Back in the early days of the public internet, the mid-1990s, email was the killer application. A dozen years later email still rules our online lives, sucks up time, causes headaches-- all for messages seemingly we cannot live without.

Who among our faithful and opinionated Mac360 readers does not have email? Or, email hassles in the form of spam, worthless announcements and CC’s messages.

After all the email and spam filters, I still get about 100 messages a day. That’s too many. And I use the best email application on the planet.

Bambi and I are both diehard Microsoft Office users, and live by Entourage. The rest of the Mac360 crew is not so fortunate, spreading their email addiction to various and sundry email clients.

Most Mac email users are Mail users, and rightly so. Mail has matured, is relatively stable, has plenty of add-on utilities, and comes at the right price. Free.

From our perspective, whatever Mail does well, Entourage does better. Remarkably, those are not the only two names in the Mac’s arsenal of email solutions.

There’s also Mozilla’s Thunderbird, but I’m not a fan of a Windows-like interface. At least the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft are Mac users and designed Entourage to work like a Mac application.

A quick look at MacUpdate’s search for “email” results in a hefty page of email applications, add-ons, utilities, archive options, and more for the email addicted.

The internet’s original killer application has matured physically, but hasn’t grown up. Email has become a killer, indeed-- a killer of time and patience.

Too much of what comes to me as email is worthless, yet there are times, especially while on the road, that email is indispensible. The Jekyl and Hyde of Mac tools.

My favorite add-on is Spam Sieve, the spam fillter utility. It works better and more consistently than Apple’s built-in junk mail or the default feature in Entourage, and runs at nearly 98-percent accuracy for trapping my incoming spam.

Still, email for all the value and addiction, carries many of the side effects of a drug addiction. For awhile, I thought that Instant Messaging might be a relief from the tedium of responding to messages.

Over time I’ve developed a nagging fear that business does not work efficiently as it could because of email and instant messaging.

Bambi and I both work on the road, though in opposite parts of the country. Getting in to a hotel and catching up on email rather than sleep is not what the aura of travel should be.

Is there a way out of the email mess? Is there a way to fully defeat spam? Is there an ultimate email application (don’t argue with me-- Entourage is better)? Is email as important as we let it be?

I’m ready for a dialog. I’m ready for a pathway to salvation in the form of a 12 Step routine for disciplining myself to control my email addiction.

What’s your email routine? Mine is ongoing, 18-hours a day, non-stop except for travel and sleep. And it’s wearing on me.

If you were my technology tool doctor, what prescription would you write?

How much do you use AppleScript or Automator with your e-mail? A quick look around a few websites show a bunch of scripts to deal with issues/workflow with e-Mail.
If you are willing to follow the Yellow Brick Road of links, you might find something that works well for you/makes things easier.

43 Folders Inbox Zero Series
http://www.43folders.com/2006/03/13/inbox-zero/

MacWorld on scripts for Mail & Entourage
http://www.macworld.com/2005/04/features/tipsmanaging/index.php

Entourage User’s Weblog
http://www.barryw.net/weblog/index.html

ScriptBuilders page for Entourage Scripts
http://scriptbuilders.net/cat.php?category_list=2&act=show_cat&cat_id=2

MVP Entourage Help Page
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/script/fav_scripts.html

I use Mail because I do not trust Entourage when it comes to security. I generally don’t trust anything that Microsoft allows to be scripted, a position I took up while working in the (lower) administration of an online university that suffered mightily at the hands of MS security failures.

At my worst I got a few hundred emails per day during the 1993-1995 period, and I have since learned to keep the trash pretty light. While a piece of spam hit my inbox this week, it is only the third this year. I check my email services periodically to see if their filters snagged anything I wanted to keep. I have found fewer than half a dozen such mis-flagged messages in almost a decade and a half.

I am probably quite fortunate, and perhaps that will change one day. I certainly don’t have Bambi’s high public profile, and education, though great for list server subscriptions, has rarely served to get me offers for Estonian porn or cheap E.D. medication. I suspect some industries, by their nature or the nature of the work and the high levels of communication, create greater problems for people.

Truth be told, Mail works because it is easy to train well (and because I spent six weeks ensuring its training was top notch).

I’ve got a BlackBerry, too, and here is how I use it to help dispense with the tsunami of work email I get every day.

1) I use my BlackBerry as a “read and delete” client, or to peck out short replies, when I am away from my desk, which can sometimes be a good portion of the day. It’s a good use of waiting time (waiting for meeting to start, waiting for the 47 seconds of the meeting that actually has any relevance to my job, or waiting for the person running the meeting to say something intelligent. As you might guess, I can rack up a lot of BlackBerry time on some days.) If you travel, it might be a bit more challenging, but waiting for flight departures, waiting for your Bloody Mary to be mixed, or whatever might be some opportunities. The key is only do the quick read and deletes. The long involved messages tend to be too long and involved to do effectively on a mobile device.
2) When I get back to my desk (or when I get home and connect to the corporate version of The Matrix), I’m left with the messages which require replies too long to do on a BlackBerry without giving yourself crippling thumb arthtitis.

If you haven’t already, you might write a rule for Entourage to color code or put in a special folder or to administer electric shocks to the email from people who are most important. I don’t currently do this, but if I did, I’d make sure that email from the people who work on my projects, my mistress, and anyone selling herbal or generic ###### get noticed first. Another rule could automatically file email that can wait for a while, or even forever. I’d put most newsgroup digests and messages from my boss in this category.

It is a very bad habit to put stuff off for “later, when I have more time”, but it does make a nice filter. If there hapens to be stuff I don’t get to for a week, a quick glance usually confirms that it was not important and I save the time needed to think or respond. As the IRS and Alberto Gonzales tend not to send important notices via email, the chance of be going to jail for being a week behind is pretty low.

After a while, you can cancel the email subscriptions and notices that you don’t have time for anyway. I just cleaned out my work email and discarded 2 years worth of interesting things to do when I have the time. I’ve never had the time. I’m opting out of those lists the next time I get something from them. I don’t get alot of spam at work. One of the few things our IT department does well is filter it before it gets to our inboxes. Something like 70% of all email addressed to our domain name gets zapped without us seeing it. At home I don’t get much on my .mac account and Mail handles it fine.

As for IM. We have it at work, and I never go online unless I’m working on some tight deadline with a bunch of other folks and we need it. It usually falls in Covey’s “Urgent, unimportant” quadrant. Stuff that interrupts your real work and saps productivity like a corporate IT department saps intelligence from its new hires. Same reason I screen my phone calls with caller ID, or just forward it to voicemail if I need to work on something critical without interruption.

Speaking of voicemail, if you can, use it instead of email or IM. It’s way faster to talk that type, and you don’t make silly typos, and it’s less likely to show up as evidence in your SEC investigation.

Good luck.

Greg

I’ve gone back to carrier pigeons. There’s a lot of crap to deal with but at least it’s not spam.

I use Mail at home and Outlook (yes, a pc) at work.  I’m satisfied with both.  When It comes right down to it, I lean to whatever is SIMPLE and CHEAP.  I get a half dozen spam pieces of mail a day but they are quickly deleted without even opening.

Carrier pidgeons are probably great between the islands, but what a trip to anywhere past the state!

I use mail because it’s more secure that entourage however Bambi is right entourage is a great app. If you don’t have a high profile in PR or whatever Mail is enough to handle day-to-day emails.

I get about 12 spam per day. Spam is really the plegue of email.