for the suggestion. Freeware, Windows 2000->Vista, 10.5MB
[1] http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx[2] http://www.tucows.com/article/1954
Free utility makes opening Winmail.dat attachments easy
Last month I mentioned a website [1] that is useful if you want to read one of those strange winmail.dat email attachments sent by a user of Microsoft Outlook. Several subscribers wrote in, including Darren Lovatt, Joe Francis and Dirk Röhrig, to tell me about a nifty free utility that's designed just for this exact task.
Here's what Darren said "Gizmo I thought you might be interested in Eolsoft's Winmail Opener [2]. It's a small and simple utility that allows you to view and extract contents of TNEF-encoded messages such as the infamous winmail.dat. That means if you receive winmail.dat on your e-mail, with Winmail Opener you can view the rich text message contents and attachments embedded into this file. Winmail Opener is absolutely free - no nag screens, no ads, no spyware, no time limit. The executable is small and system requirements are low. Been using it for a while, and it always does the job."
Many thanks to Darren and the others for the suggestion. A lot of readers are going to find this really useful. Freeware, Windows 95->XP, 304KB.
[1] http://tud.at/php/tnef/
[2] http://www.eolsoft.com/freeware/winmail_opener/
Dictate an email reminder on your cell phone
This is so good. Phone a special number, dictate a reminder message with a date and time and you will receive a reminder email and/or phone call at that time along with the message you dictated. Pity that cell phone manufacturers don't provide a similar functionality in the cell phone itself. Thanks to Chris Price for this one. (Jott is currently for USA based subscribers only.)
http://www.jott.com
Free spell-checker fixes Outlook Express problems
Subscriber David Spoelstra writes "Gizmo I don't like Outlook, so I've been using Outlook Express 6 instead. I've also been using Office 2003. Well, I decided to upgrade to Office 2007. Guess what? Outlook 2007 breaks the spell checking in OE 6! And guess what Microsoft's fix [1] is? Use one of a 'variety of third-party free spell-checking programs available on the Internet.' Thank you Microsoft! I tried your recommended TinySpell [2]. It works great except for one small problem. I tend to run my machine with my speakers off since I hate it when some website starts talking or playing music. Unfortunately, TinySpell only uses an error tone to let you know you made a spelling error. So, I am using 'Spell Checker for OE 2.1' [3], [4] also known as Vampire that despite its name, works for OE 5.0-6.x It operates exactly like the original spell checker in OE 6 so it's a perfect solution to this Microsoft created problem." Indeed it is an excellent solution David though for those who leave their PC sound turned on, TinySpell has the advantage of working across many applications not just Outlook Express.
[1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932974
[2] http://tinyspell.m6.net/
[3] http://www.geocities.com/vampirefo/
[4] http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2952
Free utility adds voice email to Outlook
Waxmail is a free Outlook/Outlook Express plug-in that allows you to send/reply to emails by using MP3 voice file attachments. All you do is click the "Add Waxmail" button, record your message using the simple control panel and the rest is automatic. The free version of the software is full featured but adds a Waxmail advertising link at the bottom of your emails. It's quite discretely done but can be removed by paying $29.95 for the full product. Freeware, requires Outlook 2000 and later or Outlook Express, 1.23MB
http://www.waxmail.biz/
How to trace an email
SpyBot's resident monitor is scantily documented. If you've ever wondered exactly what it does then you'll find some of the answers here.
http://www.voiceofthepublic.com/SSD/SI/teatimer.swf.html
Thunderbird v1.5 is here
After a long period in beta the final version of the excellent Mozilla Thunderbird email client has been released. New features include a built in phishing detector, spell check as-you-type, auto saving of drafts, global inbox filters, support for server-side spam filtering and more. Most importantly, stability has been greatly improved. Overall this great free email client has been made even better. Outlook Express users should seriously consider switching. You'll get more features plus a way safer product as well. Free Open Source, Windows and other platforms, 6.08 MB.
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/releases/1.5.html
How to send 1.5GB emails for free
Limited by your ISP to a maximum email size of 10MB or less? No problem, use this file upload service from FileFactory and you can email files up to 1.5GB. FileFactory also allows you to upload non-email files up to 500MB and share them with multiple users. While the maximum size of individual files is limited, the total of all your files stored on the server is not. Not bad for nix.
http://www.filefactory.com/