Sep 14, 2009
Which E-Mail Program Should You Use for Course Discussions?
Most people use whatever email client comes with their computer. But there are a few points to consider, if you’re not already committed to a particular email software package.
First, the biggest group of people use Microsoft’s full-featured Outlook or, at least, Outlook Express. It comes as a part of the Microsoft Office Suite and it has all the bells and whistles you could possible want. The danger, of course, is the same as with any Microsoft product that touches the Internet; the “crackers” are out to get Microsoft and they spend thousands of hours writing trojans, worms and viruses specifically targeted at Outlook. So, if you decide to use Outlook, be sure to also install security protection.
We use Outlook on one of our home machines, and we’ve installed a group of packages alongside it to protect us from the crackers. These are all free and they do as good a job at protecting us as any commercially available software. They include AVG Virus Checker from Grisoft, Zone Alarm Firewall (free Personal Edition), AdAware, and WinPatrol. AdAware prevents spyware from being installed and WinPatrol prevents vendors like Quicktime, RealPlayer, or Adobe from installing themselves in the StartUp folder or installing useless daily update checkers that steal valuable computer memory.
On another of our machines, we still use Qualcomm’s Eudora primarily because that user doesn’t want to go through the Outlook learning curve. (A perfectly legitimate reason, in our estimation.)
A new contender worth looking at is the open source Thunderbird email from mozzila.org. It’s free, its robust, and it integrates with the Firefox browser.
Finally, one of the oldest and easiest to use email clients is Pegasus Mail. It has all the features of any heavy-weight email package, so its well worth considering. Since arriving on the scene in 1990 it has served millions of users. It runs on Windows and is still available for old Microsoft DOS-based machines. It comes in language versions for English, German, French, Catalan, Czech, and Dutch. And its still free after all these years.
claude
Next time: “Asynchronous Discussion: Your Most Valuable Communication Tool.”
