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Composing a message using cc:Mail Mobile can be a claustrophobic experience. Two quick steps will give you practically the entire screen. Turn off the SmartIcons by clicking on the icon bar (on the right-hand corner of the screen) and choosing Hide SmartIcons. To recover more space, move the mouse pointer to the border dividing the message pane from the address pane and move it up as far as it will go. You now have a larger area in which to compose your message. When you send the message or return to the inbox, the configuration will return to the default.
If you don't like the way cc:Mail organizes files, such as attachments to mail messages, change it. Click on the User Setup button (the screwdriver), or choose Tools/User Setup. Select File Locations from the Preference list box. The Paths list box lets you choose the location to modify. You can choose Remember Last Working Directory or create a permanent default directory.
Don't want cc:Mail to question your decisions? Then configure it to confirm or automatically allow various actions. Click on the User Setup button, or choose User Setup from the Tools menu. Then select Confirmation (the question mark) from the Preference list box. Ten different confirmation options are available as check boxes. Choose the ones you want, and turn the rest off.
To keep announcements of new mail to a minimum, click on the User Setup button, or choose User Setup from the Tools menu. Select Notify (the exclamation mark) from the Preference list box. Choose different options for your personal inbox and cc:Mail bulletin boards. You can turn off notification entirely (uncheck Enable New Message Notification), turn off the dialog box (uncheck Notify Dialog—this will leave the Tone option on if you want), or check Notify Only if Idle and fill in the number of minutes.
Create rules that will tell the cc:Mail client how to react to an incoming message. Rules can do things like file and reply to messages based on the subject, sender or content. Press the Rules button (robot hand with envelope) or choose the Rules List from the Rules menu. Choose New from the File menu to invoke the Rule Editor. Add a new rule, and fill in the conditions.
Press the Ctrl key to move a SmartIcon anywhere on the icon bar. Hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on the icon you want to reposition, then drag and drop it to its new location. Explore other options in the SmartIcons dialog available under Tools.
Print a message without opening it first. Select the message(s) you'd like to print in any folder, and press Ctrl+p. You'll see the Print Dialog. Select the print options you want, and you're done. If you press the Text Options button in the dialog, you can set the default behavior, which cc:Mail will remember.
Inundated with mail from Internet mailing lists? Write a rule that moves all mailing list traffic to a special folder. If the sender is always the same, use that field to move the message, or look for a common denominator in all list messages. At the end of the day, move the folder to your notebook machine running cc:Mail Mobile. If you use your notebook to pick up mail on the road, put a copy of the rule on the notebook as well, to keep the folder complete and in sync.
Move mail into folders to make finding mail much easier. Creating folders is easy. From the Mailbox window, press Ctrl+n and press OK in the Add New dialog. Give the new folder a name (up to 30 characters) and press Enter.
If you receive a message with an attached file and you have the associated application on your machine, you can launch it right out of the message. Just hold down the Shift key while double-clicking on the attachment. This is the alternative to the default behavior of viewing the attachment when double-clicked (no Shift key). It's also possible to configure cc:Mail to behave in exactly the opposite way. If that's what you want, change the configuration in the User Setup dialog. You can get there by pressing the User Setup button or selecting Tools/User Setup.
If you'd like to check a message before sending it, save it in the Drafts folder. When you're ready, open the Drafts folder, find your message in the list, finish it, then send. Once a message has been stored as a draft, it will stay in the Drafts folder until you explicitly delete it.
Create special repositories for messages called Archives.These repositories are permanent--messages stored in them can be read and copied but not deleted individually. You can keep an Archive on a fixed or floppy disk. Press Ctrl+N while in the Mailbox window and choose Archive from the Add New dialog. A file dialog will let you specify where you would like the Archive to reside and what the DOS filename should be. Archives cannot be renamed.
Get your cc:Mail on the go using the Hewlett-Packard HP 100lx palmtop computer--which includes a cc:Mail client as part of its built-in software--and a PCMCIA modem or Ethernet adapter.
The cc:Mail Link to SMTP program offers a way to send and receive mail via the Internet if your organization already has an Internet connection. This software, running on a simple DOS machine (386, 2MB, 40MB of available disk space) connected to your network, will do what it takes to make Internet mail available to cc:Mail users. Link to SMTP may also be used to exchange mail with any UNIX machine on your local network.
If you're the administrator of a network running cc:Mail, you might find that your network traffic has mysterious peaks. This may be caused by users running automatic mail notification. If all your machines are turned on at 9:00 a.m., and you seem to have a peak of network traffic every six minutes or so, it is probably because of the cc:Mail client polling the server for user mail. The most obvious to solve the problem is to turn off automatic notification completely, but your users may not like that. You can choose different times—six minutes for half your users and eight minutes for the other half--to stagger the polling. Or choose the "inactivity" option in User Setup, which ensures random times for polling. This is also less disruptive to users with less powerful systems.
The notices "Can't initialize the message" and "Can't load icon" in cc:Mail indicate that your system resources are low.To fix this problem, close some applications and try again. If it is a constant problem, try reducing the number of fonts you have installed.
Use the remote version of cc:Mail, cc:Mail Mobile, to stay connected while on the road. It's easy to use in conjunction with the desktop version, and it lets you dial into the cc:Mail server to receive and send your mail from anywhere there's a telephone. If your organization is on the Internet, you can use TCP/IP to make your remote connection from anywhere in the world if you have an Internet connection.
Use your favorite compression program to compress file attachments right out of cc:Mail. Attach a file or files as usual, then press the Compress button in the dialog. If this button is dimmed, you'll need to configure cc:Mail to use a compression program.The specification is in the [cc:Mail] section of the WMAIL.INI found in the cc:Mail user directory. There is a Compress= line that specifies the program to use. Check the Advanced Topics section of the cc:Mail User's Guide.
Address a message to more than one recipient without reopening the Address Message dialog by moving the cursor to the name of each recipient, and pressing Enter. You can do this for as many recipients as you want. If you find yourself doing this often for the same group of people, you can create a mailing list. You can add a new mailing list to the Private Mail Lists container from the same dialog. Press Ctrl+N and click on the OK button in the Add New dialog. Name your mailing list and press Enter. Add names to a list by selecting it and pressing Ctrl+N. Press the OK button in the Add New dialog and add participants.
Most organizations produce two kinds of mail--that sent to specific users and that sent to groups. The latter often has a lower priority, or is sent "FYI." The trouble is, this mail can hide an urgent message by making your mailbox too full to scan effectively. You can use a cc:Mail rule to move any mail addressed only to you to a special folder which you can look at immediately.
To force MS Mail to get all your new messages whenever you start the program, edit your MSMAIL.INI file. Exit and sign out of mail. Using Notepad or another text editor (your word processor will do, if you save the file as an ASCII file), insert the line NewMsgsAtStartup=1
under the [MS Mail] heading of your MSMAIL.INI file. From then on, you'll get your new messages whenever you start Mail.
If you want to get your mail messages more (or less) often, choose Mail/Options/New Mail and change the value in the Check for New Mail setting. The shorter the polling interval, the more often MS Mail will check for messages. Of course, this also means MS Mail will use more CPU and system resources. A longer polling interval will result in receiving messages less often. In this event, you may experience a system slowdown when MS Mail *does* poll, especially when it downloads a large number of new messages.
To attach files to a mail message, compose the message as usual, then click on the toolbar's Attach button. Choose as many files as you wish and press Close. You can also attach files using File Manager. Arrange File Manager and MS Mail side by side, and drag and drop the file from File Manager into your MS Mail message. Either way, your attachments will show up in the MS Mail message as an icon of the originating application.
If you've edited an attachment within Mail, you can return the modified file to its source by clicking Forward rather than Reply or Reply All, and entering the name of the originator. Replying to a message inserts a text placeholder in the place of the original attachment.
Whether you like it or not, MS Mail is going to print your mail messages in the Arial font. There's nothing you can about that. You *can* alter the point size. Using Notepad or another text editor, insert PrintFont=*x*
under the [MS Mail] heading of your MSMAIL.INI file, where *x* equals the point size you desire. Unfortunately, you can't change the line spacing, so don't go above 14 points or the text will become unreadable.
Minor corruption in your .MMF file (the MS Mail database file) can result in messages on your status bar that incorrectly state you have unread messages. To remedy this, exit and sign out of Mail. Launch Mail, type in your user name and password, and hold down the Shift key when you press Enter. You'll get a dialog box that asks if you want to check your Mail file for inconsistencies. Press Check File, and MS Mail will take control of your system--sometimes for several hours, if you have a lot of saved messages. This process creates a backup of your .MMF file, so make sure there's enough space on your network drive before you begin the process. To speed this operation, move your .MMF file to your local hard disk by choosing File/Options, then clicking on the Server button. In the dialog box, choose Local and enter the full pathname to the location where you want to store your file, and a name for the file.
If you have a sound card and speakers, or the SPEAKER.DRV driver installed that plays sounds through your system's small speaker, you can specify the .WAV file your system uses to alert you to new messages. Start by moving the .WAV file you want to use to your WINDOWS directory. Then open the Sound setting under Control Panel and make sure the Enable System Sounds box is checked. Find and highlight the .WAV file you wish to associate with new messages in the right pane, and press OK. The next time you launch MS Mail, this .WAV file will alert you to incoming messages.
You can easily relocate your .MMF file to the local hard disk or another network drive to which you have read and write privileges. Choose Mail/Options and press Server. Your two choices are Local or Postoffice. If you choose Local, you'll need to enter the full pathname to the location in which you want to store your file, and a name for the file.
Although you can access and use group folders from MS Mail in Windows, you can't create them. You can accomplish this using the DOS MS Mail client. Once you've created them in this way, you'll be able to access and use them in Windows, as will other members of your post office mail group. Others in your post office will not have access.
MS Mail uses the polling frequency you established in its Options/New Mail setting to send and receive new messages. If you want to send or receive a message immediately, choose View/New Messages twice
. This will first send messages in your outbox, and next poll to download any new messages to your inbox.
To use the MS Mail version that came with your Windows for Workgroups installation, make some changes to your MSMAIL.INI file. Before you launch MS Mail, use Notepad or a text editor to add these two lines to your [MS Mail] heading in the MSMAIL.INI file:
login=*login_name*
serverpath=M:\
(Novell normally uses the M: drive for mail. If you're using a different drive letter designation, replace the M:\ shown here with the appropriate drive letter.)
The next time you launch MS Mail, it will log you into your NetWare-based post office.
You can have MS Mail automatically place a prefix string of characters in front of each line of an original message when you reply to it. Many people use the characters >>, for example. You must edit your MSMAIL.INI file with Notepad or an ASCII text editor, adding the line ReplyPrefix=>>
to the [MS Mail] section. Should the character string you choose not work, try placing quotes around the character string in its MSMAIL.INI entry.
This tip is for administrators only. You can create groups of users that your mail users can use to send messages. Using the DOS ADMIN.EXE program, choose Local-Admin/Group/Create. Highlight the users you want to group, pressing the spacebar to select them. When you're done,p ress Enter. Enter a group alias that you want to appear in the Post Office Address List for this group. Then enter a mailbox name, up to eight characters long. To finish the task, choose whether to include the group in enterprisewide directory synchronization and create the group. When you exit the ADMIN.EXE, users can select the group from their Post Office Address lists and send mail to the group members.
If your MS Mail Post Office has an Internet gateway, you can add an addressee to your Address Book using his or her Internet address. Choose Mail/Address Book and click on the icon for a single Rolodex card (the bottom choice on the left side of the Address Book Dialog Box). In the New dialog box that results, under "Create what kind of entry," choose SMTP, and press OK. Next, in the New User dialog, enter an alias for the addressee. Then, under SMTP address, enter the Internet address of the new entry. Press the icon for the Rolodex at the bottom of the New User dialog box, and you can send messages to this entry immediately.
Assuming you have an Internet gateway, you may occasionally receive mail from sources on the Internet or on some other online service. You need not know the sender's e-mail address to reply. Simply reply as you would to a message from your local post office. To add the addressee to your address book, double-click on the addressee's name in the original message. A dialog box will show you the sender's address, which you can then copy to your personal address book.
Schedule+ 7.0 includes native support for the Timex Data Watch. You can download appointments (including reminder alarms), to-do list, contacts and so on directly into the watch while it's on your wrist. The watch receives the data from a bar-code-like display on your monitor. Download options include choosing which contact information (such as names and phone numbers) to send to the watch for easy access. The watch is available at most major office-supply and computer dealers.
Use Auto-Pick to find the best time for a meeting. When you're adding a new appointment in the Appointment dialog box, switch to the Planner tab and press the Auto-Pick button or use the Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut. Schedule+ will look at all attendees' calendars and choose a time that suits everyone. To use Auto-Pick, you must be running Schedule+ in Group Enabled mode. This allows the program to communicate with other users' calendars via MS Mail.
Schedule+'s Contacts tab lets you compile information on personal and business contacts. Once you store a phone number, you can dial it at the press of a button. First, install your modem in Control Panel. Then, press the Dial button (its icon shows a hand dialing a telephone) next to the number you want. This will start the Phone Dialer applet, which dials the phone through your modem. And you get a bonus: The system also maintains a log of the calls you make--including the duration--that you can view from Phone Dialer's Tools menu.
If you'd like to schedule a meeting or insert a task using the contact you're browsing, press Insert/Related Item. An even easier way is to point at the item, click the right mouse button and select the option you want from the context-sensitive menu. The same idea works to make a task from an appointment or vice versa.
One quick way to make the fine print from Schedule+'s small-format pages easier on the eyes is to uncheck the shading option in the Print dialog. This is particularly useful for older (300 dpi) laser printers that have a tough time reproducing small characters on shaded backgrounds. You can also improve legibility by choosing medium or large fonts in the Print dialog's Font Size combo box.
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