Welcome to BeMailer for the Macintosh v3.0—the simple application that allows you to easily send batch (multiple) e-mail messages from Claris Emailer, Eudora, Mailsmith, Outlook Express, QuickMail Pro, or even your America Online account! This application is shareware (see "Registration" below) and will only allow you to send five (5) messages at a time until it has been properly registered. Once registered, there is no limit to the number of messages you can send.
***Please note: this product is in no way affiliated nor endorsed by Apple Computer, Qualcomm, Bare Bones Software, Microsoft, CE Software, or America Online.***
BeMailer is a simple application that works in concert with your e-mail application of choice and acts as a mass e-mailer. Say you want to send the same message—perhaps a birth announcement, a moving notice, a holiday greeting, or a club newsletter—to many people. Sure you could use your existing e-mail software to tediously create message after message or, worse, send one impersonal message to several people while exposing your friends' and family’s e-mail addresses to everyone you know and whomever they forward it to! The better way is to use BeMailer which allows you to easily send individually customized messages to tens, hundreds, even thousands of people with almost no effort on your part!*
* Use of this product to spam—send unsolicited commercial e-mail—is not condoned in any way by the author.
Using BeMailer is incredibly easy but it does take a few moments preparation. If you launch BeMailer and it asks you to locate the supported e-mail applications but you do not own these programs, please locate the “Email App Proxies” folder included with the BeMailer download and select the appropriate proxy file for each application requested. Later, if you purchase and install one of the supported e-mail application and you would like to use it with BeMailer, then simply delete the coresponding proxy file from the “Email App Proxies” folder and relaunch BeMailer. When BeMailer asks for the proxy file, locate the actual e-mail application.
BeMailer Using AOL
BeMailer will work both if you are already logged onto AOL or if a connection has not yet been established. If you have not yet logged on, the screen name and password you enter into the main BeMailer screen will be used to connect you to the service and will be the screen name your e-mail is sent from. If you want the application to remember the screen name and password you enter every time you run the BeMailer application, simply check the “Remember Screen Name and Password” checkbox. If you are already logged onto AOL, it does not matter what you enter into the Screen Name and Password fields, the screen name you used to connect will be the one used to send the messages.
BeMailer Using Other E-Mail Applications
BeMailer has been designed to work with a number of e-mail applications including America Online (see above), Claris Emailer, Eudora, Mailsmith, Outlook Express, or QuickMail Pro. For the applications other than AOL, BeMailer will create all of the messages in your outbox and will wait for you to ustilize the scheduling features of your e-mail application to send the newly created messages.
Data Files
The heart and soul of BeMailer are two simple text files that can be created and modified within BeMailer (or in any text editor including SimpleText). You must choose or create a Variable Data File and a Body Text File. To locate a preexisting Variable Data File, click the “Choose Variable Data File” button and locate the Variable Data File you wish to use. Similarly, click the “Choose Body Text File” button and locate the Body Text File. (For more information, see below.)
Finally, if you would like BeMailer to automatically sign off of AOL (if applicable) and/or notify you when it has completed mailing your batch e-mail, check the appropriate boxes. BeMailer will remember your settings the next time you use it.
Once you have supplied all the information required, hit the “OK” button on the “General Settings” tab to begin your BeMailer session. At this point you will receive a dialog box asking if you have saved the modifications you made—if any—to the Variable Data File and the Body Text File. If you did not, you should stop, save each of your data files, then hit the “OK” button again. Now watch as your computer automates a task that would have normally taken hours—if not days—of your time.
Variable Data File
The first text file that needs to be prepared is the Variable Data File. This is a tab-delimited text file that is comprised of records that contain all of the information you need for your BeMailer session. The first record in your text file should include the names of the variables your wish to include in your message. For the best example of how to prepare your file, you should take a look at the sample Variable Data File included with the BeMailer download. You can use any database or spreadsheet application such as FileMaker Pro or Microsoft Excel to prepare your file or you can create it entirly within BeMailer.
No matter what you want to include in the message you send in your BeMailer session, the first data column has to be the email address of the person you wish to send email to. Other columns that are highly reccommended are First Name, Last Name, Street Address, etc.
email first name last name
JohnDoe@domain.com John Doe
JillDoe@domain.com Jill Doe
AOLUser001 Melissa Sample
AOLUser002 Dan Sample
AOLUser003 Sue Sample
etc. ...
As you will note, if your are using BeMailer with AOL and are sending to other users of AOL, you do not need to place the "@aol.com" after the user name but for addressees who do not have accounts on AOL, the full Internet address is required—just like when sending mail from your AOL account manually.
Don't worry about naming this file anything in specific nor saving it in any particular place—as long as you know the name and location of the file, everything will be just fine.
Please remember that if you use a word processor, spreadsheet, or database application to create or modify this file, it is very important that you save this file as a tab-delimited text document and not in a proprietary format for that application.
Body Text File
The second text file that needs to be prepared is the Body Text File. This text file is comprised of the email message that you wish to send. The first line of this file is used as the subject line for the message. All subsequent paragraphs comprise the body of your message. The following is an example of a valid Body Text File:
Happy Holidays «first name»!
«current date long»
«current time»
Dear «first name» «surname»,
I just wanted to take a moment to wish you and yours a very healthy, happy holiday season and to verify your address.
Our records indicate that you currently reside at:
«street»
«city», «state» «zip»
If this is not correct, please notify us with any corrections at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
J N
«subject»
As you will note, the first line is the subject “Happy Holidays!” and the subsequent paragraphs are the body of the message. You'll also note that there are several parts of the message delimited by the double angle brackets “«” and “»”, these are the variable fields that are generated in your Variable Data File. When your message is created, BeMailer will substitute the data associated with the fields you placed in your message to create completely individualized messages. Again, the best way to understand how this works is to play around with the included demo files.
Your message can be as long as you'd like. Again, don't worry about the name or location of this file—as long as you know—and please remember that if you use a word processor to create or modify this file, it is very important that you save this file as a text document and not in a proprietary format for that application.
If you would like to spell check your message, press the “Spell Check” button. BeMailer uses the freeware spelling checker Excalibur. To find out more about Excaliber, please go to the Excaliber website at:
BeMailer is shareware. Until you register, BeMailer will periodically remind you to register the software and will be limited to only sending to the first five (5) entries in your Variable Data File. Registration is only $30.00 (US) payable in check or money order to:
Jonathan Nathan
320 West 56th Street
Suite 4H
New York, NY 10019
For more information, simply e-mail me at <bemailer@aol.com> and I will be happy to answer your questions.
Please hold on to this document for future reference. If you are unsure about features found in the main BeMailer window, you may turn on balloon and point to any item you are unsure of to get a more detailed description of its function. For all registered users free tech support is available.
This Software is provided on an "AS IS" basis, without warranty of any kind, inluding without limitation, the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. You shall use the software entirely at your own risk. To the extent allowed by law, Jonathan Nathan expressly disclaims all implied warranties.
You may distribute this software so long as you distribute the complete package including this read me document.
Portions of this software are included under license. 1998 Digital Technology International. All rights reserved. For more information call 801-226-2984 or see http://www.facespan.com.
Claris Emailer, Macintosh, AppleScript, MOS, and SimpleText are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. America Online and AOL are trademarks of America Online, Inc. Eudora Pro and Eudora Light are trademarks of Qualcomm, Inc. Outlook Express is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Mailsmith is a trademark of Bare Bones Software, Inc. QuickMail Pro is a trademark of CE Software, Inc.
All other product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Mention of other products is for informational purposes and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation. Jonathan Nathan assumes no responsibility with regard to the selection, performance, or use of these products.
* Use of this product to spam—send unsolicited commercial e-mail—is not condoned in any way by the author.
