Developers Newsletter #15 - 25-APR-2001
INDEX
1. A FEW WORDS FROM THE EDITOR
2. FREELANCE DEVELOPER (II)
- Tips for being successful working freelance
· Putting in your client's shoes
- Justify your prices
- Guarantee your work
- Provide as much information as you can
· Putting in your own shoes
- Get paid
- Don't give discounts
- Conduct yourself as a business
3. RHINOSOFT.COM
- About RhinoSoft.com
- FTP Voyager
· What FTP Voyager?
· FTP Voyager features
· Where to get FTP Voyager
- AllegroSurf
· What FTP AllegroSurf?
· How does AllegroSurf work?
· AllegroSurf features
· Where to get AllegroSurf
- AllegroMail
· What is AllegroMail?
· AllegroMail features
· Where to get AllegroMail
- RhinoSoft.com NetSuite
4. LINKS
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1. A FEW WORDS FROM THE EDITOR
In this issue I'm very glad to introduce Rhino Software Inc. and its
RhinoSoft.com NetSuite made of FTP Voyager, AllegroSurf and AllegroMail.
In the last issue we took a quick glance at the problems a freelance
developer has to face in the third world and I promised to discuss in
the continuation of that article some ways to revalue their job, so here
they go. There's no magic recipe. Only hard work, but hopefully more
rewarding...
In this issue I also present Help & Manual, a stand-alone and true-
WYSIWYG help authoring tool that will aid you in creating very good
documentation (HLP, HTML and CHM files and printed manuals) quickly and
easily. Are you interested in this software? Would you like to have it
for ***FREE***? EC Software is conducting a drawing ("raffle") and the
prize is a REGULAR LICENSE of Help & Manual, including one year of FREE
upgrades! This prize has a market value of $199 (USD), so hurry and
ENTER TODAY!
http://www.latiumsoftware.com/ec-software/index.php?lang=en
Best regards,
Ernesto De Spirito
eds2008 @ latiumsoftware.com
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2. FREELANCE DEVELOPER (II)
When you have a fixed job, you only have to take care of doing your job,
i.e. developing, testing and maintaining applications, or whatever your
job consists of... Somebody else takes care of the business, somebody
else runs the business risks. But when you try to make a living as a
freelance developer, you are the one who has to take care of the
business and run the business risks, something we are usually not
prepared to do simply because our colleges and universities focuses on
technical preparation, leaving business stuff aside. We are prepared to
perform a technical job as programmers, analysts, etc., but not to
conduct our own business...
Tips for being successful working freelance
===========================================
In the rest of this article I'll try to offer a few tips about how you
can become more successful as a freelance developer or consultant, but
the key here is that the more you learn about business and the more you
think of yourself as "Me Inc.", the more successful you'll be.
Putting in your client's shoes
------------------------------
The more you understand your (potential) clients, the more successful
you can be in dealing with them. Why should your potential clients hire
you instead of a competitor of yours? Why should they pay you what you
ask when others ask much less? Well, you have to learn how to revalue
your job appealing to facts and feelings like an attorney trying to
convince a jury.
Justify your prices
Clients have it difficult to decide who to choose for the development
of a tailor-made application, and it is not completely true that for
economic reasons they choose cheap over good as I stated in the first
part of this article. This is what it looks like at first glance, but if
you dig up a little bit beneath the surface you'll find out that they
choose cheap and unknown over expensive and unknown. Which option would
you choose?
Now, if you explain your clients in written, clearly, professionally and
with as much detail as possible why you ask the amount you ask, and if
you provide your résumé as a professional with "n" years of study and
"n" years of experience, a clients list, a description of past works and
everything, then the choice for the clients will be cheap and unknown
(and certainly not as professional as you) on one side, and expensive
but professional on the other side. This is a much better scenario.
Guarantee your work
Most clients are willing to pay a high price for a warranted software
than a low price for a software without warranty and unknown or high
maintenance fees. Also, for a client the most clear way to distinguish
an experienced professional from an inexperienced one, is that the first
one can warrant the quality of his/her work, at least for a certain
period of time, while the second one has too much uncertainty to be able
to offer this kind of warranty, or otherwise would have to inflate his/
her fee too much.
What should you warrant? Basically, four things:
1) That you'll finish your job within schedule. This applies if you are
getting paid for job done rather than hours worked, and the warranty
usually consists in a "fine" that will be discounted from your pay
and is usually expressed as a percentage of the total amount of the
project, for example it can be 1% for each day of delay...
2) That your software is free from programming errors. Of course, the
warranty can only limit to repairing such errors when spotted at no
cost, and you can't make responsible for any damages, etc.
3) Response time. For example that you -or somebody appointed by you-
will go to the client's location to assess the situation within 24
hours of the call, and that any error will be fixed in the next 48
hours.
4) A fee for additional works. Maintenance is not only repairing errors.
Systems need to be updated, moved, etc. Clients would like to know
what fee your offer for additional works, for example $x/hr.
Provide as much information as you can
Our clients know how an accountant or a lawyer works and how they charge
their services, but what about an analyst-programmer? People don't know
really much about our work and how we determine the cost of an
application. In part it's our fault not to explain them in simple non-
technical terms how we work and our pricing guidelines.
It would be most professional to give our clients a written document
explaining how we work, what we expect from them (like availability for
interviews), what they should expect from us (like progress reports and
documents at the end of each stage), terms and conditions of our service
and our pricing policy.
Don't wait till your clients ask for a progress report. Let them know
right from the start that they will receive progress reports on a
periodical basis.
Putting in your own shoes
-------------------------
It's very good that you put in your client's side since it will help
create a bridge of empathy and trust between you two, but this bridge
should run both ways. In the same way that as a professional you should
take care of the interests of your clients, you should also take care of
your very own interests.
Get paid
If you expect to get paid every week, every two weeks or every month,
you'd better have a contract stating this fact. Otherwise your client
might assume that he only has to pay you upon completion of the project,
and in many parts of the world he would be legally right. Normally you
can't be without pay for such a long period of time, and in the third
world you have to add the risk of not getting paid at all once you have
delivered the application...
For these reasons the only solution is a written contract assuring that
you should get paid at certain points (weekly, monthly, based on
progress reports or whatever). The contract should guarantee you that
at the first breach of the client you can terminate the contract. A
client in financial problems is not a client.
Don't give discounts
It's a normal business practice to ask for a discount. Successful
developers don't make discounts (unless their budgets were deliberately
inflated ;) You have to make your clients understand that you can't make
any discount because the price is a already a bargain for something that
will solve their problems. Record these messages in your mind and "press
Play" when somebody asks for a discount:
"I've studied n years at the university, and besides that I've studied
'n' years on my own, I have attended many congresses and seminars, and
I have 'n' years of experience in the field. A professional with my
résumé can't charge less than what I'm charging..."
"If someone asks me to translate the Encyclopedia Britannica, that job
would take me a whole life, and therefore I'd have to earn enough to
live a whole life. For obvious reasons, I can't make any discounts.
Now, this job would take me 'n' months, so I have to earn enough to
live for 'n' months... And if you think what I'm charging you is too
much for 'n' months, you have to take into account that we -freelance
developers- don't have union, minimum income, social benefits, paid
annual vacations, etc., and yet every month we have to pay the rent,
pay the bills and pay taxes, whether we have a job or not. We also
need to have money to update our equipment and software regularly,
and to be able to spend a considerable amount of time learning new
things to keep up with technology advancements. Besides I'm giving
you guarantees of my work and I'm running all the risks if something
goes wrong. What I'm charging you is already a bargain. I can't make
any discounts on that..."
Some clients are persistent and they insist asking for a discount. If
you give up, some unscrupulous folks -like those you can easily find in
the third world- will take it like you are weak, insecure and lack self-
confidence, and that simply by insisting they can get anything from you.
Making a discount is only the first step. The next step is that they
will ask you some "little" additional jobs (free of charge, of course)
and when you finish the whole job, they say they'll pay you after you
make a couple of "little" additional jobs...
The moral of this story is: NEVER CEDE. If they really can't afford your
price, then it's very likely that they won't be able to afford it even
with a discount, and this means that it's very likely that you won't get
paid at all. Again, a client in financial problems is not a client.
What should you do if they insist on a discount? Offer an alternative
solution if possible: maybe the application can be trimmed to fit their
budget. And don't forget to mention that surely they can get a better
price from a student or an inexperienced developer... ;) Leave them
your business card and let them think. DO NOT waste more time with them.
I guess that in the "Manual of the Successful Businessman" one of the
rules is giving some hints to make prospective contractors believe that
after the first contract, others will follow, either with the same
client or with other clients. Thinking of the opportunities that a
contract will give them, some developers deflate their budgets to get
that client, believing that then they are going to have work for a long
while... You are smart, don't fall in this trap. Usually no other
contracts follow, and if they do, they would also be "low-price", or do
you think that later you'll be able to raise the price after giving
yourself the fame of being "cheap"?
Conduct yourself as a business
As we said in the introduction of this article, it's easy to be under a
payroll. Somebody else takes care of the business. But when you are on
your own, you are a one-person enterprise and you are the one who should
take care of the business because nobody else will. Here are a few
things for you to consider:
* One of the first things you should learn is how to write business
letters. When I forget to pay a bill I get a letter reminding me of
the debt and stating that if I don't pay by a given date they will cut
the service. You should do the same with your clients. BTW, apart from
cutting the service, you should also report your client's debt to
credit-verification entities in the same that any company would do
with you if you don't pay them.
* Do you have business cards and letterhead paper? You can say it's just
a little formality, but this little formality helps define yourself as
a business.
* Do you have pre-printed forms? When someone wants you to budget a job,
where do you write? When you are interviewing someone, where do you
take notes? When you perform an additional job, where do you report
what you did, how many hours it took and how much money is that? When
someone asks you additional jobs, where is the signed Service Order?
* Never wait too much for an appointment. If the person you have to
talk to isn't available and won't be there for you in a reasonable
amount of time (let's say 30 minutes), you should leave a message with
the secretary (just saying that you were there), leave him/her your
business card, and go away. Don't let them keep you waiting. Your time
is too valuable for that.
* Bill additional jobs immediately. Don't wait till the end of the month
to bill additional jobs (although you can give them that period to pay
the bill). Be sure that you have included additional jobs in your
contract and that failure to pay them in due time enables you to
terminate the contract.
* Never give credit. Banks are meant for that. If your potential client
has good credit, he can surely ask a bank loan and pay you. If he asks
you for credit, then his credit is probably not so good... One more
time: a client in financial problems is not a client. If a bank, with
all their resources, with a financial structure capable of absorbing
great losses, with access to credit-verification databases, with
attorneys and everything don't lend someone money, why should you?
------------------------------------
Should you like to make any comments about this article, please feel
free to do so writing to <eds2008 @ latiumsoftware.com>.
########################################################################
3. RHINOSOFT.COM
About RhinoSoft.com
===================
RhinoSoft.com (Rhino Software, Inc.) is a small company located in
Helenville, Wisconsin (USA) and was founded in October 1996. The company
specializes in developing and distributing software designed to help
customers leverage the power of the Internet.
Currently, RhinoSoft.com develops and distributes the popular FTP
Voyager® FTP client, AllegroSurf proxy server and web accelerator,
AllegroMail email client, FtpTree ActiveX Control programming tool, and
NetProbe site list maintenance utility. In this article, I'd like to
present the first three of these products, which constitute the
RhinoSoft.com NetSuite.
FTP Voyager
===========
What is FTP Voyager?
--------------------
FTP Voyager is an FTP Client program for Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000. It
allows you to upload and download to virtually any FTP site, whether the
site is on your local network or if your site is on the Internet. With
an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, FTP Voyager lets you update a Web
site with a single click, transfer files directly between FTP servers,
and resume interrupted downloads. It's a perfect tool for Web developers
or anyone that moves files on the Internet. I use it to manage my sites
and I'm very happy with it.
Features of FTP Voyager
-----------------------
FTP Voyager brings the standard features you can find in any average FTP
client, but also brings a lot of features not easily found in other FTP
software. The features list is quite large to be reproduced here, so
here are only some of them:
User Interface
FTP Voyager is designed to look and work like the Windows Explorer. If
you use the Windows Explorer, you'll know how to use FTP Voyager.
* FTP Site Profile Manager
The FTP Site Profile Manager organizes and manages FTP sites and can
also import sites from other FTP applications. The FTP Site Profile
Manager remembers specific settings for sites you visit and you can
define different firewall/proxy settings for each site. This feature
offers you one-click access to your FTP sites.
* Drag and Drop Interface
Supports Dragging and Dropping between Windows Explorer, Desktop,
Remote/Local views, and different FTP Voyager sessions. The "Drag and
Drop" feature offers an easy to use, intuitive interface for
transferring files, saving you time and effort.
* Automatic ASCII/Binary Selection
Without manual intervention, FTP Voyager has the ability to
automatically detect which transfer mode to use with certain file
types.
* Filtering
Filtering limits the files that are displayed within the FTP Voyager
windows allowing you to organize your views by eliminating unnecessary
files. Unique filtering can be applied to each entry in your FTP Site
Profile Manager including case sensitivity and applied to local,
remote, or both windows.
* Folder Shortcuts
FTP Voyager allows you to create "Folder Shortcuts" to move you
quickly to desired points of access on the connected FTP server.
* Dial on Demand
FTP Voyager will use the Windows dial-up listings to automatically
connect to the Internet when needed after a connection has been
selected.
* Browser integration
FTP Voyager includes browser integration with Internet Explorer and
Netscape Navigator so that you can take advantage of the speed and
reliability of FTP Voyager for FTP downloads from your browser.
* Customizable toolbars
FTP Voyager includes customizable toolbars for the local and remote
window panes for easy FTP usage.
* Customized Layout
With FTP Voyager you can customize the layout of its windows choosing
from the Classic layout, the inverted Topsy-Turvy layout, side-by-side
layout, side-by-side inverted "Cute" layout, or a custom layout of
your choosing! All changes take immediate effect and are simple to
perform.
* Transfer Window
FTP Voyager features a new optional window pane to its award-winning
interface. The new transfer pane gives you information on file
transfers in progress including destination, location, estimated
completion time, and current progress. The transfer window can be
hidden and can be used in conjunction with or instead of the separate
transfer windows.
Superior tools
FTP Voyager has an unparalleled set of tools to help make your FTP task
as snap. For expert and novice alike, these tools will save time, effort
and money. Here are just some of them:
* Synchronization
Synchronization allows you to mirror files and folders. This is an
ideal feature for off-line web design and maintenance.
* Automatic Resume
FTP Voyager automatically attempts to resume a broken download or
upload exactly where you left off saving you the time of downloading
or uploading an entire file.
* Server-to-Server Transfers
Server-to-server transfers allow you to utilize the bandwidth between
two remote servers. If you're connected to the Internet via a modem,
but the two servers are connected using a T1, file transfers occur at
the speed of the T1 (1.56MB vs. 56KB).
* Background File Search
FTP Voyager allows you to search large directory structures for
specific files during an FTP session. While FTP Voyager is searching,
you can perform other FTP operations.
* Move Files & Folders
FTP Voyager can move files and folders, i.e. copying them from one
location to another and then deleting them from the origin.
* Smart Reconnect
Are you tired of unreliable FTP servers or unstable connections due to
your ISP? FTP Voyager includes a Smart Reconnect that will
automatically reconnect to FTP servers when a sent command fails or
the command connection is abnormally terminated. This virtually
ensures a permanent connection to the server and less work for you!
* Keep Alive
When this option is activated FTP Voyager keeps the connection to the
FTP server by sending innocuous FTP commands to the FTP server at a
given interval of time to prevent the server from terminating the
connection due to inactivity, saving you wasting your time having to
reconnect.
* Queuing/Scheduling
FTP Voyager allows you to queue/schedule FTP operations.
Where to get FTP Voyager
------------------------
You can download FTP Voyager from this page:
http://www.ftpvoyager.com/dl.htm
It will expire after the 30-day free evaluation period and you if you
liked the program and you want to keep using it you have to purchase a
Registration ID (just $ 39.95 for one user) to make the program fully
functional again and remove the nags.
AllegroSurf
===========
What is AllegroSurf?
--------------------
AllegroSurf is a proxy server, Internet accelerator, web content
administrator, advertisement filter, and cache manager, all in one
software. AllegroSurf makes any Internet connection faster and safer.
I just use it to block advertisements, background sounds and VB
Scripts, but it's really much more powerfull than just that. By
installing AllegroSurf Network in your Internet sharing computer, your
entire network benefits from AllegroSurf's wide array of features,
including content filtering and ad blocking. With AllegroSurf you can
share a single Internet connection with multiple computers on a LAN,
while protecting users from unwanted content, increasing overall
Internet speed, and much more. AllegroSurf is the perfect tool for
network administrators, school administrators, or for personal use.
How does AllegroSurf work?
--------------------------
AllegroSurf acts as a proxy server between you and the Internet. Instead
of your web browser connecting directly to the Internet, your web
browser connects to AllegroSurf, which in turn connects to the Internet.
AllegroSurf fulfills your requests and sends the information to your web
browser.
Thanks to its position as a proxy server, AllegroSurf can accelerate
your navigation for example by caching web pages, resolving IP
addresses (using an internal list of domain names and their IPs) and
prefetching web pages and images. It can also remove unwanted items from
web pages like advertisement, pop-up windows, background sounds and VB
Scripts among other things. You can also use it to block content not
suitable for kids or the workplace, and many more things.
AllegroSurf features
--------------------
Management
With a simple user interface and easy access to information, AllegroSurf
puts you in control of your network with real-time interaction and a
minimal amount of effort.
* One Window Access
All of AllegroSurf's features are accessed from the main window. A
single click on the feature you'd like to manage in the left pane of
the window brings up its information. Most features are enabled/
disabled through a simple checkbox.
* Remote Configuration
You can control AllegroSurf remotely from any other station in your
network or from outside with secure access.
* Real-Time Information
You can monitor exactly who's on the network and where they are
going as it happens. AllegroSurf keeps track of everyone and updates
the "Activity" window to show you the most accurate information
possible.
* One Year of Free Updates
For one year after you purchase AllegroSurf, any product updates or
new versions released are free for you to download. You are even
offered the option of purchasing another year of upgrades for just
$20 more.
User Management
Control and manage what users do on the Internet through content
control, site access, filtering, and proxy server access.
* Control Content
Control the sites your users access. You can do this through a variety
of methods including:
- Automatic banning based on Meta descriptions.
- Ban sites that you disapprove of. Enter the URL for the site to ban
in the banned site list.
- Ban sites based on the site name.
- Approve just certain sites for users and/or groups.
- Approve sites based on a wildcard match to bypass any automatic
banning.
* Control Filtering
You can control filtering for users and/or groups.
* Real-Time Information
Monitor what each user is doing and how much bandwidth each user is
using. You can even charge users for usage! Using the Scheduler, you
can even log accounting totals on a regular basis.
* Audit Usage
Audit what each user does. Find out what sites each user visits, how
much time the user spends "on-line", and even how many times the user
enters his password incorrectly or tries to access banned sites.
* Assumed Users
AllegroSurf can assume user login when requests originate from fixed
IP addresses. You can even narrow this to time of day and day of the
week.
* Add Security to your Network
Force each user to login, using his web browser, for added security.
With one click you can tell AllegroSurf that each user must login to
the system when the connected user is not "assumed".
Superior Tools
AllegroSurf can do more for you than just act as your proxy server:
* Proxy Server Support
AllegroSurf supports all these protocols:
- SOCKS4, SOCKS4A, and SOCKS5
- HTTP
- POP3 & SMTP
- TCP mapping
- NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol)
- FTP
- RTSP (RealPlayer)
- DHCP
- DNS
- UDP mapping
- Telnet
- SSL (Secure Socket Layer)
With support such as this, AllegroSurf can handle any connection that
you need. Also, you can control which users and/or group has access to
each proxy server.
* FTP Site Browsing
AllegroSurf now allows you to navigate an FTP site from within your
browser while maintaining support for all the FTP servers supported by
FTP Voyager. In addition, AllegroSurf also supports S/KEY and will use
it automatically when needed.
* Network Monitor
AllegroSurf includes a Network Monitor program which monitors your
servers connection to the network. In the event that something should
happen to this connection, Network Monitor can even dial your modem
for you so you can continue surfing.
* Site Features Filtering
The advanced filtering in AllegroSurf allows you to block ads from
loading, background sounds and images, pop-up windows, and Java
Scripts and Applets, as well as Visual Basic Scripts. You can select
which users and/or groups have filters applied.
* Customizable Ad Database
With the Internet growing as fast as it is these days, it's impossible
to keep track of every ads site. With AllegroSurf, you have the power
to keep up with them by manually adding new ads sites to the current
database.
* Content Filtering
AllegroSurf can prevent access from sites that system administrators
would like banned from their network like sites with content
pertaining to hate speech, sex, drugs, crime, or other extreme
subjects, which can be banner based on their Meta descriptions. In
addition, administrators can specify specific sites to ban/allow as
well as bypass those blocked sites with a valid username and password.
You can select which users and/or groups have filters applied.
* Prefetch Webpages
While you're reading a webpage, AllegroSurf is putting your Internet
connection to work prefetching every site it can find for you that is
linked to your current page. When you click on a link to go to that
site, the page is ready to load in AllegroSurf's cache.
* Scheduler
AllegroSurf will even do your surfing for you. If you don't want to
wait for pages to load at all, you can setup AllegroSurf to download
the sites you like to visit while you're away. Then when you're ready,
you can look through those sites just like normal...straight from your
own hard-drive!
Intelligent Web Caching and Prefetching
AllegroSurf uses advanced methods coupled with user preferences
intelligently and efficiently to guarantee that you're getting the most
out of the Internet.
* What Makes AllegroSurf So Smart?
AllegroSurf is designed to do more work for you to make your Internet
experience a better one and is built to be intelligent in its
operations, avoiding unnecessary work that may slow down your system,
so that you benefit fully from what it offers.
How is this done?
- AllegroSurf does not make duplicate requests for files when multiple
users want to access the same page.
- When you visit a webpage, the current page is compared to the stored
page for changes after a user defined amount of time. If no changes
are found, the cached page is loaded. This kind of intelligent
caching ensures that you surf the Internet at the fastest speed
possible.
- You can even specify file extensions that signify AllegroSurf should
always compare files to check for changes.
- The default prefetch settings tell AllegroSurf to only fetch pages
linked to the current page. However the user can specify a depth to
which pages are fetched so that pages beyond the current links are
cached, too.
- To give you the most control over prefetching, file extensions and
certain webpages can be specified which will not be prefetched.
AllegroSurf's cache and prefetch settings are fully configurable.
Four Versions Available
You can install one of four different versions of AllegroSurf on your
computer depending on what you need. The four versions come in a single
download:
* AllegroSurf Stand Alone is the perfect solution for a single home user
and it is available as shareware for a 30-day evaluation. If you
would like to continue using AllegroSurf (Stand Alone) after your
evaluation, a Registration ID must be purchased (which costs $39.95
for a single user and there are discounts for number of users).
* AllegroSurf FREE contains all of the tools available in the Stand
Alone version, and you can use it for as long as you wish, but only
one tool can be used at a time, although it can be changed at any
time.
* AllegroSurf Network is the most powerful proxy server solution
available. With the Network version of AllegroSurf installed, you not
only have all the powerful features available to you in the Stand
Alone version, but you have support for all of the most common proxies
used today. All computers connected to AllegroSurf on your network
will benefit from the web acceleration and content filtering features
while sharing the same Internet connection! AllegroSurf Network is
available as shareware for a 30-day evaluation. During this time, you
may use it with an unlimited amount of connections through your
network. If you would like to continue using AllegroSurf Network after
you evaluation, a Registration ID must be purchased (which costs
$39.95 for a single user and there are discounts for number of users).
* AllegroSurf FREE Network allows you to install AllegroSurf on your
network and you can use it for as long as you wish, but you can only
have up to three computers using the same Internet connection at any
given time and only one feature may be used at a time although it can
be changed at any time from the server.
Where to get AllegroSurf
------------------------
You can download AllegroSurf from the AllegroSurf web site:
http://www.allegrosurf.com/
When you install the product you can choose which version (discussed
above) you want to install.
AllegroMail
===========
What is AllegroMail?
--------------------
AllegroMail is an email tool that makes it easy to manage incoming and
outgoing messages. It can manage multiple accounts and it offers a
powerful contact management system that lets you keep track of the
people you need to communicate with the most.
I use AllegroMail mainly because it lets me keep my messages, contact
information and mail accounts information private, but still allowing
multiple people use the program in my computer.
AllegroMail features
--------------------
Here are some of the main features of AllegroMail:
Familiar User Interface
AllegroMail uses an easy-to-use interface like a typical Windows
application with the most common functions found on a main toolbar and
an easy to follow menu system.
* User Profile Manager
The User Profile Manager keeps track of the users profiles. These
profiles contain each user's personalized email settings.
* Multiple email Accounts
AllegroMail can support many email accounts for each user, and users
can check all of them with a simple click of a button.
* Contact Manager
AllegroMail's advanced contact manager can store the email addresses
of everyone you're in contact with, as well as specific information
including phone numbers, mail addresses, important dates, and much
more.
* Message Preview Window
With AllegroMail, you can see how your message will look before you
send it. Double check your formatting in plain text or HTML and make
sure any graphics are placed properly before anyone else sees it.
* Folder Organization
With AllegroMail, you can organize the messages in each folder to
display them according to who it's from, the date it was received, or
the subject. All of this is done with just a click of a button.
Superior Tools
The capabilities of AllegroMail place it many steps beyond your typical
email client giving the user more control.
* Customizable Message Rules
Define your own message rules to move messages automatically to
folders, color code new messages, filter messages, and more. Control
what email messages are important to you with a few easy steps.
* AutoArchiving
Don't like to permanently delete your emails for fear of losing
something important, but hate to filter through all the old ones?
AllegroMail can automatically archive your email messages (in a user
definable location) so that your folders are clean of old messages,
but finding an old one is just a few clicks away.
* Automatic email Forwarding
AllegroMail wants to make sure that you receive your mail no matter
where you are. That's why you can set it up to automatically forward
messages from one email account to another. You can specify the best
time for AllegroMail to forward your mail, where you want them to be
sent to, and how many messages that account should have before a
forward is executed.
* AllegroType(tm)
With AllegroType(tm) automatic email address completion, AllegroMail
can complete the receiver's address based upon their contact name or
email address.
* Integrated Spell Checker
Let AllegroMail look over your emails for spelling mistakes. With a
customizable dictionary, AllegroMail can learn new words.
* Intelligent Folder Searching
You can search in any folder to find messages searching for the
addressee, sender, subject, within a certain time frame, or even text
within the message.
* Signature Management
AllegroMail allows to store multiple signatures for each user. This
way, you can specify what signature goes with each mail account to
ensure maximum control over your email accounts.
* Browse Your Mail Server
With AllegroMail, you can connect directly to your mail server before
you download any messages to see what is waiting for you. You can use
this to delete any messages with large attachments and mail you don't
want before ever downloading anything!
* Send Your vCard
Add that professional touch to each of your emails by including your
very own vCard with each message. AllegroMail will create your vCard
with the information you provide and attach it to each email message
so your business contacts know the best way to contact you.
Where to get AllegroMail
------------------------
You can download AllegroMail from this page:
http://www.allegromail.com
It will expire after the 30-day free evaluation period and you if you
liked the program and you want to keep using it you have to purchase a
Registration ID (just $ 39.95 for one user) to make the program fully
functional again.
RhinoSoft.com NetSuite
======================
This suite is a pack of FTP Voyager, AllegroSurf and AllegroMail. For a
single user it costs just $99.95, which means a significant discount
over buying the three registration IDs separately. There are also
discounts for quantity. For more information please refer to
Rhinosoft.com web site: http://www.rhinosoft.com/
------------------------------------
Portions of this article are Copyright © 1997-2001, Rhino Software, Inc.
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4. LINKS
* VP Source - Huge resource for webmasters and programmers (incl.
DELPHI, VB, PASCAL and C++
http://www.vpsource.com
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YOU CAN HELP US!
We need your help to increase the number of subscribers to this
newsletter, and you can help us in two ways: 1) forwarding it to friends
and colleagues that may be interested in this publication, and 2) voting
for Latium Software in the Delphi rankings to give more visibility to
our web site that surely will bring more subscribers to the newsletter
and hopefully will increase the collaborations to help it keep going and
growing. To vote, all you have to do is follow these links:
http://top100borland.com/in.php?who=20
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This newsletter is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Its
use implies the acceptance of our licensing terms and disclaimer of
warranty you can read at http://www.latiumsoftware.com/en/legal.php
where you will also find a note about legal trademarks. Articles are
copyright of their respective authors and they are reproduced here with
their permission. You can redistribute this newsletter as long as you do
it in full (including copyright notices), without changes and gratis.
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Latium Software http://www.latiumsoftware.com/en/index.php
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Copyright (c) 2001 Ernesto De Spirito. All rights reserved.
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