Shareware: 30 days free, $30 after; V2.2 Sonosoft
This piece of shareware is from a Japanese outfit, Sonosoft. It’s an e-mail program, but it’s a little special in that it handles both English and double-byte Japanese very well indeed. If you need double-byte support and want something a bit friendlier, not to say smaller, faster and more stable than the browser-based e-mail clients, then I can heartily recommend this one. It has many great features, including comprehensive encoding choices, a clean interface. Upon opening, the user sees the folder index window, and double clicking a folder opens another window to show contents. When opening a mail, or writing a new one, the user can choose how much of the header and encoding boxes they can see, meaning that you can choose how clean or comprehensive the interface should look, and yet have quick access to additonal features. Nice. Even if you don’t use the Japanese language side of it, this is still a worth while investment. If you are looking for a ‘bilingual’ English/Japanese e-mail client, then this is the best I’ve seen, and it’s direct input. I found it far more reliable than Outlook Express, which sometimes ’lost’ kanji. It’s also available in a Japanese version, so if you’re Japanese, and you’re looking for a good e-mail package, try this! The filters are well implemented too, allowing the user to file things as they are delivered; you can also give each folder a different icon in the index window, helping to quickly identify a folder, and whether it has mail on it. The only bad point on the filter set up box, is that some of the options seem to be worded ‘backwards’. I’m assuming this has occurred in it’s translation from Japanese, but it in no way hinders their set-up. Search functions are also well supported, allowing the user to search folders or just messages for specific mails for pieces of text. Musashi also allows exports to text with the added bonus of being able to choose how much of a mail’s headers are exported to text. Useful. All of this is managed from a well thought out preferences panel. It can also handle multiple accounts at the click of a button. This also has one of the best address input systems I’ve seen in a long time. A bit like Eudora’s menu system, but much better implemented, it allows you to set user groups in the address book and just click a button on a new mail message to insert a group of addresses, or just a single name. I liked this feature a lot.
What are the requirements?
It’s small, has a tiny memory requirement, so if you lack the CPU power, or are just trying to save some then this is the one for you. It can also support multiple e-mail accounts and a host of other features. Although it’s shareware, it’s free to use for 30 days, so download it and give it a try - especially since Apple decided to kill the best e-mail software - Claris E-mailer 2. I use my copy on my old, yet faithful Powerbook 190, a design at least 4 years old. Musashi works great on it, and achieves pretty good mail download times through my Pace 56K modem. I’ve also been using it a bit on my Mac at work (an iMac as it happens), and it works even better on there!
…And it’s Japanese too. It’s not often that we in English speaking countries get to see let alone use a piece of Japanese grown software, especially in the shareware arena, which I suspect is another reason why I like Musashi. Let’s just hope Justsystem doesn’t decide to unleash “Ichi-Taro” on us. (Until recently, IchiTaro was the word processing software in Japan, despite being crap. It has since been usurped by Word, WordPro and anything else…) I’ve been using this for nine months now, and still don’t hesitate to recommend it. True, it doesn’t have HTML support, but that is quickly negated by the “Save as…” option, and then open in a browser. If you’re looking for a small and fast piece of e-mail software, then this is it.
- Pros: Small, fast, stable, great support from Sonosoft, cheap, bilingual…good feel.
- Downsides: No spellchecker or nested mailboxes.
- **Rating:**88%