Monday, July 31, 2000		Lead Article

The Wonderful World of Web mail

E-mail is fast becoming a household word. However, very few know that it is much beyond sending and receiving messages, says Vipul Verma

No doubt the invention of airplane was a great thing that happened to the world a long time ago as it brought people closer to each other. However, it had its limitations of time and place.

But the revolution, which brought down the barriers of time and space, happened quite recently. This revolution, called the e-mail (short for electronic mail), has brought people so close to each other that distance has lost its meaning.

Earlier, it was said that the world is a small place. But now it has become even smaller and has shrunk down to a computer. E-mail is the lifeline of the modern world. All you need is access to a computer and the Internet. Computer is the mode while the Internet is the medium through which e-mail is delivered from one unique address to another. Today, e-mail is not limited to sending text messages alone, but also includes sending voice messages, photographs, and videos.

Web mail: There are various kinds of e-mail available today like Web mail and POP mail. Web mail usually refers to e-mail that is accessed through Web sites like Hotmail, Yahoo! etc. POP mail is the one that you get from your ISP (Internet service provider) and access through an e-mail client like Outlook, Netscape, Eudora etc.

Mostly people prefer to have Web mail along with POP mail as Web mail can be accessed from any part of the world. POP mail may have not have universal application. Among the Web mail service providers people have a wide variety to choose from, right from Hotmail and Yahoo! to Indian Web mails like Indiatimes and Rediff.

Though technically all these mail services are almost on a par, but their basic services make all the difference for the users. For example, Hotmail may be a favorite Web mail for those who use features of Microsoft like Net meeting for online chatting and conferencing besides just sending and receiving e-mail. Similarly, certain others prefer to use Yahoo! for the simple reason that besides using the basic e-mail facility they also use Yahoo! Messenger (client for instant messaging, chatting).

Apart from instant messaging, there are several other features that other Web mail service providers are offering. For example, you can open a free e-mail account at www.usa.net that has a few great features like e-mail message consolidation. Under this service, messages can be collected from your other POP3-compliant e-mail accounts and can be consolidated in your Net@ddress account. It can collect e-mails from up to five other accounts. This means that if you have POP3 accounts then you need not have various e-mail clients (Netscape, Outlook, Eudora etc.) for your POP mail and can actually integrate them in your single e-mail account. So all you need to begin with is an e-mail address with any of the popular Web mails or POP mail, and a whole world of value-added communication lies ahead of you.

Adding value to your e-mail: Today e-mail is not just limited to sending text messages from one computer to another. With the use of various software and also by combining the services of certain Web mail account providers you can derive a lot of value from your existing e-mail accounts. Your e-mail account could be your virtual personal secretary in the real world. There are several Websites and Web mail service providers that offer the facility of organisers on their sites. You can open an account there and organise not just your day, but your week, month and year. Thus, in a way, its your day/week/month/year planner. 

Under this feature you can plan your day and set the schedules along with handy e-mail reminders to be sent later at a specified date and time, reminding you of important events like meetings and appointments. As per your instructions, this e-mail will be delivered to your e-mail account on or before the scheduled time, reminding you of your appointment. There could be further value addition in this. If you use a mobile phone or a pager and if it is e-mail enabled (SMS or short message service enabled) then you can schedule your messages directly on your mobile or pager. In case you want to configure your reminders to be transferred to your mobile phone or pager you just need to ask your service provider for your unique e-mail address. Thus, if you put your mobile e-mail address in the required e-mail field then you will start receiving your reminders on your mobile. Apart from receiving reminders you can also use your e-mail as a very cost-effective communication tool. For example, if you have roaming facility on your mobile phone then you would not like to receive too many calls on your mobile. Instead, you can ask people to send you e-mails at your mobile e-mail address that will help you save on your expensive roaming calls.

Today e-mail is not just a means of being in touch with your friends and relatives, but an effective medium of being in touch with the world also. You can subscribe to various news services like CNN or Fox free of charge and can have them in your e-mail account. You can even divert them to your mobile phone or pager by using your mobile e-mail address wherever required. The major headlines from all these news services will then be sent directly on your mobile.

Another aspect of value addition to your e-mail is related to the management of your e-mail accounts. Have you ever come across the problem of managing your e-mail accounts? If yes, then read on as the next few lines may help you get rid of this problem. Normally people maintain at least one Web mail account apart from a regular POP mail account and often one of these accounts gets ignored as the mail traffic is concentrated on your primary e-mail account only. Thus, often it happens that you do not check your secondary e-mail account regularly and at times miss timely information. To solve this problem and also to add value to your e-mailing, you can download “unimobile” from www.unimobile.com. When installed, this software looks and also works like a real mobile phone on your computer.

This software can easily be called “all in one” as it is a free internet messaging client apart from having a scheduler or reminder service and also Web mail and POP mail forwarding facility. Through this software you can also subscribe to the CNN news service free of cost that will be delivered directly to your mobile/pager. Thus, if you have been facing the problem of managing your e-mail accounts, then this software offers a perfect solution. Now no matter whether you check your e-mail account daily or not, you can still receive complete information, including the number of mails in your inbox, the sender, and subject, on your mobile phone or pager daily at a time specified by you. All you need to do is configure your “unimobile” for accessing your Web and POP mail and forward them to your mobile e-mail address. Moreover, the reminder facility of this software is also good. The only thing you need to take care of is to set the time zone correctly. This software, to a large extent, serves as a cost-effective communication device also because using it you can send instant messages to any mobile device in the world and that too free of cost.

Adding efficiency to your e-mailing: As far as efficiency is concerned, there is no doubt about e-mail as a service. But if e-mail is your lifeline and you use it extensively then the real efficiency of the service would depend on the person who is using it and also the kind of infrastructure available. For example, if one has to see a couple of POP mails along with Web mail at a regular interval then it may become too difficult to handle e-mail. However, this task can be made a pleasurable experience with the use of the Talking E-mail software. In this software you can add as many e-mail accounts as you want. But you need to enter the POP address (this address is being provided by the e-mail service provider) along with your user name and password. Though you can get POP addresses of all your POP accounts easily, in the case of Web mail only a few POP addresses are available. Like the POP address of Yahoo! is pop.mail.Yahoo!.com. The SMTP server address in this case is not required as Talking E-mail is meant for receiving e-mail only. When connected to the Internet this software collects fresh mail from all your accounts by itself and once the mail is downloaded, this software reads out the mail in English in a human voice. Moreover, the text of the messages is also displayed along side in a window that enables you to read it in case you need to read it yourself. It can be configured for checking mail at a regular interval, which could even be one minute. You can adjust the speed and pitch of the voice as per your requirement. This software has an inbuilt text-to-speech converter, which also reads out your clipboard besides your e-mail. It may prove to be a boon for lawyers, journalists, students, researchers, and teachers who have to read a lot of text in normal course. All you need to do is copy a text in any program and click on this software, which rests in your system tray. It will read out the whole text available in your clipboard.

As a default setting of this software, the incoming mail is not deleted from the POP server, thus you can easily access it from your regular e-mail client also and reply from there itself. If you use Yahoo! as your Web mail then you can also use its POP address in the Talking E-mail software and enjoy the luxury of listening to all your mail in one e-mail client without bothering to open different.

Finally, in order to make the best use of e-mail, you can have a combination of various programmes and software depending upon your need and can enjoy e-mailing besides making the most of it by organising it properly.