XP still lives

The Afterlife of Windows XP

Excerpt:

Microsoft officially stopped selling the Windows XP system software to major computer manufacturers on June 30. But the company plans to continue support for consumer versions of Windows XP until April 14, 2009, and extended support for business and developer Windows XP software until April 8, 2014

Comment: A major financial services company, with which I have some knowledge, is still imaging new workstations with XP. And will for some time!

Petition to save XP

Windows XP fans don’t want it to XPire

Excerpt:

A petition to “Save Windows XP” has drawn more than 111,000 supporters — and continued shots across the Microsoft XP vs. Vista bow, a battle that began with Vista’s release last year.

The operating system succeeded XP, which came on the market in October 2001. Despite Vista’s much-improved security measures, it has met with criticism and some reluctance by consumers and businesses that don’t want to make the switch. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

Among the concerns about Vista are the amount of computer memory and space it requires, its seemingly slower speed and frustration over the fact that third-party drivers for some printers and other devices are still not available from the companies that make those devices.

Comment: Sign the petition here.

AutoMailer - 1st try

AutoMailer

I tried AutoMailer today for the first time for production.

I had to email about 200 workstation users.

Here are the steps:

1. Sendto file: Prepare a .txt file (or .csv) with a list of email addresses. (I imported the list into Microsoft Access and then did a "SQL DISTINCT" command to eliminate duplicates). I added myself at the head as a confirmation step that the emails were sent
   
2. Message file: Prepare a message file. This can either be .txt or .html. I chose the html option and included a cascading style sheet in the <HEAD>. I also had an embedded image using a fully qualified link (instead of a relative link) in a <img> tag.
   
3. Automailer works separately from Outlook! I appreciate this!
   
4. When Automailer is invoked, the user is prompted for the mail server and the "from" address. I have a second impersonal email address so that it does not appear to be sent from Jim Peet.
   
5. And then the SEND. The send was processed in 22 seconds.
   
6. A log file is created. Successes and failures are noted. My job was 100% successful (keep in mind these are email addresses internal to my company so no issues with invalid email addresses this time). The log file is a .txt file that can be saved (for project tracking purposes).
   

Auto Mailer

Auto Mailer

From the website:

Auto Mailer is easy to use, yet powerful bulk email software. Use Auto Mailer to send individual, personalized emails to your customers, contacts, or newsletter subscribers.

You can send plain text or HTML messages quickly with parallel threads. You can send email using the built-in SMTP server, your own ISP's SMTP server, or your MAPI email client (such as Outlook Express). It includes mail merge capabilities so you can personalize your messages. It also includes a "Verify" mode so you can validate your email addresses without actually sending a message. You can schedule a mail job to run unattended at a later time, or use the command line interface to run Auto Mailer unattended from a batch file. All emails are sent just as you compose them, there are no banners or ads appended to your messages. Auto Mailer has built-in provisions to prevent it from being used to send spam. Auto Mailer comes in 3 versions: Free, Standard, or Professional


Comments:

1. I downloaded this at work today and put it through it's paces.
   
2. Input "sendto" file is either plain text or comma delimited (like an export from Excel).
   
3. The message file can either be plain text or HTML. I used the HTML option.
   
4. My manager authorized me to purchase the professional version which has a command line interface. This mailer is completely separate from Outlook.
   
5. Runs on both XP and Vista
   

Very cool and I recommend it.