Changing e-mail programs.

["Michael Edwards" mje@xxxxxxxx]

                         Michael Edwards.

[Rene von Rentzell:]

>>... I think the problem is that on some e-mail programs, the attachments get
executed when the selection bar rests on the relevant e-mail in the list,
>
>In that case, change the e-mail program pronto presto. There are plenty of
>alternatives. Using a dangerous software is no excuse for suffering
>entirely unnecessary damage.

   I would love to change; but there are a couple of obstacles. I don't know
the alternatives, and which ones are good, and which ones might be just as bad.
Until I can make something at least approaching an informed choice, better the
devil I know than the one I don't.
   The other thing is that I have a huge amount of e-mail in the current
format, and I don't know how to convert the format, and don't know whether the
converted files would be reliable, without information loss, and so on.
   I know very little about e-mail formats, so this is quite a formidable
problem to me. Believe me, I've cursed Outlook Express and Bill Gates many a
time (no doubt you've guessed that Outlook Express is the program I'm using),
and wished I had the technical competence to make a change, convert the files,
and so on. But I would hate to make the change, convert the files, and find out
too late that the files are totally useless in the new program, or that they
lose information such as foreign-language characters, attachments (legitimate
ones), and the like.
   So to some extent I am tied to Outlook Express by the sheer volume of
e-mail I already have in that format, which I want to keep - just as I'm still
tied to some extent to the old word-processor MultiMate by the volume of
documents I've written in that - as well as by the problems I seem to be having
with XyWrite. (Meanwhile, while I'm "in between" word-processors, I create new
files only in plain-text format, to make it easier to go whatever way I
ultimately decide to go.)

             Regards,
             Michael Edwards.