e-Mail Notify for Windows
Topic 186 · 5 responses · archived october 2000
~terry
Thu, Jul 25, 1996 (11:31)
seed
e-Mail Notify for Windows -- e-Mail Notify is the first background
mail client for Windows 95 (that I know of). Versions are also
available for Windows 3.x (16-bit and Win 32s) and NT (3.5 and
3.51). Like other background mail clients, e-Mail Notify checks
your host for mail at scheduled intervals. e-Mail Notify is unique
from other background clients in that it also downloads and
displays the headers for all messages you receive. It is also unique
in that it works from within the windows tray bar on the task bar in
Windows 95. Like all 32-bit winsock clients in Windows 95, you
will need a 32-bit TCP/IP stack (Trumpet is only 16-bit and
therefore will not work) in order for e-Mail Notify to work in
Windows 95. The Windows 3.x versions are both mono-threaded.
New features include the ability to launch an external mail client,
the ability to monitor multiple mailboxes, options for Quick
Viewing and Quick Deletion of mail, and dial-up network control
(e-Mail Notify automatically dials your internet provider, retrieves
your mail headers, and hangs up all by itself).
Like Post Office, e-Mail Notify only checks for mail (it's not a
reader); however, it can also easily launch the mail client of your
choice when mail arrives. The advantage to using e-Mail Notify
over a regular mail client for checking mail is that it takes up a
minimum 2-3% of system resources, as opposed to a normal
mailreader, which can suck up anywhere from 7-10% of your
system's resources. For Windows users that always keep one eye on
their resources, this is a great client to have. With its inexpensive
shareware status, this is one background mail checker that's hard to
beat.
Pros: Background mail checker in a variety of versions that all use a
minimum of system resources
Cons: Doesn't read mail -- it will be easier for many users to just
use their normal mail client
New: Dial-up networking control, multiple mailbox monitoring,
bug fixes
Version Reviewed: 1.20
Date of Review: 7/22/96 Reviewer: Forrest Stroud
~ludovic
Fri, Aug 9, 1996 (13:42)
#1
Hi,
I'm Ludovic Dubost, the author of this program and
will be very happy to answer questions about e-Mail Notify.
(as long as the long stays reasonable)
I'll come back from time to time...
~terry
Fri, Aug 9, 1996 (20:17)
#2
Hi Ludovic! Is the above review a fair assessment? What would you add
or comment on about Forrest's evaluation? How has the response been by
your users. By the way, if you feel inclined to add a link from your
website to the conference we would welcome this. Glad you've joined in
this new conversation and look forward to hearing more from you.
~ludovic
Sat, Aug 10, 1996 (04:33)
#3
Hi,
In my opinion it's one of the most complete review I've seen on the web
for my program. If I had to add some more comments, these would be:
1/ Mutli Mailbox monitoring is very important as most mailers don't
take into account that you can have more than one email address
2/ e-Mail Notify's main idea is not to disturb the user during his work.
This means that you can configure e-Mail Notify to be very silent (on errors)
and just change the icon or play a sound for new mail..
3/ There isn't any talk of the AUtomatic launcher feature which allows
to do some custom things whenever there is new mail. Some people
wrote some batch file to dial in their pager when they get new mail.
Concerning the user's response. I'm very happy with it. It helped
me change a lot of thing in my program to make it more easy to use.
v1.20 includes a lot of minor changesand corrects a lot of behaviors
of e-Mail Notify that were annoying.. This is all thanks to the users.
User feedback is very important. Even if I do not get time to answer
very fast all mails, I try not to leave any in my mailbox without response.
Unfortunately e-Mail Notify is not my main activity and I lack a lot of
time to maintain a beautifull Web site for it. I should upgrade the web
site in a while and Credit Card registration will also be avaiable soon.
I'll post links here when this happens...
~kpl
Wed, Aug 14, 1996 (00:55)
#4
e-mail Notify is a great program, granted.
I just d/l'ed it again for 1.20, and the interface is cleaned up, more features are included, and beats all of the other mail checkers out there. But there is one problem, that being the price.
$5 is a good deal on any piece of software. However, I just checked the readme files of e-mail Notify and found the price to be at $15 for the 32-bit version. Now, perhaps my value system is a bit jilted, but I believe $15 is too much for the small convenience of a mail checker. To put the value of e-mail Notify in perspective, I bought my copy of Agent at $29. It features offline newsreading and mail reading capabilities. e-mail Notify weighs in at about half the price of Agent, but delivering nowhere ne
r half the functionality.
$10 would make my decision a little easier. $8 would be ideal for me. But $15 is just too much for just a fancy, but mere mail checker.
~ludovic
Wed, Aug 14, 1996 (10:09)
#5
Dear Kevin,
I will try to explain to you why I raised the price to 15$.
To really understand what brought me to this price, you need
to understand what it takes to handle a registration process
and answering questions about a program you wrote.
First, for every user, I need to create a registration key
and send it by mail. This is a much more lengthly process than
you might think.
With registration coming up by mail, I have to extract the name
and email of the person, and it sometimes not typed and difficult
to read. I have to enter it in my database and send the mail.
If the email is wrong or if I read it wrong, I need to check out
in my mail to see if the person sent me an email and find out
out the real address.
Now, in a few weeks, registration for email notify will be possible
using a credit card through www.windows95.com. They take 20% to do
that. If I priced my app at 10$ this would mean 8$ for me to handle
the sending of the registration key.
Now see it from your side and instead of comparing e-Mail Notify
with Agent, compare it with anything you buy in your real life.
How much do you pay to go to see a movie ? 7 or 8$ ! How long does
it last ? 2 hours... How much do you spend for your food every day ?
e-Mail Notify will be usefull for you for month... and any upgrades
will still work with the key I send you...
I'm working on e-Mail Notify for the pleasure of doing it. If it
can bring me some money then fine. But right now if I look at the
time I spend answering mail, sending registration keys and working
on making my program better, then the fact is that is for 5 or 10$
a copy.. then it's not worth it...
Ludovic