Internet Archivist

Posted on 2 Jul 2002 at 17:32

Davey Winder enjoys a new way of surfing - in his sleep - and continues his search for the elusive perfect email client.

2 Junk mail filtering is a great idea, so why complicate matters by making the default system in Outlook 98 unusable? Let me explain. I added the first couple of items of junk that arrived to the junk bin, having first been told to switch on the junk filtering option. All junk from these senders will get dumped from now on. I chose not to autodelete them until I'd made sure it worked properly, which was just as well seeing as Microsoft junk filtering is based on a pre-set list of words and punctuation, including the use of an exclamation mark and question mark in the subject line, or phrases such as 'for free'. So what happens is that innocent emails from friends and PR companies who don't know about Microsoft's dislike for parts of the English language get marked as junk and sent to the junk bin.

No real problem I thought, I'll just alter that predefined junk list - but you can't. There are no warnings about this, apart from a faint line in the junk mail organise window which states that filter keywords are not 100 per cent accurate. So what looked like a good idea is, in fact, a waste of space.

3 Two address books; now that's a novel idea. The problem is that Outlook 98 will keep the existing Outlook Express Internet mail address book, as well as adding its own contacts database. Why could these not be merged into one useful feature? The contacts list is excellent and my preferred route for email addressing, but when I'm in Outlook 98 and hit the Address Book icon, the contacts listings don't appear, but the Outlook Express address book does instead.

4 Usenet News - Outlook Express managed it, but Outlook 98 can't. Yes, I know you can read news from Outlook 98, but only by firing up the newsreader from Outlook Express as a separate application. Whatever happened to Internet integration?

Bye, and thanks for listening...'

While I await answers from Microsoft's masters of the Internet, let me tell you why despite all of this I'm now happily using Outlook 98 as my Internet email client. For a start, it beats anything else I've seen for the SoHo user. The preview pane is nice; I like being able to instantly see my mail without opening it all. While this is by no means a unique feature, the time-saving ability to show the first three lines of each message along with the subject line is certainly a winner. Integration between PIM and mail client is superb - the Today view provides all the info at a glance, while calendar and task functions add something that's missing from most email clients.

The beauty of it is that Outlook 98 feels more like an email client with added functionality than a PIM with added email. Microsoft in its wisdom wants us to call this a Desktop Information Manager - but DIM isn't the sort of acronym I'd want to be pushing, to be honest.

I also like the total flexibility of the application. Hit the Organise button and you can customise just about every aspect of function and view. I like the implementation of both digital certification and S/MIME for secure email. I like the implementation of LDAP for directory searches, and the use of simple Wizards for adding multiple account functionality. I'm still searching for that elusive perfect email client, but for now Outlook 98 has a lead, albeit with some reservations for Microsoft to answer and correct by the time we see Outlook 99.

Tech talk - LDAP

A directory enquiries service for the Internet has always been something of a pipedream, with many an attempt at establishing 'white pages' services along the way, but very few success stories. The answer, however, is now at hand, and you only have to use the 'Find People' functions in applications like Outlook 98, IE 4 or Netscape Navigator 4 to see it in action.

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