Access to Your
eMail from any Location:
Sort Once
Software Review; Product Evaluation
IF YOU'RE A MOBILE WORKER OR A SMALL-BUSINESS owner who
can't afford an expensive e-mail server like Microsoft Exchange, ForwardCenter's Sort Once
can offer the same always-in-sync benefits for just $5.95 (Standard account) or $7.95
(Enhanced account) per month.
Sort Once stores messages on a central server, maintained
by Sort Once, and delivers copies of messages to an IMAP-compatible e-mailer. You can also
retrieve e-mail using a browser. While Sort Once will work with any e-mail program that
supports IMAP, the company only supports--and gives configuration instructions for--five
apps: Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape / Mozilla Mail, and Palm
VersaMail. If you use another program, you'll have to figure out the settings yourself.
Using IMAR everything is always synchronized and up-to-date
with Sort Once, no matter which PC or e-mail application you use to access your mail. So
you can use Outlook at work--read mail, reply to messages, and organize them in
folders--then, from the laptop at home, fire up Outlook Express and see the same messages,
the same replies, and the same folder organization.
Sort Once has other skills, including antivirus scanning of
e-mail attachments, as well as minimalist antispam and antiporn defenses. In our tests,
the program's antivirus defense noticed and stopped our sample virus and caught 85 percent
of the messages we identified as spare. The antispam tool, though laudable, is limited:
You can't add spammers' addresses yourself and have to rely solely on Sort Once's
proprietary list. To top it off, the program just drops spare into a special Bulk Mail
folder, rather than letting you set up specific rules, as you can in Outlook. The
antiobscenity guardian is almost worthless, because it keys on words rather than
more-common pornographic images.
An extra $2 a month gets you the Enhanced account, which
encrypts mail coming and going from the Sort Once server. It also doubles the 50MB of
mail-storage space that comes with a Standard account.
For on-the-go users and small businesses that can't afford
a pricey mail server, Sort Once cheaply synchronizes e-mail accounts.
EDITORS' RATING 7.3
PROS:
Uses IMAP to synchronize e-mail from multiple machines;
built-in antivirus defense; lets you get mail from a browser, desktop e-mailers
CONS:
Only includes configuration instructions for a handful of
e-mail apps; average antispam, poor antiobscenity defenses
REQUIRES: E-mail program with IMAP protocol support
ForwardCenter
425-895-8020
www.sortonce.com
PRICE $5.95 per month (Standard); $7.5 per month (Enhanced)
Copyright 2003 Gale Group, Inc. ASAP
Copyright 2003 ZDNet Computer Shopper August 1, 2003, BYLINE: Keizer, Gregg |