Is This As Easy As E-Mail Can Get?
A Review of Calypso 2.3
Ron Enderland
A lot of surfers out there had their first online experience in the old days (you know, three years ago). This might have been dialing into a local BBS. When you logged on (with ProComm for DOS, in my case), you might have been greeted with the exciting news "You have a message!" You had to type a key to access your mail. Spam, of course, was unheard of.
Perhaps then you graduated to AOL. The much loved (as well as maligned) online service has this going for it: email is simple. You can take a look at message headers and delete the garbage without downloading it. You can also pop open your address book and do a little double-clicking and quickly send mail to your pen pal in Nigeria.
Maybe you moved on to dealing with an ISP. Now, email has suddenly turned into a laborious process. You have to download EVERYTHING, including that 150 k garbage mail from CyberSpam Promotions! Yuck. NOW, what do you do?
While nobody out there seems to have simplified things to AOL’s extent, an intelligent solution might lie with Calypso 2.3.
Calypso features a ton of labor- and headache-saving features. For instance, you can download message headers only, allowing you to delete that nasty spam on your server without tying up your modem downloading it. You can drag and drop mail into your various folders. You can set up a filter with an auto-response (check mine out by sending a Bald Guy’s Cool Multimedia Pick site submission to baldnorwegian@usa.net. Just make sure you include some form of the words "submit" or "award" in your subject line). Multiple users can protect their personal mailboxes with password protection. You can "blind send" mail to multiple recipients while maintaining the confidentiality of your mailing list. You can make a comprehensive address book complete with folders, favorites, and importing and exporting capabilities.
As you can see, this is a powerful tool for anyone with one (or more) addresses accessible through a POP account. What Calypso does best, though, is simplify things.
Right-clicking on each email account name brings up a dialog box which allows you to control how each account is managed. You can instruct one account to leave mail on the server while instructing others to delete it after retrieval. You can download subject lines only, or download the first few lines of each message (foiling spammers who use subject lines starting with "re:"). You can set up a filter for each individual account that will automatically move mail to certain folders and send a response, if you wish. Filtering also allows you to redirect mail or call another filter. And, you can play different .wav sounds to alert you to mail in different accounts.
If you find all of this power daunting, you can also just let Calypso’s defaults provide you with a nicely set up email system. There is a trial version available for download at the website listed below that will function indefinitely, albeit with limited features.
For 50 bucks, though, you can obtain a powerhouse email manager that will take on a lot of chores that you might have been handling yourself. Just the ability to zap spam on the server makes it worth it to me!
If you find email complicated to handle, try Calypso. Let the software do your dirty work, while you spend your time composing exquisite replies...
Internet Hotel Scorecard
| Product: | Calypso 2.3 |
| Company: | Micro Computer Systems |
| Cost: | $49.95 |
System Requirements:
Windows 95, NT 3.51, or NT4.0
386 or faster CPU
16 MB RAM
6 MB hard disk space
One or more internet email accounts
Access to your email account(s) via modem or network
Breakdown:
Ease of Use 5
Quality 5
Concept 5
Interface 5
Overall Score:
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