Lotus CCMail
Cons
Lotus’ CCmail is a fine example of package that has gone mad with features. As a result it can be arcane to set up, and unfriendly to use. CCmail started life as LAN email software before the Internet had become even luke-warm as a medium for commercial email exchange.
For me, the worst part of the system is the number of obtuse and obscure configuration files that are installed by the program. It adds subdirectories to the Windows directory, plus INI files, plus configuration files, and data and message files are stored in proprietary formats that do not succumb to easy investigation with file viewers.
This makes any sort of fault-finding or keyword searching in the event of a problem nearly impossible, and on the two occasions my remote client system has eaten some index or other, I have given up and gone back to the install disks.
The use of optional (extra cost) SMTP (simple mail tranfer protocol -- the stuff of the Internet) gateway software allows the CCmail post office system to communicate via the Internet, but it is very plain that this is a proprietary mail system, grudgingly aware of the Internet, but not wholly devoted to it.
The creation of messages, replying to messages, storage of messages and general basics are all quite simple, so quite how Lotus manages to wrap it all up in something quite so bemusing as CCmail ends up being is something of a mystery, and reflection of the evolution of this package to be a Jack of all Trades.
Less is more ...more or less
Since Internet email is essentially the rawest text, you can create the messages in just about any text editor -- assuming you then know how to deliver them onto the Internet for further redirection (SMTP).
By convention, the content of the message should be limited to lower 128 ASCII characters (the 7-bit set) since many of the routes on the Internet will strip off the “high” or 8th bit -- and with it goes accented characters, £ signs.
Hence the use of the expression "UK pounds" where you might expect to find "£" in an email message.
The real benefit of this scheme is that Internet email packages like Mail-It tend to work with unambiguous ASCII text files for message storage, not proprietary formats that cannot be read using simple viewers, nor searched for keywords using file finders like those provided with the leading utility suites.
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