My rant last week about downloading headers inspired quite a bit of commentary in my e-mail in box. Apparently, I’m not the only one who is fed up with spam and viruses and wants to delete that stuff on the server.
The bad news is that the most popular e-mail program out there seemingly cannot be set up to download headers only. As far as I can tell, you can’t just download headers with Outlook Express, although you can with full-fledged Outlook (In fact, I have a dim memory that is the reason I stopped using OE years ago.)
In OE, you can set it up to download newsgroup headers, but NOT e-mail headers (stupid, yet true). You also can work "offline" so you aren’t connected while you compose your e-mail. (See "How to Work Offline with Outlook Express" at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q171240.)
However, you can download headers with full-blown Outlook (which comes with Microsoft Office). The process is not obvious. The feature is called "remote mail" and you have to dig for the settings. (See "Outlook: Remote Mail, Offline Folders, and Working Offline" at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q296080.)
Anyway, if you’ve read my columns for a while, you’ve probably discovered I’m not a big fan of using any variants of Outlook for e-mail in general. Most e-mail virus problems only affect Outlook and Outlook Express.
If you manage e-mail using alternative programs, you are no longer vulnerable to those types of viruses. Yes, Outlook Express is free, but so is a powerful program called Pegasus Mail (http://www.pmail.com/) by David Harris. It is a quality, multi-featured freeware e-mail program that has been around for years. There is also a free version of Eudora (http://www.eudora.com) or you can try out Express Plus client e-mail software (http://www.isbister.com/express-plus-email.asp) for free. If you like it, you can register it for $35 (which is a lot cheaper than buying Microsoft Office).