New Mail Plus
In Outlook 98/2000 the tray icon showing new mail is rather small, and the dialog box which pops up requiring you to press ‘OK’ is really annoying when it pulls focus away from what you’re doing.
New Mail Plus can notify you of new email in a much more flexible way than is possible in Outlook.
There are a number of methods you can use when new mail arrives. These 3 are more useful when you’ve got a headless PC, i.e. you normally work on 1 PC, but your mail arrives on another PC without a monitor:
- Flash the A:\ drive for a minute
- Eject the CD-ROM
- System beep
The most useful method of notification for me is the animation. The animation will play each time you get new email, plus if you’re away from your desk the animation (on it’s final frame.. not looping) will remain onscreen until you touch the mouse/keyboard. This is useful if you return to your desk, or if you choose a large animation you can see it from across the room:
- Use an .avi, .jpg or other media file
- Choose whether it’ll appear on the top left, or top right of your screen