I realize I am off topic here, but...though much of my mail uses Gmail, I also want a computer-based email client. I have long used Thunderbird, but now am also looking at The Bat, Barca Pro b/c it has a built-in planner function, and Chaos Intellect for the same reason.

Any suggestions from anyone?

Chaos Intellect seems to be the best at tying each email in with a total contact history, including meetings, and tasks. But I am not sure how important that all is in the long run.

Thanks.

Daly

For what you are looking for, I wanted to use Gemx Do Organizer. It was great idea from them, but the implementation lacked. Particularly the email client module is very basic.
Can't think of any other planner+email in one...well...ehm...MS Outlook ;)

Thanks Thomas.

I have given Chaos Intellect a good look. Had a very minor problem that was more my ignorance than anything, and phoned the company. Turned out I was speaking with the owner. We got my question answered, and then he went on to explain some other features to me. I was very impressed.

www.ChaosSoftware.com

Daly

Thomas wrote:

For what you are looking for, I wanted to use Gemx Do Organizer. It was great idea from
them, but the implementation lacked. Particularly the email client module is very
basic.
Can't think of any other planner+email in one...well...ehm...MS Outlook ;)

Greetings Daly,

First of all I don't think you are off-topic at all, especially given the prominence of e-mail in the task manager thread.

Regarding e-mail management, I have personally long settled on dedicated programs that can (be) link(ed) to/from outher programas, rather than searching for all-round solutions. As such, I am currently using The Bat! which seems one of the most powerful.

An important aspect for me is a database infrastructure which can make enormous difference in spped when one is dealing with hundreds or even thousands of e-mails. As far as I know, only Outlook, Outlook Express and The Bat! rest on proper databases, though I don't know of Thunderbird.

Regarding Chaos Software, I was a registered user of Time & Chaos 5.0/6.0 and had also purchased a software bundle of additional software. Of these, their e-mail application, though powerful, was (as most of Chaos software) too North American in its outlook; among other issues, it couldn't handle foreign characters.

Cheers
Alexander


Daly de Gagne wrote:

I realize I am off topic here, but...though much of my mail uses Gmail, I also want a
computer-based email client. I have long used Thunderbird, but now am also looking at
The Bat, Barca Pro b/c it has a built-in planner function, and Chaos Intellect for the
same reason.

Any suggestions from anyone?

Chaos Intellect seems to be the best at
tying each email in with a total contact history, including meetings, and tasks. But I
am not sure how important that all is in the long run.

Thanks.

Daly

Daly -
If you use Zoot32 on a regular basis, Outlook syncs with it, which is a major plus for some of its users.

Derek

I have been using Becky for some years, tried Chaos Intellect and went back to Becky. It is incredibly flexible and powerful though the documentation is somewhat light.

It has a very powerful query function which can be saved and subsequently accessed as a pseudo folder, so your emails can be stored in one folder but also appear in others (useful when you want to file things not only by company but also by project and maybe by responsibility as well).

The basics are very well covered and mailbox support is particularly comprehensive. For example it includes 'profile' support so that any mailbox can be accessed easily through different ISPs depending whether you are at home in the office travelling or whatever. Mail files can be located anywhere on the system and are stored in text format, another plus.

It has a menu option to set itself up on a 'thumb' drive with (say) the last year's emails so you can use it from a computer cafe and re-sync later, but rearrangements and deletions confuse it, so I use this facility just to receive and send, then re-sync when back at base. Interestingly, Intellect has a full sync facility with thumb drives and it works well with emails (though it does not copy set up files from other applications, so for example personalised task priorities are not copied across - maddening).

Becky has lots of un-obvious helpful features, for instance if you click the 'From:' bit (literally the word 'from') of an email header it will show you the 'from', 'reply to' and 'return path' headers and clicking on one of these gives options to 'compose to', 'reply to' or 'add to address book'. This makes it particularly easy to use with the emailias service (which gives spam protection at low cost by giving you a different address to give to each correspondent, so you can quickly junk one if it becomes spammed). I recommend emailias very highly, particularly since the owner is very responsive to questions and requests. Intellect does not support emailias use.

At the last count Becky was US$40 including lifetime updates.

Web sites are:
www.rimarts.co.jp (Becky)
www.emailias.com (emailias)

Terry