KMail is one of those email clients that’s really easy to miss, mainly because it’s been around for so long. People hear KMail and think, "Oh, right – that’s the KDE mail client thing in Linux that’s been around forever."

Yes, it’s been around a long time, but it’s arguably in the top 3 graphical email clients for Linux because it’s just that good.

Imagine for a moment if you took the best parts of Microsoft Outlook Express 6 – the same one so many of you still say is the best email client ever – added in some really awesome features like message aggregation (note the "Today", "Yesterday" and other expandable message groups in the screenshot above), spam protection (which OE6 doesn’t have), and the best parts of Mozilla Thunderbird without the bloat. Summed up, what you’re left with is KMail.

Once you start using KMail, you will say to yourself, "Wow. This is what Microsoft should have done with the next generation of OE instead of releasing that awful Windows Live Mail." And you’d be right.

I don’t know of many mail clients that has as many view options as KMail does, and it would take way too long to list them all here. What I will say is that for just about any graphical mail in history that you can think of, KMail can be made to look and act exactly like it. From Outlook Express to Outlook to Groupwise to Gmail to Thunderbird and pretty much everything in between.

The best part about KMail is that it’s a mail app you simply don’t have to worry about. Solid, stable, and works fantastic with both POP and IMAP.

For those of you that say "I want my Outlook Express 6 back", no you don’t. You want KMail.

(The distro being used seen in the screenshot above is Linux Mint 12, although obviously KMail will work in almost any modern Linux distro.)

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KMail – Linux’s Great Unsung Hero Of Email

I’m about to send out The Insider, Issue #2 to members. In this video, I tell you what’s inside this issue, and I send out a “thank you” to the 44 people who signed up in the last week.

Thanks to everybody.

And, if you’re not yet an Insider, click here to learn about what we’re doing and, of course, join us.

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Inside The Insider #1 – Kickoff Edition

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How To Use Windows 7 Jump Lists

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Popcorn Mail – Ultra-Minimalist Mail For Windows

Making the rounds this week is a bunch of news stories going on about the fact that the Microsoft Windows XP operating system is officially 10 years old.

I can’t say "Remember when we used to use that Windows?" because a ton of you out there are still using it.

What has made XP such a beloved OS for so many? Two things. Longevity and support.

People like things that stick around for a while that they can get to know because it brings a sense of comfort from familiarity. The computer industry does not operate this way and forces new crap on us every 3 years – but XP is an odd duck in this mix because it stuck around for so much longer than that. Many people cling to XP because they simply know it. You could list off every reason in the world why Windows 7 is better, but those who are XP Cling-Ons won’t budge.

When I speak of support, I’m not talking about Microsoft but rather the fact that so much stuff is supported in XP, both for hardware and software. It’s still true that even now you can walk into any electronics store, buy just about any peripheral and it will work on XP. The same can be said for most software titles. Again, this is a source of comfort because you don’t have to worry if the whatever-it-is will work on your PC or not, because there’s a very good chance it will with XP.

Will XP ever truly go away?

This chart shows that after all this time, Windows 7 is very close to overtaking XP as the most-used desktop OS on the internet worldwide. What this means is that XP is on the decline, but the speed of decline is as slow as molasses.

It has been said many times by many people that Win7′s biggest competition is XP itself, and that’s still true even now.

Yes, XP will eventually go away. It’ll probably happen the next time the Cubs win a World Series.

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Retro Friday: Windows XP

Check out the video below to see how easy it is to use this tool and what it can do for your text and logos.

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How To Use The Perspective Tool In GIMP

You can get VMware Player here and Xubuntu here.

See video below for details on how to get up and running with VMware Player and Xubuntu.

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How To Install Linux In VMware For Free

Why did so many people use OE6? Because it ran in Windows 98, NT 4.0 Workstation, 2000 and XP, and because it was free.

Typical to Microsoft naming just about all their products wrong, Outlook Express shares almost nothing in common with Outlook. Eventually Microsoft corrected this with the new version of OE in Vista by renaming it to what they should have in the first place, Windows Mail. After quickly realizing that made perfect sense, Microsoft turned up the stupid again and had the next and current version renamed to Windows Live Mail.

Most people these days abandoned OE6 long ago in favor of webmail, however there are those who still use it. Why? Because it works without complaint.. that is until you hit the 2GB DBX limit, mentioned in the video below.

Can OE6 still be used today? Yes – but only if you install SpamBayes along with it being that OE6 has absolutely no spam filters or spam options whatsoever.

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Retro Friday: Microsoft Outlook Express 6

If you want to backup all the mail that’s in WLMail 2011, where are the locally cached emails? They do exist and you can locate them if you know where to get the info.

The video below shows exactly how to find the “store folder” for all your mail in WLMail 2011. From there you can set up a periodic (meaning nightly, weekly, monthly, etc.) backup using your backup software of choice.

This is especially good info for those of you using POP accounts in WLMail 2011, because even though “leave copy on server” leaves inbox copies on the mail server, it doesn’t account for the Sent Items folder at all as all of that is local to your computer.

See video below for details.

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Where Does Windows Live Mail 2011 Store Mail?

A really cool, free and small utility to take care of this task for you is Accents. This can be run either as an AutoHotKey script or as a standalone executable. The way it works is ridiculously simple. If you want the letter ‘e’ to appear with an accent, type it three times to get accent choices.

Confused? Don’t worry, I’ve made a video showing how it’s done. This is a must-have program/script as far as I’m concerned as it’s very handy to have.

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Super-Quick Way To Get Accent Letters In Windows