gHacks technology news » emails

Bookmark Emails In Thunderbird

Martin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:42:39 +0000

There are a few ways to take care of important emails that are arriving in the email inbox. The best way to deal with them is to react right away if possible. This sometimes does not work however if research, data or consultation is required before the email can be processed and replied to. The desktop email client Thunderbird comes with a few options to mark those important emails, one being the ability to add tags to emails which will color code them in the email client. Other email users prefer to move important emails into a special folder so that they can access the emails in that folder at a later time without having to search the email folder structure for them.

A third option is provided by the Thunderbird add-on eMarks which supposedly stands for email bookmarks. The add-on adds a new toolbar to the email client. Emails can then be dragged and dropped into that toolbar easily. This makes these emails available from every folder the user might be in. These emails are then accessible with a left-click of the mouse. Thunderbird will automatically switch to the folder the email is stored in and display it in the preview pane.

A right-click on any bookmarked email will open a context menu with options to open the email in a new window or tab and to rename or delete it. Users who prefer no additional toolbar in the email client can disable it and access the bookmarked emails from the file menu at the top. An emarks entry is added by the extension that can be used to access the bookmarked emails with three clicks of the mouse. Not as comfortable as the toolbar solution but better if space is an issue.

The eMarks extension for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client is available at the Mozilla Thunderbird website. It is compatible with all the latest versions of the desktop email client (including Thunderbird 3 beta).

Tags: bookmark emails, emails, thunderbird, thunderbird add-on, thunderbird emails, thunderbird extension

Schedule Emails In Microsoft Outlook

Martin — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:33:07 +0000

There are quite a few reasons for wanting to send an email message at a later time. It can be emails that cover a new product release that should not be received before a specific date or emails that are important – like birthday emails for example – that need to be send on an actual day and not before that. Microsoft Outlook comes with a set of tools to schedule emails easily. The only problem that users might experience when scheduling emails in desktop clients is that the client needs to be running around the time the email has been schedule for to be actually send out to the recipients.

That’s in contrast to online email services which are always connected to the Internet and can send out emails at any time providing they offer the ability to schedule emails which the most popular (Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail) do not at this time. There are however third party services that can be used in this case.

Microsoft Outlook on the other hand makes it dead simple to schedule emails. All the user needs to do is to create a new email message, switch to the Options menu at the top of the screen and click on the delay delivery button under More Options in the ribbon.

This will open a new menu with the option to define a delivery data and time. Microsoft Outlook will not send out the email before the specified date. It will send out the email as soon as possible once the date and time is reached which is usually instantly if the computer is on and Outlook open.

The menu needs to be closed afterwards. The email can now be written as usual and send out. Outlook will recognize the date the email is scheduled and put it in the Outbox for the time being.

Tags: Email, emails, microsoft, microsoft outlook, outlook delivery options, outlook email, schedule emails

Email Extractor Software Droid Email Seeker

Martin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:49:37 +0000

How to spammers fill their databases with email addresses? They usually buy them in bulk from companies that acquire them by other means. Other means can mean running search bots that crawl websites on the Internet to find new email addresses but also illegal methods like hacking into databases to retrieve all email addresses. You might be surprised that many legitimate businesses purchase email addresses for their marketing campaigns.

There might be white hat reasons for running a bot on a website to retrieve all the email messages found. A reason that comes to mind is to locate all emails that are posted on a public website to remove them from that website in order to protect the owner from spam.

Droid Email Seeker is one of the few free email extractors that are available for the Windows operating system. It can be used to quickly scan a website for email messages. It will begin crawling the website at the specified url and follow all inbound links that point to other pages on the same website. It will also ignore links pointing to other websites.

Another option of using the software is to let it search for keywords on Google and check the websites that turn up as results for email addresses. The number of sites can be specified. It is a little bit irritating that the process of scanning a website cannot be stopped from within the application. The only way is to terminate the program in Windows.

The email extractor software supports web proxies which it can verify. All email addresses that are found on the websites that are crawled will be added to a database. This email database can be exported as a csv file at any time. Droid Email Seeker requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 to be installed on the computer system.

Tags: droid email seeker, Email, email addresses, email database, email extractor, Email Extractor Software, emails, spam, windows software

Gmail POP3 Configuration

Martin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:11:03 +0000

I received several emails lately that asked me how to setup email clients so that they could retrieve Gmail emails using the POP3 protocol. The Gmail POP3 configuration is fortunately not that complex: The major problem that most users run into is that POP3 has to be enabled in the Gmail web interface before they can actually retrieve their emails in another email client.

Enabling POP3 in Gmail is therefor a two-step process. POP3 needs to be enabled on the Gmail website first before the other email client is configured to connect to Gmail using the POP3 protocol.

Enabling Gmail POP3

Open the Gmail homepage, log into your Gmail account and click on the [Settings] link in the top right corner of the screen to open the Gmail configuration. Now select the [Forwarding and POP/IMAP] link which should open a page just like the one you see below on the screenshot.

You basically got two options here to enable POP3. The first [Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)] enables POP3 in Gmail for all email messages even those that have already been retrieved while the second [Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on] enables POP3 from that moment on which means that old emails cannot be retrieved. A click on the Save Changes button will save the changes and allow POP3 connections.

Gmail POP3 Data

It is time to create the accounts in the email client now that POP3 has been enabled in Gmail. The procedure is different depending on the email client at hand. Below are the values that need to be entered into the email client.

Email Address: Enter your full Gmail email address
Password: Enter your email password
Incoming Server: pop.gmail.com
Incoming Server Port: 995
Outgoing Server: smtp.gmail.com
Outgoing server (SMTP) port: 587
Encryption: TLS

You can check out the help pages over at Gmail that contain configuration walkthroughs for various popular email clients.

Tags: Email, email client, emails, gmail, gmail pop3, gmail pop3 configuration, gmail smtp, gmail tips

Change The Thunderbird Reply Email Layout

Martin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:30:05 +0000

Whenever a Thunderbird user replies to an email a default layout is being used to add information like the original authors name and email contents to the reply. Some users might want to change some of the elements that are added automatically. This can be for example useful if the user wants the replies to appear in a specific language that is not the default installation language of the email client. It is also possible to remove or add text or information from the replies.

All these parameters are handled in the Thunderbird configuration file. To get there click on [Tools] then [Options] to open the visible settings. Now click on the [Advanced] tab and there on the [Config Editor] entry which should open the Thunderbird configuration file which resembles that of the Firefox web browser.

Filter for the term [mailnews.reply] which should display nine entries that define several options when replying to emails in the Thunderbird email client.

Probably the most interesting parameters in these options are:

mailnews.reply_header_authorwrote – Change the default [%s wrote] to something else. The [%s] variable defines the name of the writer of the original email.
mailnews.reply_header_ondate – Change the default [On %s] to something else. The [%s] variable defines the date the original email was received.
mailnews.reply_header_originalmessage – Change the default [-------- Original Message --------] to something else or remove it completely if you feel it is not needed.

You can change a value by double-clicking on its line in the configuration menu of the Thunderbird email client.

Tags: Email, email client, emails, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird tips

Outlook Express Email Recovery

Martin — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:11:54 +0000

Mail Cure is a portable software application for the Windows operating system that has been designed to recover accidentally deleted email messages. Unlike other email recovery tools Mail Cure does not only look for existing mail databases and emails but does scan the free space of the hard drive for traces of mailboxes or deleted emails.

The email recovery software will post a list of all available hard drives at the beginning of which the user can select one that should be crawled for deleted emails. The scan of the hard drive depends largely on its size and the available resources. The email recovery application will display the progress at the top of the window including the emails that have been found so far.

The emails can be accessed right away even if the scan of the hard drive is still underway which is excellent if time is of essence. It can happen that the preview of some of the recovered emails is not shown at all or only partially which means that this email is not recoverable completely.

Emails that have been discovered during the scan can not only be previewed but also exported as a txt or eml document. The txt documents are more easily accessible while the eml format can be used to import the emails into email programs like Microsoft Outlook but also Mozilla Thunderbird and others.

It has to be noted that Mail Cure will not only find Outlook Express email messages but also other email messages. A test on a computer that never made use of Outlook Express but Mozilla Thunderbird resulted in thousands of mail messages that have been found after the scan.

The emails can be sorted in various ways including by sender, date or subject. It is furthermore possible to search for text in all emails that have been found so far. Mail Cure is an excellent email recovery software. Its portable nature makes it an ideal companion for a portable tool collection.

Tags: email recovery, emails, outlook emails, outlook express, portable software, recover emails, software, windows software

Thunderbird 3 Beta 2

Martin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:41:06 +0000

The Thunderbird email client team is making progress. They released Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 yesterday for public download. Interested users should keep in mind that this is a beta version of the email client. It feels very stable but it can still produce bugs that might delete things unrecoverably. It is therefor not suggested to try out Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 in a work environment. More than 342 changes have been made between beta 1 and beta 2, many bug fixes but some more notable ones include new features like the archiving feature that has been taken right from Gmail. Thunderbird is automatically creating a new entry Archives in the mail folder structure with subfolders for years and months.

Messages can be archived pressing the A key highlighted or by using the archive button that appears in the header area of each message. They will be automatically sorted into the correct year and month folder in the mail structure. That’s very handy for users who receive lots of messages per day that they have to keep.

Another change is a central activity manager that lists the most recent changes in the email client, e.g. retrieving or moving mail. That’s not a lot of new features but Thunderbird was already a very solid mail client. Especially the archiving feature can save lots of time for some users. Thunderbird 3 beta 2 is available for all supported operating systems and languages.

Tags: Email, email client, emails, mozilla thunderbird, thunderbird, thunderbird 3, thunderbird archiving, thunderbird beta, thunderbird download, thunderbird features

Send SMS Messages When Emails Arrive

Martin — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:13:24 +0000

GSN SMS Notifier is a free software program that can be used to send SMS messages if emails arrive in a specified account. The software application currently supports both POP3 email accounts and Gmail which can both be configured in the interface. The SMS messages will be send using either ICQ or Skype. Sending SMS messages over ICQ is free while the Skype alternative requires Skype credits that will be used to send sms messages.

The utility has to be configured before it can be used. It uses a few configuration screens to configure the SMS provider and cell phone, the email account, filtering rules for the emails and an SMS template.

The default values are to check every 15 minutes for new emails int he configured account. The username and password of the ICQ account have to be added to the software. If the user selects Skype as the SMS provider nothing has to be configured as those information are taken directly from the Skype client.

Labels can be selected if Gmail is chosen as the account type. Both Gmail and POP3 have to be configured with the username and password. Two rules can be defined to process incoming emails only during a specific timeframe and/or by using a sender whitelist.

The program has to be running in the background to be able to check the email account regularly and send sms messages out if new emails have arrived that are matching the rules.

GSN SMS Notifier runs on Windows XP or Windows Vista and requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

Tags: Email, emails, gsn sms notifier, icq sms, send sms, send sms messages, skype sms, sms, sms emails, sms notifier

Automatic CC Emails In Thunderbird

Martin — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:45:49 +0000

The email client Thunderbird does not provide an option to automatically send specific emails to a CC or BCC email address. While home users normally do not need that feature it might be required to send all email correspondence to a supervisor or different department in the company that you are working for. It can also be a good way to send emails to another account to store all send messages in one central place.

Auto-CC is an extension for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client that can configure the email client to automatically send CC or BCC emails whenever an email is send from the program. The extension is currently experimental which means that users need to log into the Mozilla website before they can download and install the mail extension.

The email address that the messages are send to has to be configured in the Thunderbird Config Editor. The editor can be accessed by clicking on Tools > Options, selecting the Advanced tab and clicking on the Config Editor button. Adding the auto_cc filter will display four parameters of the Thunderbird extension.

extensions.auto_cc.auto_cc_address: Double-click to enter the email address that will receive the CC or BCC emails.
extensions.auto_cc.enabled: Auto-CC is enabled if set to true and disabled if set to false
extensions.auto_cc.send_as_bcc: Will send the emails as BCC instead of CC if set to true.

A button can be added to the Compose toolbar to quickly turn the feature on or off. One thing that this extension is missing is the ability to select CC or BCC emails on an account basis. As of now all accounts are affected if the extension is enabled which might be ok in a work environment but not at home. The toolbar button is not the perfect solution because it quickly becomes an inconvenience to turn the extension or or off several times a day depending on the emails that are send out. It is also likely that the user will forget to turn on or off the extension from time to time.

As of now it’s a great solution for users who use Thunderbird in a work environment which requires to BCC or CC emails to another email address.

Tags: automatically bcc, automatically cc, email client, email tips, emails, mozilla, thunderbird, thunderbird add-on, thunderbird extension

Otherinbox Review And 25 Invites

Martin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:17:42 +0000

The idea behind Otherinbox is to provide an easy to manage email service for marketing offers and all those community websites and networks. The service provides a web interface and an email address to every user who signs up for the service. The main selling point of Otherinbox is the automatic generation of mail filters and folders. The email provider is creating and managing filters automatically for the basic email address.

This requires some explanation. The user signs up and picks a username during the setup. The domain for his email is then created automatically using the formula @username.otherinbox.com. Every email alias that is put in front of the @ will automatically create a new filter and folder for that alias.

This effectively means unlimited email addresses for every user which are harder to guess than those from similar services such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail. This does however mean that every email will reach the inbox and that a new folder and filter will be created for them automatically.

Otherinbox can be used to send emails from the available or newly created aliases as well. The real question is if someone would really need Otherinbox. It is not a problem to create a new webmail account and create filters for marketing and networking websites. The only difference is that Otherinbox provides automatic filter generation while they have to be created manually using the other webmail services.

Is that enough to make the service worthwhile? That’s up for you decide. The Otherinbox team provided Ghacks readers with 25 email addresses. Just head over to http://beta.otherinbox.com/signup/ghacksnet and signup. The first 25 to signup get the beta account.

Tags: Email, email administration, email management, email provider, email spam, emails, otherinbox, webmail

Outlook Express Email Recovery

Martin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:29:51 +0000

Outlook Express stores emails in so called dbx files which contain the present but also the deleted messages unless mail folders are compressed regularly. If a database file gets corrupted it does not necessarily mean that everything is lost and unrecoverable ( the reason why does not really matter, could be for instance a hard disk error in a sector that contains part of the file). There is however no tool in Windows or in Outlook Express that can recover a corrupt database or files that have been accidentally deleted.

Email Recovery can do that. It can analyze dbx files to recover as many emails as possible from the file. Each recovered email will be saved in the eml format which can be imported back into Microsoft Outlook Express and most other email clients. The analysis is done in a read-only mode which means that the dbx files will be read but not edited or changed in any way.

The recovery software scans the entire dbx file and not only the mail headers to find out if a mail can be recovered. Cautious users can still create a backup of the dbx file and try to restore the emails after creating the backup.

Email Recovery is a handy tool if emails cannot be read anymore or have been deleted accidentally. It can only recover deleted emails if the folders have not been compressed.

Tags: email recovery, emails, outlook express

Signature Suggestions

Martin — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:16:35 +0000

You just signed up for this cool forum where everyone is having a great signature and you desperately need one as well. My advice would be to visit the coolsig website and take a look at their signature archive. Categories include People and Society, Oddballs, Humor and Geeky Signatures.

Some of my favorites include “I’m not normally a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me, Superman!” – Homer Simpson”, ” A hacker does for love what others would not do for money.” and ” Stewardesses is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.”

Tags: emails, signature

Understanding Email Headers

Martin — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:17:11 +0000

Everyone knows how to send and recieve emails but only a few understand the concept behind the process. Emails are normally not send directly from your machine to the recipient. Mailservers that are setup by your ISP for instance process incoming emails and send them on their way. This information is stored in the headers of the email. Understanding email headers helps you identify spam directed at you.

The article “reading email headers – all about email headers” gives you an indepth overview about email headers. Everything is explained with examples which makes it easy to follow through, even for people who lack the tech background. It begins with a introduction “where mail comes from” and details “mail protocols” thereafter. The final part consists of a list of common mail headers which is great if you want to understand a certain part of the header.

Tags: email headers, emails, spam

Hiding Email Addresses

Martin — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 09:43:07 +0000

It´s a well know fact that some spammers use automated scripts that scan websites for email addresses and include them in their list of email addresses that will be spammed. Sarven Capadisli compiled a huge list of mechanisms to hide the email address to counter those robots. Most can only be used if you have certain rights on the website for example number seven uses javascript to hide the email address and this is normally not active for site users.

Some tips nevertheless are really easy to adopt, for instance adding REMOVETHIS to the email address which would look like admin@REMOVETHISghacks.net. Most bots have problems with these and its unlikely that someone checks the collected emails manually.

[tags]email, hide email address, spam[/tags]

Tags: emails, hiding emails, spam

Disposable Email Address Services

Martin — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 11:44:18 +0000

After searching for some time for a relevant website that carries the information you need you are prompted with a “please login to view this site” text. The information lies behind this login procedure, but you don´t want to join the site and leave your email address behind. In days of spam a wise choice.

Still, you need the information and don´t want to search for another site that carries it and does not require registration. Rest assured, there is a way you can get the information from the site that requires registration (and a validation through email) without using one of your precious emails.

The concept is known as “disposable email” or one use email adresses. You have to register at the site, but use a email address from a disposable email service (that looks like “YouSelectThisName@DisposableEmailService.com) . The validation email is send to the disposable email address, you read it there, click on the validation link and your account is active and you can reach the page with the information you needed.

Let me give you one word of advice, you should not be using a disposable email service if you want to use your account for personal use, e.g. signing up in a forum. Everyone is able to read emails that are sent to the email address you specified, that means, everyone is able to request a new password and read the email that contains it. You should make sure that either you can hide your email from everyone except maybe administrators or signup with a real email.

I compiled a list of disposable email services, some may be banned at the site you want to register but normally a few are working without problems.

No registration:

6url.com

dodgeit.com – can´t delete mail, expires after 7 days

greensloth.com – deleted after 4 hours

jetable.org – forwards to real email address

mailinator.com – deleted after a few hours

spam.la – all new email readable to everyone

spamday.com – account exists for 24 hours, after that its deleted.

tempinbox.com –

Registration required:

e4ward.com – forwards email to your real account.

gishpuppy.com – forwards email to your real account.

kasmail.com

mailmoat.com

mailnull.com – forwards email to your real account

sneakemail.com – forwards email to your real account

spamgourmet.com – forwards email to your real account

spammotel.com – forwards email to your real account

Pay for use:

Tags: disposable emails, emails, Security

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