Maxprog MaxBulk Mailer Pro 5.6.5.Multilingual serial key or number

Balzac

Current Version: 1.0 Beta Build 29 (October 31, 2007)

Balzac is a new email application for OS X 10.4 and above that aims to provide a simple view on your mail whilst allowing fast, sophisticated searches of past correspondence. It has been written to utilise all the advanced services available in OS X, from the address book to the built in spell-checker. The list below is a short summary of the most interesting features of Balzac:

• Dynamic views on your mail (ie 'Smart Folders')
• User defined categories - messages can be in several categories at once
• An inbox which shows you messages from the last few days
• Fast searches on header fields or text content of all messages
• Customize the way you view your mail with HTML templates for list views and message views
• Send custom HTML email using templates
• Security features for viewing HTML email
• Supports Growl notifications

Build 29 adds/changes the following:

• Fixed bug in whitelister dealing with numeric HTML attributes
• Removed spurious status messages in Leopard
• Worked around date parsing bug in Leopard causing inbox to display as empty

Direct Mail

Current Version: 2.2.5 (June 15, 2010)

DirectMail is a shareware mailing-list and bulk email program for Mac OS X 10.3 and later, featuring a simple and clean user interface and a low price point. DirectMail supports the creation of plain text, rich text, HTML and combined HTML/plain text multipart/alternative emails; includes mail merge, address importing, multilingual capabilities; and is capable of direct connections to recipients' email servers.

Version 2.2.5 makes the following changes:

• Fixed partial data loss bug occurring on Mac OS X 10.5 systems.
• Scan Incoming Mail now works with IMAP servers and is better at identifying bounced emails.
• Fixed several performance issues with history charts.
• Fixed a bug that would prevent some web pages from being successfully imported.
• Messages sent using e3 Delivery Service now respect the user's locale.
• Fixed bug with printing custom column data.
• Text attributes applied to [unsubscribe link] and [unsubscribe instructions] mail-merge tags are now honored when the message is sent.
• Fixed text alignment issue in first-run setup window.
• Added capability to send to duplicate email addresses.
• Preview window now animates into place.
• Various other minor bug fixes and enhancements.

Directory Widget

Current Version: 1.0 (September 5, 2006)

Directory Widget is a new widget from Andrew Starr (perhaps best known to Orchard visitors as the eMailman) that provides uniquely useful LDAP lookup functionality.

Directory Widget will look up directory information (e-mail addresses and more) from many colleges, universities, and other institutions (for example the National Institutes of Health). Although it uses LDAP (Lightweight Directory Address Protocol), the end user does not need to understand what LDAP is. The widget comes preloaded with settings for over 70 directory servers. Additionally, the user can add more servers to the widget. eMailman, LLC plans to release updates with additional servers. A partial list of current servers preloaded into the widget is at http://www.emailman.com/ldap/widget/serverlist.html.

The widget defaults to the most recently used directory (or users can have multiple instances of the widget running so that their most frequently used directory is always available). Users can easily select from a different directory or add more. Users can then search by full or partial names. Results can be viewed with just names and e-mail addresses or with the full results returned by the server.

Companies and institutions can contact eMailman, LLC to discuss site licensing or customized versions of the widget.

Email Merge

Current Version: 2.1.1 (December 14, 2002) / 2.3.6 (February 16, 2007)

Email Merge is a program for creating a mailing of individualized email messages. It combines a database and an email message to create customized email messages. Email Merge can be used for invoicing, sales, list management, student grading and even personal messages. Email Merge is compatible with Apple Mail (OS X 10.3 or later), Entourage, Eudora, Mailsmith, PowerMail, Outlook Express, Emailer or QuickMail Pro. Features include:

• Imports directly from FileMaker Pro, clipboard or text file.
• Verification of outgoing messages, email addresses and attachments.
• Supports HTML email (Entourage and Outlook Express only).
• Database features, included sorting and finding duplicates.
• Messages can be sent using different accounts.
• Attachments can be included with messages.

Email Merge 2.3.6 - the latest version for Mac OS X - works around a problem between Apple Mail and the system Address Book.

Email Merge contains comprehensive documentation, context-sensitive help and a tutorial. Email Merge for Mac OS X costs $39 for one license. Upgrades from Email Merge for Classic Mac OS cost $19 per license. A site license for an entire office costs $349. Once a license is purchased, the 20-message restriction on merging is removed.

eMail Verifier

Current Version: 3.5.3 (July 15, 2009)

eMail Verifier verifies the validity of email addresses by quickly communicating with the potential recipient's mail server without actually sending mail. eMail Verifier disconnects as soon as the mail server informs the program whether the address exists or not. Email Verifier can verify over 10 e-mails per second. It can verify single e-mails or huge lists.

Version 3.5.3 adds/changes the following:

• [Opt] Better handling of MX record priorities.
• [Fix] Data is now saved to the '~/Library/Application Support/Maxprog' folder rather than '~/Documents/Maxprog'.

Eudora

Current Version: 6.1.1 (May 20, 2004) / 6.2.4 (October 12, 2006)

Eudora used to be the king of the free third party Macintosh email applications. It supports SMTP, POP and IMAP servers, stationery, provides multiple mailboxes, filtering, offline reading and replying, and - most importantly - is very, very reliable.

Version 6.2.4 is officially the last commercial version of the old Eudora application that is so well-known and loved. On October 11, 2006, Qualcomm announced:

"Future versions of Eudora will be based upon the same technology platform as the open source Mozilla Thunderbird email program. Future versions of Eudora will be free and open source, while retaining Eudora's uniquely rich feature set and productivity enhancements. Qualcomm and Mozilla will each participate in, and continue to foster development communities based around the open source Mozilla project, with a view to enhancing the capabilities and ease of use of both Eudora and Thunderbird.

"Qualcomm also today announced that it has released the final commercial versions of the current Eudora products for Windows and Mac operating systems. The open source version of Eudora is targeted to release during the first half of calendar year 2007. Once the open source version of Eudora is released, Qualcomm will cease to sell Eudora commercially. In the interim, Qualcomm will continue commercial sales, at a reduced price of $19.95 and with a six-month period of technical support. Existing technical support commitments will be honored in their entirety.

"'I'm excited for Eudora to be returning to the open source community,' said Steve Dorner, vice president of technology for Qualcomm's Eudora Group. 'Using the Mozilla Thunderbird technology platform as a basis for future versions of Eudora will provide some key infrastructure that the existing versions lacked, such as a cross-platform code base and a world-class display engine. Making it open source will bring more developers to bear on Eudora than ever before.'"

Andrew Starr's Unofficial Eudora Site links to more information about the new product (codenamed "Penelope"), including a discussion forum. The official "Penelope" development page has more information, and as of September 2007, you can try out the latest (beta) release below!

No longer available in "Paid" mode (which was equivalent to the old Eudora Pro, but which required an annual subscription fee), Eudora 6 can now be run in one of two "modes" - "Sponsored" mode, which gives you all the features of the former "Paid" mode (except for spam filtering) for free, displaying advertisements as you use the program; and "Light" mode, which eliminates several of the coolest features of the program (but doesn't display advertising, either), giving users an equivalent to the old "Eudora Light" application, albeit a much more up-to-date version. Sponsored mode adds many features, including a built-in spelling checker and more sophisticated message filtering.

Eudora versions 5.1 and later are for Power Macs only; users of 680x0 Macs will have to keep using the older Eudora Light software, which is still available.

At any rate, version 6.2.4 added/changed the following:

• Make sure Eudora labels get refreshed after changing via settings
• Using semicolon instead of colon after the scheme no longer confuses scamwatch
• Port numbers no longer befuddle scamwatch.
• Internal whitespace in hostname of link text was confusing scamwatch
• Putting mailbox names on some IMAP errors that didn't have them
• Visit Web Site now goes to different server
• shift-open address book now selects the entry with the email address of the current message
• New Mail.app Importer (v 1.1), handles Tiger mail folder layout.
• Updated StaticJunkDB.txt to help with changes in spammer's techniques
• Added preference for hiding the "Change Password" menu item
• Fixed problem with pasted graphics on fileid-deficient filesystems like SMB
• Moved 'Save Password' to password entry dialog
• "Visit Web site" opens the Eudora folder if the option key is held down
• Redesigned password dialog to include more information
• Patch for finding attachments (esp IMAP) on systems that don't support fileid's
• Fixed crash importing address book entries
• Fixed potential crash cleaning up Out.temp at startup
• Address Book import gets correct address for groups from distribution list
• Recognizing PNG files from "extension" only
• No longer deleting messages on delete key autorepeat
• Worked around Safari's habit of putting text in what should be picture drags/copies
• Added <x-eudora-setting:197> to turn off the Services menu in Eudora
• Links that began with newlines could fool scamwatch
• Adjusted spacing of radio buttons in various settings panels.
• <x-eudora-setting:13918> is a comma-separated, case-sensitive list of words MoodWatch will ignore

As of version 6.2, new versions of Eudora are available for Mac OS X only; as of versions 6.0 / 6.1, support for PowerMacs was limited to those machines running OS 9 or higher; older versions may be purchased through http://www.soft-net.co.uk.

Be sure to check out Andrew Starr's Eudora for Macintosh Page for more information regarding the unique capabilities of this outstanding program.

In order for Macintosh Eudora to work well under OS X 10.5.x 'Leopard', you need to turn off the use of specific sounds in Eudora. These are the sounds Eudora plays when you get new mail or Eudora needs your attention, or are played by Filters. The sounds that are problematic are the ones that contain 'Eudora' in their name as they were created using a sound synthesizer that Leopard does not support. To disable or change the sounds used in Eudora, do the following:

Turn off or change the 'New Mail' and "Attention" sounds:

• Open Eudora->Preferences and select the 'Getting Attention' panel
• In the 'Sounds' section, for both 'New mail sound' and 'Attention sound', select a sound OTHER than one that has 'Eudora' in its name (ie. NOT 'Eudora Attention', 'Eudora New Mail' nor 'Eudora Short Warning')
• Click OK to the close the Preferences

Turn off sounds triggered by filters:

• Open Window->Filters
• Look through all your filters for filters that have a 'Play Sound' action.
• Select a sound that does NOT have 'Eudora' in its name, or disable sounds all together by selecting 'None' from the action popup menu.

Eudora Mailbox Cleaner

Current Version: 4.9 (April 6, 2009)

If you have ever tried to switch from Eudora to Apple's Mail.app or to Thunderbird, you may have found the process frustrating, if not impossible. Eudora Mailbox Cleaner is "a simple application which provides easy one-step migration for your messages and other mail related data." It includes the following functionality (and it really works as advertised):

• Mailbox Importing (from Eudora or Thunderbird to Apple Mail or Thunderbird): Direct conversion from Eudora or Thunderbird mailboxes to Mail.app *.mbox packages or Thunderbird mbox/*.msf files. Aside from being faster than the "Import Mailboxes..." in the respective applications, the following problems are fixed as well:
  • Date for sent messages is set properly (i.e., not the date when the messages are imported).
  • "To: " headers will not be lost when importing sent messages into Mail.app.
  • text/enriched (Eudora's "rich text"), text/html, and multipart/... messages are imported properly.
  • Message status flags (sent, replied, forwarded, etc.) are preserved upon import (if this does not work for you, see the remark below).
  • Attachment recovery: if the original attachment of a message can be found inside Eudora's "Attachments Folder," the attachment will be re-encoded and attached to the message using proper MIME-compliant encoding.
• Nickname Importing (from Eudora to the Mac OS X Address Book or Thunderbird):
  • Directly import Eudora nickname files into the Mac OS X's Address Book or as address book in the default Thunderbird profile. Nicknames marked as "Do not include this nickname when syncing" in Eudora will be ignored.
  • All group information will be converted from Eudora to the Address Book and mailing lists will be imported as well.
  • Accented characters will import properly into Thunderbird and won't show up as gibberish like they do when using the Thunderbird import.
  • See the remark below if auto-complete of addresses in Mail does not work after import.
• Filter Importing (from Eudora to Apple Mail):
  • Directly convert Eudora filter files into rules for Mail.app.

All of these features have been tested importing files from the English versions of Eudora (5.1 through 6.2 on Mac OS X) to Mail.app (version 1.1, Mac OS X 10.1.2 up to version 2.0.7, Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger") and Thunderbird (version 0.7.1 through 1.5 in Mac OS X). The import from nicknames into the Address Book has been tested for Address Book 3.0.3 (Mac OS X 10.2.6) through 4.0.3 (Mac OS X 10.4).

Version 4.9 adds/changes the following:

• Improved handling of attachments with long names - if the original file cannot be found (file's inode on disk has changed) the application now tries to find the attachment based on the partial filename available. If only one possible match is found it will be used, in case of multiple possible matches none of them will be attached in order not to re-attach the wrong file (either case will be logged in the conversion log file).
• Improve parsing of full names within mailing lists to recognize additional formats.
• Improve parsing of message headers to more closely adhere to RFC2822: no space required after the colon and allow comments after the actual date without claiming invalid dates.
• Improve EOL detection when importing messages from Thunderbird to Mail - apparently EOLs can change at any point and not only in the message headers.
• Properly recode 8-bit characters in Thunderbird message headers (use ISO-Latin1 instead of MacRoman as the default encoding).
• Fix hang/crash when parsing quoted HTML messages which have been quoted using full message headers.
• Make "mark as read" filters work correctly after import to Mail.
• Properly escape custom header contents when importing filters to avoid Mail from rejecting all rules due to malformed XML data.
• Properly recover inline parts with escaped characters in the file name (i.e., use "Image 1.jpg" when the message calls for "Image%201.jpg").
• Fix wrong character re-encoding for some Unicode messages (denoted as <x-flowed utf-8> by Eudora).
• Fix potential application hang when the last message in a mailbox was corrupt.
• Fix application hang when importing from Thunderbird and the last message in a mailbox contained no message body.
• Fix potential crash when importing an Eudora message with an empty "Subject:" header with no space following the colon.
• Minor tweaks to the log file format to provide more information for missing attachments and to allow for easier filtering using the search box in the Console application.

Eudora Mailbox Cleaner makes use of many features of CodeWarrior's PowerPlant framework, so it cannot be ported to Xcode to make it a "Universal Binary." It runs well, however, on Intel machines using their "Rosetta" emulation.

Google Email Uploader

Current Version: 1.1.2 (April 2, 2010)

The Google Email Uploader for Mac is a desktop utility for Mac OS X that uploads email archives from Apple Mail, Eudora, and Thunderbird (along with other mbox and Maildir archives) to your Google Apps mailbox.

The application does not currently upload to gmail.com or googlemail.com mail accounts.

Version 1.1.2 adds/changes the following:

• Update dialog offers to show release notes
• Fixes a memory leak when uploading Apple Mail messages
• Avoids inserting Apple Mail enclosures when they'd make the message exceed the 31 MB upload limit on message size
• Avoids uploading more than 10 MB worth of messages at once

Google Email Uploader for Mac requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later, and a Google Apps mail account.

GyazMail

Current Version: 1.5.9 (October 13, 2009)

GyazMail is a multilingual e-mail client for Mac OS X, developed from scratch to be simple, easy-to-use, and feature-filled. The main features of GyazMail are as follows:

• Multiple accounts
• Storing individual messages as single files (RFC 822 format)
• Multiple character set support, including UTF-8 (Unicode)
• Main window with 2 or 3 panes
• Complete customization of display fonts & window colors
• Message threading
• HTML message display
• Junk (Spam) Mail Filter (SpamSieve) support
• Ability to search messages across multiple folders and with multiple criteria
• Rules and Filters for incoming messages
• Templates and Editable reply header for outgoing messages
• Sends messages individually or in batches
• POP3/IMAP/SMTP support
• SSL/TLS support
• IPv6 support
• Remote message function
• Fully customizable keyboard shortcuts
• Synchronization with Apple's Address Book (Mac OS X 10.2 or later)
• Mail address auto-completion
• Numerous Dock-related features
• Message import (Unix Mailbox, Apple Mail)
• Message export (Unix Mailbox)
• Regular Expressions support (Oniguruma)
• AppleScript support (iCal e-mail Notifications, iPhoto Mailer Patcher)
• Growl support

The following features are planned for the future:

• Encrypted Mail / Digital Signatures support
• Spotlight support
• LDAP support
• More AppleScript support
• More Localizations
• NNTP support
• More

The download may be tried for free for 40 days before requiring purchase.

Version 1.5.9 adds/changes the following:

• Improved compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
• Minor bugs squashed.

Submit another review!

Intego Personal Antispam

Current Version: "X5" (10.5.5) (November 27, 2009)

Intego, Inc. produces the Intego Personal Antispam spam filtering software add-on for Apple Mail and Microsoft Entourage.

Features include:

• Filters your e-mail and weeds out spam
• Filters spam with Bayesian analysis
• Filters spam by address, message content, layout and more
• Filters spam with a whitelist of your contacts
• Filters spam with a blacklist of known spammers' addresses
• Filters attachments for common file names
• Learns from the spam you receive
• Does not slow down your e-mail program

The latest "X5" version (10.5.5) adds the following new features:

• This update offers Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard compatibility and addresses a number of other minor issues. This update is recommended for all Personal Antispam X5 users.

IntelliMerge

Current Version: 5.1 (August 8, 2006)

IntelliMerge is dynamic e-mail merge software (i.e., a bulk mailer) designed to simplify keeping in touch with customers, family, and friends. It features an integrated message editor, recipient database system, conditional merging logic, duplicate checker, and high performance message mailer.

IntelliMerge 5.1 introduces the following enhancements:

• AutoSubscriber: IntelliMerge now downloads and processes subscribe and unsubscribe requests over twice as fast as previous release. The AutoSubscriber tool now includes an option to save
• IP Tracking: IntelliMerge can now provide the IP address of subscribe and unsubscribe requests through the AutoSubscriber to prevent abuse.
• Enhanced Invalid E-Mail Checker: IntelliMerge's invalid e-mail checker has been rewritten, offering more better, more accurate invalid e-mail verifications before mailing.
• CSS support: IntelliMerge now includes external style sheets
• Plain text equivalents: for older e-mail clients
• Firefox & OmniWeb previews: check out your message before mailing by launching your browser of choice. IntelliMerge no longer needs to launch Safari to preview a message.

IntelliMerge is available for $99; upgrades to IntelliMerge 5.x from any previous version are $39.

LDapper

Current Version: 1.2.3 (May 26, 2000) / 2.0.4 (September 3, 2006)

From Carl Bell, the author of Mail Drop, comes this simple, free LDAP client for finding email addresses. See the LDapper read me for more information.

Version 2.0.4 adds/changes the following:

• Fixed a divide by 0 error when searching.
• Progress bar in search "sheet" now goes all the way to 100% when finished. (This always bothered me.)
• Window sizing preferences, etc., are now always saved rather than only being saved when it was explicitly closed.
• Resizing column headers in search window no longer select/sort the column.
• No longer causes "group member should be added to the database first" console messages when exporting to Address Book.
• Copying an entry in a browser window now copies the entry's dn and not the word "goober".
• Universal binary.
• Now requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later.
• Address Book importer no longer uses separate bundle.
• Now uses the Mac OS X LDAP framework rather than compiled OpenLDAP code. It believe that the version is OpenLDAP 2.2.19.

LDapper author Carl Bell notes: "LDapper 2.0 is a Mac OS X application and will not work with older versions of the operating system. There will be no more 'classic' versions of LDapper. Version 1.2.3 is still available for Mac OS 9 or earlier."

MacBiff

Current Version: 1.1.15 (April 12, 2010)

MacBiff is a free, open source Mac OS X Biff program. It periodically checks your IMAP server for new email, and reports (from your Mac's menu bar) where in your folder hierarchy your new mail resides.

Version 1.1.15 adds/changes the following:

• Fixed: resolved an issue that stopped MacBiff from consistently retrieving passwords the from Keychain
• Fixed: incorporated patches to resolve Base64 decoding issues on Intel Macs and add IMAP UTF7 support

MacSOUP

Current Version: 2.8.3 (December 16, 2009)

From the Info-Mac abstract file: MacSOUP is an offline reader for news and mail (it can be used for news only, if you prefer Eudora or another email client for mail). It works either with a Unix shell account (in conjunction with uqwk), or with a TCP/IP connection (MacTCP or Open Transport). Features: fetches only article headers in a first pass; lets you select which articles you actually want to download; true references-based threading, with a graphical display of the thread tree; kill file (with regular expressions); and multiple mailboxes with mail filters.

Version 2.8.3 - the first release in over two (!) years - makes the following changes/enhancements:

• Worked around a possible crash on startup with certain kinds of Address Book corruption.
• With very large Address Books, typing in the address fields of an email editor window was very sluggish.
• The Services menu now works in Snow Leopard.
• MacSOUP's scripting dictionary can be opened again with the AppleScript editor in Leopard.
• Minor fixes.

Magellan Pro

Current Version: 1.5.1 / 1.5.3 (November 29, 2004)

Magellan is a multilingual email client ($35, shareware) that offers a number of unique features, such as:

• Send and receive multilingual e-mail. Any languages will correctly be sent and received.
• Send and receive e-mail message containing any plural languages.
• Not only unicode but newly created MultiScript encoding is adopted.
• Read messages in "View." View is an epoch-making management way of e-mail messages, different from folder or filter system.
• Work under less RAM than other e-mail software and has an appplication size of only 1.1MB.

Although no information is available regarding what's new in version 1.5.3, version 1.5.2 added/changed the following:

• Better support for OS X 10.3 Panther.
• Improve Error recovery.
• Improve Spellchecker relations.
• Fix the Font list bug in Panther.

Magellan Pro requires Mac OS 8.6 or later and Text Encoding Converter 1.3.1 or later.

MailForge

Current Version: 2.0.1 (July 22, 2010)

MailForge (formerly known as Odysseus) is a cross-platform, Eudora-style email client from Infinity Data Systems that started life in late 2007. It's designed to be a best-of-breed email client, focusing on power, elegance, and simplicity, and targeted at users who loved Eudora.

Unlike classic Eudora, MailForge is under active development, and the authors are diligently trying to improve on areas where Eudora had started to lag behind, such as integration with the individual operating systems that it runs on.

In addition to the features currently in MailForge 1.0, there are a number of other features that users have come to rely on that will be added shortly. For more information, please take a look at the MailForge Roadmap.

Version 2.0.1 makes the following improvements:

• Added ability to change default order of emails: Ascending vs Descending (Preferences > Mailbox Display)
• Emails now import in the correct order
• Fixed bug that could cause some messages to be imported with the date set as 12/31/00
• Fixed bug that could cause Queued emails to be blank
• Fixed POP3 partial download bug (when emails exceeded preset download size)
• Fixed bug when Replying/Forwarding/Redirecting from Search results
• Fixed hang on manual filtering
• Fixed bug that could cause some HTML emails to display blank
• Improved readability of email listbox text when selected

Mail Forward

Current Version: 2.6 (May 3, 2005) / 5.0 (March 26, 2010)

Internet users who have Unix command line access to their accounts usually have simple email forwarding capability that's easy to set up and maintain. Mail Forward is useful for those who don't. From the Mail Forward home page: "Mail Forward allows you to forward mail from up to 20 Microsoft Hotmail or standard POP e-mail accounts to any e-mail address. Mail Forward works by accessing your Microsoft Hotmail In Box or POP mailbox and forwarding each piece of mail through your SMTP mail server. As each message is successfully forwarded, it is cleared from the Hotmail In Box or POP mailbox. The Hotmail or POP account e-mail address is used as the return address for the forwarded mail, so if the mail is undeliverable it will be bounced back to the original account."

Version 2.6 - the latest version for "Classic" Mac OS - adds/changes the following:

• Modifications to work with Yahoo server login changes.
• Changes to work around new Hotmail login server URL parsing bug.
• Corrected a problem where malformed web mail messages were causing forwarding to stall.

Version 5.0 - the latest version for Mac OS X - adds/changes the following:

• Application re-written to run as a background process, using a System Preferences control panel interface with an optional status menu.
• Resolved system resource usage and memory leak problems.

See the version histories ("Classic" and Mac OS X) for more information.

Mailsmith

Current Version: 2.2.5 (January 6, 2010)

From Rich Siegel, primary author of the fabulous BBEdit text editor, comes the Mailsmith email client, which offers very sophisticated email filtering (including integrated support for SpamSieve and PGP), a clean user interface, and a BBEdit-like editing capability that few other email programs can match.

Version 2.2 made a positively huge number of enhancements that belies a bump in version number from 2.1 to 2.2, but the main shift was from a commercial to a freeware application. Bare Bones software's Rich Siegel noted:

"As this release, Mailsmith is no longer a product of Bare Bones Software. It's now being maintained, developed, and supported under the auspices of Stickshift Software, LLC, a company which was formed the the specific purpose of giving Mailsmith a home. My ongoing goal is to support and enhance Mailsmith on an ad-hoc basis as has been done over most of the 2.2 beta cycle: this means occasional (if not exactly regular :-)) releases to fix bugs and add features. (My work at Bare Bones Software remains my first and highest priority.) The other big change is that Mailsmith is now freeware. The price tag has been removed, and it is available for use at no charge. The end-user license agreement has been modified to reflect this, and is likewise available for review on the web site."

Version 2.2.5 makes the following additional changes:

• Addressed overuse of fcntl(F_FULL_SYNC) which caused database performance problems.
• Fixed display glitch which would occur when making the message view visible via the splitter, after having opened the Mail Browser window with the message view hidden. (This also affects other windows which contain a message view and other lists, such as per-mailbox windows and query results.)
• Fixed crash in the Spotlight metadata importer on some gratuitously malformed messages.

Mailsmith requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later; Mac OS X 10.5 or later is strongly recommended.

Mailtron Gateway

Current Version: 1.3.2 / 3.0 (March 20, 2006)

Mailtron Gateway is a POP (and for Mac OS X, a POP/IMAP) email gateway from Studiotron Software that allows multiple people at a single domain to share a single email account. The license key that is required after the initial 30-day usage period is free for "Classic" Mac OS. Version 3.x (for Mac OS X only), however, comes as a fully-functional demo that runs for 30 days (except that he fetchmail daemon will not automatically run after a system restart) and can be registered for $69. The Mac OS X version features "industrial strength" mail forwarding using fetchmail, and automatic protocol detection, including IMAP.

Version 3.0 - the latest release for Mac OS X - adds/addresses the following:

• Fixed compatability with Mac OS X Tiger folder privileges.
• Integrated Kagi registration keys.

MaxBulk Mailer

Current Version: 7.8 (July 20, 2010)

MaxBulk Mailer is a shareware bulk email program, the first I can think of for the Macintosh. Bulk email is a very, very bad thing when used improperly, and unfortunately I can't think of very many cases when it has been used properly. From the MaxBulk Mailer home page: "MaxBulk Mailer is a new full featured MacOS bulk mailer able to send commercial mailings to up to several hundreds of emails address very easily. MaxBulk Mailer is fast and fully customizable. It uses mailings as documents with configuration data, mailing text and mailing list built-in. MaxBulk Mailer does not promote spamming. This software is to be used very carefully and always using your customer addresses." Yeah, right. Remember, folks: there are laws regarding spam now. If you do download and use this, use it for valid reasons (e.g., you maintain an opt-in email list). Spamming is just not cool.

Version 7.8 adds/changes the following:

• [New] New error handlers with help for authentication issues.
• [New] Remote List 'Refresh' contextual menu in order to reload the list of remote lists from MLM.
• [New] Recipients 'Refresh' contextual menu in order to reload the selected remote list from MLM.
• [Chg] If the server sends a URL with help, it is now displayed in the status bar as a clickable link.
• [Chg] Clicking on the 'Save' button will now display the 'Upload to MLM' window when dealing with remote lists.
• [Chg] A confirmation dialog is now displayed when clicking on the 'Reset' button.
• [Upg] When selecting the "Recipients > Upload to MLM" menu and a remote list is selected, the selection is passed to the upload window.
• [Upg] It is now possible to set how list has to be uploaded to MLM, batch size and delay between batches.
• [Fix] Remote Lists can now be sorted by column.
• [Fix] New lists are now added to the list of lists after using the 'Recipients > Upload the MLM' menu.
• [Fix] Several important MLM fixes. New version is now 2.2.4 (Now its is possible to upload lists with duplicates).

MaxBulk Mailer is shareware, available at two price points: "Standard" ($49.90) and "Pro" ($59.90), which adds the following features:

• Styled text support - Bold, Italic, Underline, Color, Font...
• Conditional message contents depending on optional tags value.
• 20 Custom Tags for advanced mail-merge.
• Ability to process tags in subject.
• 13 date tags, Long Date, Short Date, Abbreviated Date...
• Quick selector in order to check/uncheck recipients.
• Recipients creation directly from Filemaker (Mac OS).
• Full AppleScript support (Mac OS).
• Hyperlink manager. Allows you to insert text and HTML hyperlinks tags with one click.
• Full MySQL and postgreSQL database support.
• Secure SSL connection support.
• Possibility to use several servers at once.
• Cc and Bcc support.

Microsoft Entourage

Current Version: 2004 Service Pack 2 / 11.2.1 (October 20, 2005)

Microsoft produces a lot of software, but one of the only essential commercial Internet programs for the Mac to come from our friends in Redmond, WA is Entourage (part of Microsoft Office 2004, and available separately), which allows Mac OS X users to work with Microsoft Exchange servers and do all the nifty things (messaging, scheduling, etc.) that their Windows counterparts have been doing for years.

The Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.2.1 Update fixes a synchronization issue in versions of Microsoft Entourage that have been updated with Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Service Pack 2 (11.2.0). The issue might cause data loss when Entourage attempts to synchronize with an Exchange mailbox that was moved to a different server running Microsoft Exchange Server. This update also resolves issues with setting Exchange server permissions and printing calendars.

Note: Mac OS 8 & 9 users should use Microsoft's Outlook for similar capability.

Microsoft Outlook

Current Version: 2001 (June 27, 2001)

Microsoft produces a lot of software, but one of the only essential commercial Internet programs for the Mac to come from our friends in Redmond, WA is Outlook 2001, which allows users of Mac OS 9 to work with Microsoft Exchange servers and do all the nifty things (messaging, scheduling, etc.) that their Windows counterparts have been doing for years.

Note: Mac OS X users should use Microsoft's Entourage for similar capability.

Mozilla

Final Version: 1.7.13 (April 27, 2006) / 1.2.1 (December 3, 2002)

Mozilla was the original name for Netscape Navigator, back when it was first being developed in 1994 by Marc Andreesen and his friends from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA - the people who developed Mosaic, the world's first graphical web browser). The name was supposed to imply a supercharged, "Godzilla" version of Mosaic; Mozilla was forced to change its name to Netscape when the people at NCSA threatened to sue over trademark infringement. Behind the scenes, though, Netscape Navigator and Communicator have always been known as Mozilla; type "about:mozilla" into the "Location" field of any version of those browsers and you'll see evidence of that.

In the early 21st century, with the "Mosaic"-inspired name no longer an issue, Mozilla became the name of the open source project upon which the Netscape series of browsers was based. Continuously developed by programmers around the world rather than by just a handful at a large corporation, it changed constantly, and improved all the time.

Today, however, Mozilla is no longer under development, at least under the "Mozilla" moniker. The primary components of Mozilla - its web browser and email/Usenet client - were broken off into separate, optimized development efforts, known respectively as Firefox and Thunderbird. The combined application suite has, as of early 2006, been reincarnated as SeaMonkey, which I will be adding to the Orchard soon.

Nonetheless, I include Mozilla here for historic purposes, since people will still find it useful and functional for some time, and it represents one of the only opportunities for users of "Classic" Mac OS to access a more modern browser that is largely compatible with today's more advanced web standards.

While Mozilla 1.7.13 was a minor update to Mozilla 1.7 that added some security and stability fixes, version 1.7 made a huge number of feature and performance enhancements. The online release notes have the whole picture.

Mozilla is fast (once it's loaded, which can still take a while) at rendering web pages. Mozilla is a breath of fresh air, and while the interface elements seem a little slow compared to other browsers, pages render remarkably quickly. This latest release is more than worthy of your daily use. Two of my many criteria for determining a browser's usefulness are: 1) how long I keep it open for browsing before quitting out in frustration; and 2) how long it keeps itself open before crashing. Mozilla wins on both fronts. Download it and try it for yourself; I suspect you'll be pleasantly surprised.

FYI: If you use OS X and like Mozilla - but don't like the way it looks - you should proceed, posthaste, to download the Pinstripe Theme for Mozilla, which lets the browser breathe through a beautiful Aqua interface, just like all of your favorite OS X apps. Mozilla's just not complete without it.

Mozilla 1.7 requires a Mac OS X later to run (version 1.2.1 was the last "official" release for OS 9, although the Web and Mail Communicator Project has a modified, unofficial release of version 1.3.1 available for OS 9), and it comes with optionally-installable news, email, and IRC (yes, IRC; Mozilla includes an incomplete IRC client called "Chatzilla" rather than AOL Instant Messenger) components. The mail and news clients are surprisingly well thought-out and pleasant to use, although I will probably always maintain that it is better to use separate, dedicated email and newsreading software rather than taking a "swiss army knife" approach; the separate tools are still superior at what they do. (Personal note: this is why I actually use Firefox for my regular browsing rather than the combined Mozilla suite...for email, I use Eudora.)

Mulberry

Current Version: 4.0.8 (February 22, 2007)

Once commercial software but now re-released by original author Cyrus Daboo as freeware, Mulberry is a well-loved IMAP and POP3 email client that is available not just for Mac OS X, but for Windows and Linux as well.

Version 4.0.8 adds/changes the following:

• Add option to automatically adjust timezones to new US rules as of March 2007.
• Update built-in timezones to new rules for March 2007.

Please note that there is no official support for Mulberry now - community support via mailing lists and other such resources will be used instead.

As of November 2007, Mulberry is now open source; see the Mulberry wiki for more information.

Netscape

Current Version: 9.0.0.5 (December 11, 2007)

Please note: As of February, 2008, Netscape will once again be discontinued. This time, however, it will be discontinued for all platforms, and support for all versions, past and present, will be discontinued as well. See Tom Drapeau's blog post for more information.

Once the universal choice for browsing the web, Netscape's presence today has been marginalized by many other browsers, largely due to the stagnant 4.x series that introduced little innovation, and to the 6.x series, which merely showed amateurish promise.

Netscape 9 is a bundled Web browser / authoring environment / email / newsreader / instant messenger offering based upon the Mozilla project's browser and renderer work.

The primary components of Netscape and Mozilla - both the web browser and email/Usenet client - were broken off into separate, optimized development efforts, known respectively as Firefox and Thunderbird. The combined application suite has, as of early 2006, been reincarnated as SeaMonkey, which I will be adding to the Orchard soon.

In its older (7.x) incarnations, Netscape represents one of the few remaining opportunities for users of "Classic" Mac OS to access a more modern browser that is largely compatible with today's more advanced web standards. Version 7.02 was the final release for "Classic" Mac OS, and it remains available, below.

Version 9 is available for Mac OS X 10.2 and later, represents the first new release of Netscape for the Mac in over three years. It's a universal binary, and it offers the following:

• Visual Refresh - Netscape Navigator 9's theme has been updated to save screen-space and leave more room for the websites you visit.
• URL Correction - Navigator 9 will automatically correct common typos in URLs. For example, if you accidentally type googlecom, Navigator will fix it be to google.com. The browser will watch for nearly 30 different types of common mistakes and correct them for you (asking you to confirm, if you choose to enable confirmation).
• News Menu and Sidebar - The latest news is built right into the browser, under the News menu. Provided by Netscape.com, you can customize the menu to only contain the news sections you want to monitor. You can also open the News sidebar to always keep an eye on what's happening.
• Link Pad - The Link Pad is a new sidebar feature that allows you to save links/URLs that you want to visit later without cluttering your bookmarks. Just drag a link over the Link Pad status bar icon and drop it to save it in the Link Pad. By default, clicking on an item in the Link Pad will open it in the browser and remove it from the list, saving you the step of deleting it.
• News Tracker - The Netscape Tracker sidebar lets you monitor breaking news as it happens, via Netscape.com.
• In-browser voting - Share your opinions with the world! The icons in the Navigator address bar let you share interesting stories you find and vote on stories shared by others.
• Extension Compatibility - Navigator 9 shares an architecture with the latest Mozilla technologies; as such, Navigator 9 will let you install extensions that are compatible with Firefox 2.
• Sidebar Mini Browser - You've always been able to have bookmarks open in the sidebar, but we've improved this functionality and extended it to all links, not just bookmarks. Additionally, we've added a navigation toolbar to the sidebar for even easier split-screened browsing. Just right-click on a link and select "Open Link in Sidebar" to get started!
• Restart Netcape - A smalll but oft-requested feature: you can now restart Navigator (and keep your current tabs intact) by selecting "Restart Navigator" from the File menu.
• Resizeable Textarea - Drag the bottom-right corners of text fields in forms to add more typing space.
• Tab History - Opening a link in a new tab will give the new tab the same history as the source tab for a more seamless tabbed browsing experience.
• OPML Support - Netscape Navigator supports importing and exporting your bookmarks in OPML, a popular format for sharing lists of newsfeeds.
• Throbber - By popular demand, the Netscape 7-style throbber is back. Click on it any time to visit Netscape.com.
• Combined Stop/Reload button - To save space in your toolbar, we've combined the stop and reload buttons. Because you never need both at the same time, the toolbar will only show the relevant half of the pair.
• Friends' Activity Sidebar - If you are a member at Netscape.com, you can keep tabs on what your friends find interesting. This sidebar lets you view your friends latest votes, comments, and story submissions.
• Sitemail Notification - This icon will sport an exclamation point when you have new Netscape.com sitemail messages waiting for you.
• Since Navigator 9 is based on the newest Mozilla technologies, there are additional features in Navigator 9 that were not available in Netscape Browser 8.x. You can read about those new features in these release notes from Mozilla.

Version 9.0.0.5 adds/changes the following:

• These security fixes included in Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11 have been included in Netscape Navigator 9.0.0.5.

Netscape 9 is as fast at loading and viewing/navigating pages than just about any browser available for the Mac - even though the interface elements are somewhat clunkier. Even so, Netscape Communicator 4 (updated on 8/20/2002 to version 4.8) is still available (see below) for those who might prefer its quirks.

I have chosen not to review the non-browser components of this release, but I generally recommend people use separate, dedicated email and newsreading software (although the email component has gotten rave reviews in many publications). The Swiss army knife approach just doesn't cut it for me (pun very much intended) when it's not a matter of my pockets feeling bulky.

O2M

Current Version: 2.1

Little Machines, LLC produces O2M (Outlook 2 Mac), which is probably the most highly-regarded way to convert Microsoft Windows Outlook email, calendar and contact information so that it can be imported into Apple's Mail, Address Book, and iCal applications. It is thorough, reliable, and inexpensive, to boot.

Please note that O2M is a Windows program, not a Macintosh program. It runs on Windows and produces files that can be imported by Apple Mail, Address Book, and iCal.

Features include:

• Exports Your PC's Microsoft Outlook Email, Email Attachments, Contacts, and Calendar Appointments to Portable Macintosh-Compatible Files You Can Import Into Apple Mail, Address Book, iCal, Microsoft Entourage, and Other Third-Party Programs
• Compatible with Microsoft Outlook 97, 98, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007 (3)
• Creates Industry-Standard mbox, vcf (vCard), and ics (iCal) Formats (5)
• Easy-to-Use Wizard Lets You Choose Folders to Export, Export Options and Filters, and More
• Attachments Can Be Saved into Emails, Separately as Detached Files, or Stripped Out Entirely
• Preserves Disk Space - Attachments Can Be Filtered Out by File Type and/or Size
• Performs Incremental Exports - Specify a Date Range of Emails or Calendar Items to Export
• Details of Each Export Are Clearly Captured to Log File