G-Lock EasyMail

We've witnessed the day when people started asking "What happened to the old fashioned letter writing?". Now we can ask ourselves "What happened to the old fashioned composing and sending an email?". The general idea is not new (see Outlook and others), but G-Lock EasyMail is a bulk mail sender that makes an art of writing and sending mails. Who knew that something so easy can be so complex?

If your Internet connection is slow, you'd better not be in a hurry to download the installation kit. It's 24 Mb in size and it will take its time to finish. The installation itself is no difficult task, but, when it's done, you'll need to register and activate the product. In order to get the free version, you need to type your email address on which you'll receive an activation key that you need to paste it in the same window where you have typed your address.

The software's interface is a bit unfriendly for beginners, but, given time, they can eventually get the hang of it. If you know how to send an email, then you should spot which of the many big, chunky buttons to click. The main part of the interface features lists of accounts, in case you have more than one email template, draft, the usual things you find when it comes to emails.

Overall, the interface resembles MS Word's. On the top part of the window, you can find the same large blue toolbar with options organized in tabs. This helps making the program somehow more familiar. But just as MS Word, you will have a lot of tools at your disposal and you'll only use a few of them. The ones you will use, however, are quite useful. EasyMail lets you add an unlimited number of contacts and groups, import an HTML mail you've created in another program, and many more. You can find a sent manager for more details on your deliveries, a bounce manager which helps you keep track of your list and prevent your IP from being blacklisted. A delivery monitor will show you a more detailed view on your sent items. An interesting feature of G-Lock, incorporated in EasyMail is G-Lock Analytics. This is a tracking tool that shows you who opened your sent mails, clicked on links, forwarded them and so on. The downside is that this service is charged separately from the main package.

The main obstacle is finding some of these options. The main interface may look good and you could get your mind around it if given time, but you'll still need to navigate menus and you'll have a lot of text fields waiting to be typed in. In short, this software is intended for professional use.