Opera mail
A fresh operating system install always provides a good chance to try alternative software to whatever one has been stuck using previously.
Previously I was running a Firefox and Thunderbird combo for web/mail. Although I have become disillusioned recently due to the heavy memory footprint and sluggishness of Firefox. On my main PC I have reverted to SeaMonkey (the original star of the Mozilla project until Firefox got the lime-light). It is far faster, but not quite as snazzy - a compromise that I think I'll be able to live with.
On another computer though I thought I'd take a step away from my clear Mozilla fandom and try something else. Opera is a long-standing browser and mail suite that has long been loved by many but never made it to the populate mainstream. Being the underdog then, gives ample reason to support it. It has a slick interface and runs seemingly quickly - but to be honest, browsers are all fairly similar these days. The real test comes from how good it handles mail.
Opera mail gives you the standard mail view by default along with some useful and easy to use filters for finding and organising your mail. It is more accessible than Thunderbird's quick search bar but lacks the ability to combine filters, so more complex searches get complex quickly (e.g. attachments with a certain tag/label). Unfortunately my whole experience falls flat by the lack of support of a core technology: LDAP. LDAP is the de-facto method for storing contact information in a central server - even Microsoft has made Active Directory compatible with it. In fact, there is no support at all in Opera for a centralised address book - meaning if you use mail from more than one device, you'll have to enter in all your contacts multiple times. Searching around the net suggests that this feature has long been asked for but has never surfaced. So whilst I've enjoyed using Opera I'm afraid I'm going to have to return to my Mozilla combo.
Previously I was running a Firefox and Thunderbird combo for web/mail. Although I have become disillusioned recently due to the heavy memory footprint and sluggishness of Firefox. On my main PC I have reverted to SeaMonkey (the original star of the Mozilla project until Firefox got the lime-light). It is far faster, but not quite as snazzy - a compromise that I think I'll be able to live with.
On another computer though I thought I'd take a step away from my clear Mozilla fandom and try something else. Opera is a long-standing browser and mail suite that has long been loved by many but never made it to the populate mainstream. Being the underdog then, gives ample reason to support it. It has a slick interface and runs seemingly quickly - but to be honest, browsers are all fairly similar these days. The real test comes from how good it handles mail.
Opera mail gives you the standard mail view by default along with some useful and easy to use filters for finding and organising your mail. It is more accessible than Thunderbird's quick search bar but lacks the ability to combine filters, so more complex searches get complex quickly (e.g. attachments with a certain tag/label). Unfortunately my whole experience falls flat by the lack of support of a core technology: LDAP. LDAP is the de-facto method for storing contact information in a central server - even Microsoft has made Active Directory compatible with it. In fact, there is no support at all in Opera for a centralised address book - meaning if you use mail from more than one device, you'll have to enter in all your contacts multiple times. Searching around the net suggests that this feature has long been asked for but has never surfaced. So whilst I've enjoyed using Opera I'm afraid I'm going to have to return to my Mozilla combo.