Eudora 7: Highly Evolved Email Power

Product Review: Page (1) of 2 - 12/21/05

Eudora 7: Highly Evolved Email Power New version is a must-upgrade, unique features make it worth the switch By Charlie White

Qualcomm has released a new version of its Eudora email software, version 7.0 (Windows-only thus far, $49.95 for a 12-month subscription, or free for Sponsored Mode with advertisements, Mac package is currently at version 6.3), that has a rather short list of new features for a full-point release. However, if you?re upgrading from a previous version, there?s one blockbuster addition that?s well worth the price of the upgrade. If you?re not a previous Eudora user but are considering a switch, there is a long list of reasons why abandoning your old email software for this one would be a great idea. Eudora is an enormously powerful program which offers an excellent alternative to the ubiquitous Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Eudora 7 is the new Ultra-Fast Search capability. It?s able to scan hundreds of thousands of e-mail messages and find whatever keyword you designate with astonishing speed. When you first install Eudora 7, the program indexes each and every word in all of your email messages and headers, creating a database that can be searched almost instantaneously. Based on the highly-regarded X1 search engine that?s been available for Windows users for the past couple of years, it?s now a part of Eudora, and can not only search keywords, but can execute Boolean searches where you can search for phrase that does not contain a certain keyword. This is a particular advantage to Eudora users, because desktop search software packages such as Google Desktop aren?t currently able to search Eudora databases. To see this new feature in action, take a look at this video from Qualcomm.

Here's Eudora's user interface, where you can preview your email messages in a pane below the mailbox.

Being able to instantly search your e-mail archive brings benefits that you may not have anticipated. For instance, I was wondering exactly when I had visited a company in Seattle a few years ago, and all I needed to do enter the search term ?Seattle? and the X1 search facility blazed through every e-mail I had ever written, finding every instance of the word Seattle in less than one second. I quickly realized that I had visited Seattle on March 15, 2004. Using Eudora?s previous search facility, I never would have attempted such a search, because even if it could have found that information, it would?ve taken entirely too long to make it worthwhile. During my testing of Eudora 7, I?ve come to a realization that this could be a life-changing feature. This is the kind of upgrade that can make a big difference in your productivity.

You can eliminate the preview pane and see just one mailbox at a time. Here is the in box alone, with a tab at the bottom for the out box. Notice the color-coded messages, which can be designated manually or by a preset filter.

Other features in this new upgrade include a potential career-saving feature called BossWatch. This little filter can warn you if you?re about to reply to a sensitive email address of which you may not be aware. For example, if you designate your boss?s email address is one of those sensitive addresses, and then you?ll be warned every time you?re going to be sending something to him, whether it?s accidental or intentional. Think about how that might be able to save you.

If you?re not currently a Eudora user, Qualcomm makes it easy for you to move your data over from other e-mail packages such as Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Netscape messenger. With its easy-to-use import feature, you can bring all of your email messages over to Eudora intact and get back to work in no time.

Eudora is an exceptionally mature e-mail package, where unique features have been accumulating with each release for more than a decade. One standout, released in version 6.1, is Eudora?s JunkWatch feature. This remarkable capability has nearly solved the problem of junk mail clogging up the inbox. It starts off innocently enough, allowing almost all the mail to pass through, including messages from addresses that are in your address book and almost everything else. It only marks the most obvious junk to be sent to the junk box. The best part of this junk routine is that you teach it what is junk and what is not with a simple click of the mouse as you work, and after using it for a couple of weeks, it becomes surprisingly accurate at separating the wheat from the chaff. Over a period of months, you can fine-tune this precision junk mail scalpel, freeing you from the scourge of 99% of the junk e-mail that comes your way. It?s excellent.

MoodWatch might save you from yourself in a fit of pique.

Another unique feature of Eudora is MoodWatch (see graphic above), which monitors your inbox and whatever you?re sending out, and letting you know if the message is too hot to handle. It actually looks for aggressive or offensive words or phrases, and warns you that perhaps you?d like to wait a minute before you send that hotheaded reply. It also watches your inbox and gives you a warning if there?s a potentially angry message coming your way. It uses a system of chili pepper icons, where the degree of aggression and each message is gauged by how many chili peppers are sitting next to it, where one chili pepper is rather mild but three peppers designate a barn burner. You have the choice of having the software warn you that there is the problematic email about to be sent, or you can even ask it to delay sending that questionable email, giving you a chance to cool off before you do something you might later regret. If you?re confident that you?re not ever going to fly off the handle, you can disable MoodWatch as well. It?s a remarkable feature that?s saved me from myself numerous times.

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