vCard is a file format standard for electronic business cards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard

Without going into too much detail here, a vCard attached to an email you send can include as much or as little information as you wish.  Generally, they include Contact Numbers, Postal Address and perhaps Job Title (if used in a work environment).

Here’s how to set one up in Thunderbird:

1. In Thunderbird, go to Tools > Account Settings…



2. Click in the box next to “Attach my vCard to messages” to put a check mark in the box
3. Click the Edit Card… button
4. Enter all the information you want to include in your vCard (remember that ALL of this information will be available to ANYONE you send emails to)
5. Click on OK to save your vCard
6. Click on OK to close the Account Settings box

That’s it. Every time you send an email using Thunderbird your vCard will be attached to the message.  This is how it will appear to someone also using Thunderbird who receives an email from you:

The above test vCard had information included in every field, to show what is displayed from vCards in Thunderbird.  To see the rest of the information the recipient can just click on the card and then either confirm adding you to their address book, or cancel if they just want to view the info.

Other email clients may process or display vCards differently.

Hopefully that covers all information regarding signatures and vCards.  If you have any comments or questions please register and add your comment below.

That’s fine if you only want a very simple signature.  But what about if you want to put colour, emphasis or links in your signature?  That’s possible too – but it does require a little more work.

A word of caution.  The method I’m about to describe uses HTML, the original code language used for website pages .  Not all users allow HTML to be displayed in their email clients, which would mean that this wouldn’t work for them.  It’s most likely that this will work for 99% of people you send emails to though.

I’m not going to rewrite the steps to add the signature to your account.  Follow the same procedure as described in the other post but replace steps 1 and 2 with:

1. Create a file called (for example) signature.html and save it somewhere on your computer, like in “My Documents”
2. a) If you’re familiar with HTML you can open the file in a text editor (e.g. Notepad) and create the code you want.
   b) Otherwise use a program that creates HTML code for you, (for example OpenOffice.org, KompoZer, Amaya, SeaMonkey) and open signature.html using that.
   c) Format your signature to be how you want it, it could be:

   Regards,
   Joe Bloggs
   
   Please visit my website: www.josephbloggs.co.uk
   
   Here’s another website I’ve found interesting and useful www.freecycle.org.

   Disclaimer: Don’t rely on anything you read in this email!

Save the file, then carry on with the other steps.  You’ll get the above formatted signature in your outgoing emails!

Apart from signature “Add-ons” there’s one other signature type feature in Thunderbird – vCard.  I plan to explain this in a post soon.

Why would you want to use Mail Filters?

There are many reasons you might want to filter messages – have a folder for emails from family, or important emails, or unimportant emails – any time you want to keep some messages separate from your Inbox, or make some stand out in your list of emails.

I’m going to work through an example to show how this works.  Recently I signed up to Freecycle which I heard about a while ago but never investigated.

First impressions: it’s a great idea but isn’t making the best use of technology, and I dislike systems that try to make you sign up (and give your details) to additional services you shouldn’t need – in this case a Yahoo! ID.

I digress, if you don’t have a Yahoo! ID, you can still join in but you can’t utilise all the features, you can only be part of the mailing list – at least I think I’m right about that!  A mailing list is a system whereby an individual sends an email to “the list” and everyone subscribed to the list receives a copy of the email in their Inbox.  Well, after a couple of days my Inbox was overflowing with Freecycle mailing list messages.

Time for a filter

1. First, create a new subfolder in your Inbox, by right-clicking on Inbox and selecting New Folder… from the menu that pops up:
2. I created a folder called Freecycle:
3. Next, go to Tools > Message Filters… and click on the button labelled New…
4. A window titled Filter Rules will open.  At the top there will be a text entry box labelled Filter name.  Enter a name for your filter here, I called mine “Freecycle Emails”.
5. Now for the interesting bit.  In the same window, there is a section headed For incoming messages that: where you can set up “rules” to match against emails that arrive in your inbox.
   Keeping it simple, the default rules is to find any email where the “Subject” “contains” text that you enter in the next box.  You could filter on who the email was from, or when it was sent – there are other options too.
   The Subject line of all of the emails I receive from freecycle start with [GroupAreaFreecycle], where GroupArea is the area of the Freecycle group (note the use of the square brackets).
   I may join more groups in future, so I want to find any emails with the text “Freecycle]” in the subject line.
6. In the next section of the window, at the bottom, I need to tell Thunderbird what to do with the email.  So far I’ve only really talked about moving emails, and that is what I’m going to do in this example.  You could use the filter to mark, copy, forward, delete the email etc.
   The default action is to Move Message to so I leave that.
   In the box to the right I can browse for the folder I created earlier.  So, when I’ve finished my Filter Rules window looks like this (Click to enlarge):
7. I click on OK and close the Message Filters window.  Now, whenever an email from a Freecycle mailing list arrives, Thunderbird will automatically move it to my Freecycle folder for me, keeping my Inbox uncluttered.
8. You can also run filters manually, by going to Tools > Run Filters on Folder.  Here’s the result after running the new filter on my Inbox:
   

You’ll notice on the image of the Filter Rules window that there are plus and minus buttons next to the rules and actions that can be taken.  This is because you can specify very broad or narrow rules to match emails against.  The minus button will delete a row, the plus button adds a row where you can specify a new rule or action.

If you use Mozilla Thunderbird there’s a built-in signature feature:

You can have a plain text signature very easily.

To have a plain text signature:

1. Create a text file e.g. signature.txt and save it somewhere on your computer, like in “My Documents”
2. Open the file in a text editor (e.g. Notepad) and enter your signature, it might be:
   

   Regards,
   Joe Bloggs

3. In Thunderbird, go to Tools > Account Settings…
4. Click in the box next to “Attach this signature:” to put a check mark in the box and enable the Choose… button.
5. Browse to where you saved the signature.txt (or signature.html) file and double-click on it
6. Click on OK to close the Account Settings box

That’s it. Everytime you send an email using Thunderbird your signature…
Regards,
Joe Bloggs
… will automatically be entered for you.

This is at best bad manners, and at worst a serious breach of privacy – they may not want their email address sent to other people and potentially sent to more people they don’t know if/when the email is forwarded.

Fortunately there is an easy solution, use the “Bcc:” field:

So, if you’re sending an email to many recipients it is good “netiquette” to put one of your own email addresses in the “To:” field (so you’ll receive a copy, which you can delete if you wish) and put all of the other recipients’ email addresses in the “Bcc:” (Blind Copy) field. In this way you don’t expose someone’s email address to others, as they may not want their email address passed around!

Someone who agrees with me : to-bcc-or-not-bcc-email-etiquette.html

Oh and BTW, they used to be called “extensions”, so don’t be confused if you read that somewhere

To install, drag the (install) link from this page to an open Tb Add-ons window, or right-click, select Save As and drag the saved file to an open Tb Add-ons window.

1. Buttons! (install)
2. Quicktext (install)
3. Xpunge (install)
4. Check and Send (install)
5. Correct Identity (install)
6. British English Dictionary (install)
7. Change quote and reply format also see: Mozilla KnowledgeBase (KB)
   
8. Quote Colors (install)
9. TB Header Tools Extension (install)
10. RunFilterOnFolder (install)
11. Folderpane Tools (install)
12. MinimizeToTray – Windows only – (install)
13. Thunderbird Message Filter Import/Export (install)
14. Mr Tech Local Install – yes, the same one as for Firefox – (install)
15. Remember Mismatched Domains (install)
16. SyncMab (install)

Add-ons that look interesting but I haven’t tried yet:

• Run Filters on Folder button (install)
• Attachment Extractor (install)
• Duplicate Contact Manager (install)
• Remove Duplicate Messages (Alternate) (install)
• Mailbox Alert (install)
• Identity Reminder (install)
• LookOut

Use Mozilla Thunderbird (Tb) instead of Outlook Express (OE)

It’s been so long since I used OE, I don’t really know what features it has any more. A while back OE was targeted quite regularly (it may still be happening) with viruses that would send themselves on to everyone in your Address Book, or do something unpleasant to your emails or computer.

Similar to Firefox, Thunderbird is versatile, and the add-ons available make emailing and managing contacts easier than ever before.

Here’s what Mozilla say about Thunderbird themselves:

Keep Your Vital Information Organized
Thunderbird 2 features many new enhancements to help you better manage your unruly inbox, and stay informed. Thunderbird 2 scales to the most sophisticated organizational needs while making it easy to find what you need.

Secure and Protect Your Mail
Mozilla has bolstered Thunderbird’s acclaimed security and privacy measures to ensure that your communications and identity remain safe. It’s like having your own security guard online.

Get Your Mail, Your Way
Thunderbird allows you to customize your email to suit your specific needs whether it’s how you search and find messages or listening to music right out of your inbox.

You can click on the headings above to find out more about those aspects of this excellent email client.

A list of my favourite Thunderbird add-ons is here.