Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook

Got a blog? Got readers? I have several blogs, and many readers, yay! I haven’t been too astute about providing easy means of accessing my content for my readers, however. I have RSS feed for some, but setting up RSS accounts is a real pain to do (and when the blog or blog server is down, so are all the feeds). I personally prefer receiving email updates to my favorite blogs, more than reading RSS feeds and reading them in third-party feed readers. That’s why I’m looking into Zookoda. It’s FREE and we all know how much I love that price tag! Zookoda is offered by the folks at IZEA (the brains behind PayPerPost, SocialSpark, and the Blogger’s Choice Awards).

IZEA offers Zookoda, which is an online software program where you can send email updates of your latest blog posts to your readers’ email inboxes. It’s a sophisticated piece of “bloggerware,” but it is extremely simple to use. With Zookoda, you can also manage all your subscribers, design newsletters to match your blog, schedule broadcasts, and even email in text format (this is great for mobile users who read your blogs). There is much more you can do, too. I’m very impressed with the software and how easy it is to use. And it’s free! Pretty amazing. There is also a terrific forum set up by IZEA (it includes boards for all IZEA products and services, but also has a specific one geared for Zookoda users). The IZEA forum is one of the best on the Internet, too, so you can’t go wrong with that. Check it out. I’ll be gearing up with it soon, as I want to create a subscription service for my travel blog, first. So, stay tuned for that!

Amic Email Backup
I was initially very impressed with this program. It’s is a speedy little program that will backup all your emails, whether it be Opera Mail, Eudora mail, Thunderbird, or the ubiquitous Outlook Express. It will backup all your emails and settings with the click of the mouse. It stores the information in a small file and keeps it in the My Documents folder. You can move it to a safe place (like a flash drive separate from your computer’s hard drive) in case of a computer crash or reformat. I love that you can schedule it to backup automatically (I have mine set to every 2 days but you can backup every month or two or three).

When the day comes and you need to restore, you click on your stored file, and Amic begins. The process of restoring your email is another simple click away. IF IT WORKED. It didn’t work for me. The backup process went smoothly, but when I tried to restore, an error notification popped up telling me the file was corrupted.

This could be a great little program. I use Windows Vista, so perhaps this was the problem. I have not tried it on XP yet. If you are looking for a quick little program to save your email, this is free, at least. If it works for you, please let me know!

Have I said how much I love windows Live Mail, lol. The more I use it the better I like it! I just figured out how to show the Menu bar (by default Microsoft hides it). To the upper right hand side of the program is a little question mark button– it’s blue and is the typical “help” icon. To the left of this button is a little folder icon with a menu arrow. Click the menu arrow, and choose “show all menus.” The menu bar will appear!

I also love the fact that I can delete, with one swift click, the Junk Mail or Deleted Items box. In Outlook Express, I used to have to right-click, search the pop-up menu, choose “Empty Deleted Items,” choose “yes, I’m sure” etc etc. It’s so easy with WLM!

I really like this program.

I have been trying out Windows Live Mail for a few days. I think I love it! I have always used Outlook Express and liked it [Mrs. M now dodges tomatoes]. Yes, I have tried other email clients (Eudora, Thunderbird, Outlook, other no-name brands) and just preferred OE.

My only bone of contention with OE is that it has not been able to configure for my Gmail (no big deal; I’m not terribly fond of Gmail and all my Gmail is forwarded to my MSN email anyway). It also doesn’t like my free hotmail account. Weird. So I have juggled two email clients– OE for all my POP3 emails, and Hotmail for my hotmail account.

Well! I am using Windows Live Mail, and it handles them all! I think I love this thing. But I love it even more for two other reasons:

1. Every time I get an email, a little notification window pops up. I love this! I like to know when my email comes, because sometimes I get so busy and completely forget to check. This is wonderfully helpful.

2. I can minimize the program into the system tray! Woohoo! This has got to be the best part of it. I don’t like clutter in my taskbar (I usually have only, oh, TEN programs running simultaneously). The email program sitting in the taskbar was always a thorn in my side. But not anymore. Finally.

The only thing I couldn’t figure out was that Windows Live Mail was not saving my “Sent” messages, even though I had configured it to do it. Wha? If I opened my Outlook Express, I found my Sent messages in that program. Then it dawned on me: make Windows Live Mail the default mail program! I did, and voila! All fixed.

I am not great big fan of Windows programs. I usually delete them or uninstall them when they bombard my computer. But I am very impressed with WLM. If you want to try it, it’s here. You’ll need a “live” or “hotmail” account, or be willing to create one.