

              askSam 2.0 A Powerful Search Engine for Your Email

                       (c)1995 by Angela Lillystone

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 Editorial Note: The Problem...The Internet with its vast array of options
 for access to information creates an email nightmare. Retrieval of
 information is the name of the new Internet game! Organization for
 retrieval and reference must be kept current for practical access that
 reflects the incredible leaps of ever changing technology and interests.
 The increasing need to maintain records of email exchanges makes the
 search for sophisticated tools an overriding necessity.

 Software developers who are attempting to deal with the dynamic and complex
 nature of email are truly making a courageous contribution to the ongoing
 information revolution. Angela Lilleystone brings integrity and vast
 experience with Personal Information Management to bear in this evaluation.
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 EMAIL - THE NATURE OF THE BEAST!

 Email messages come in a variety of incompatible formats: Internet,
 CompuServe, the Quick format, cc:Mail -- to name a few. Some produce a
 massive amount of routing information, headers, signatures and taglines
 that can easily overwhelm the several lines of content. Over the years I
 have saved thousands such messages -- and have used about the same
 number of tools as there were email formats to manage them. The prospect
 of trying to find specific  information was daunting.

 Today, thanks to askSam, I can search for modem and COM (but not COM3
 or COM4)  in the same paragraph across several years worth of email
 messages. This simple, but powerful query will quickly find problems
 users have come across when setting up their modem on COM 1 or COM 2.

 askSam has long been known to those who need to manage large amounts of
 textual information. Unlike traditional databases, askSam's strength
 lies in its ability to combine free form text and structured data. As
 users of askSam were quick to discover, this makes email management a
 particularly suitable application. askSam listened and as a result
 askSam for Windows 2.0 now offers several new tools for on-line users
 and includes ready-to-use Internet and email templates to get you
 started.  Add to that a powerful search engine and a built in word
 processor that doubles as the user interface, and  you have a tool that
 lets you get a  handle on your email, no matter where it originated.


 GETTING READY

 Your first step will be to import your messages into one or more askSam
 files. askSam will  directly import Nexis, Lexis and CompuServe
 Information Manager (CIM) files. Other proprietary email formats need
 first to be saved as text. Each imported message or file becomes a
 record in askSam's database.

 In dealing with email from a variety of sources, I found it most
 effective to create a separate file for each on-line and mail service.
 The resulting consistency in fields and field delimiters allows  for
 painless imports in the future without ever again having to worry about
 how you've set up your file.

 Another new feature in askSam 2.0 is hypertext. You can, for instance,
 create a separate file that serves as a menu of your email files. You
 start by placing a bookmark at the beginning of  each previously created
 file. After typing a name for your menu item, it takes only one
 keystroke to designate the corresponding bookmark as the target of a
 hypertext link.

 BUILDING YOUR DATABASE

 New in this release are on-line specific import filters for Lexis (a
 legal information system), Nexis (which offers articles of newspapers
 and magazines) and CompuServe Information Manager (CIM). The CompuServe
 import filter is a delight. It allows one to import *.MSG, *.PLX,
 *.THD, *.ART and *.NWS files.  One has to wonder why no product did
 this before.

 Another useful tool in the import facility allows you to define a
 string of characters, hyphens, for example, as a document delimiter.
 This is good news for those who are using mail readers  that allow for
 appending messages to an ASCII file. askSam can separate those lengthy
 files into individual messages on import. Another option allows you to
 select all files in a given directory, making imports a snap.

 Once you imported your messages you will want to set up fields for the
 creation of reports. Any character suitable to distinguish a field can
 serve as a field delimiter. A typical example is the colon that is often
 used in email headers' "Date:" and "Subject:" fields. The new Automatic
 Field Recognition feature scans your documents for such delimiters and
 generates a list from which you can pick the fields relevant to you. You
 can easily create additional fields by typing a new field name somewhere
 into the text.

 BRINGING YOUR DATA TO LIFE

 askSam includes an optional command line. The command line comes in
 handy for quick searches, such as a wildcard search. For instance,
 file *corrupt* would find any message  containing corrupt, corrupted,
 or corrupts as well as file or files. Likewise the command  line proved
 to be the easiest way to get a list of, let's say, all subject headers.

 askSam's search engine offers a wide variety of methods. All searches
 can be conducted through either dialog boxes or the command line. Search
 methods include date searches, searches in fields, numeric searches and
 Boolean searches. For example, Miller NOT Peter will help you find all
 occurrences of Miller, but skip messages from Peter Miller.

 The hyper search, a command you can select from the popup menu, allows you to
 select any word or phrase in a document and will then take you to the next occurrence of the selected text. I found proximity searches to be particularly useful in dealing with email. Those allow you to search for one word in a specified distance from another, such as price within two sentences of modem. The multiple search dialog allows for combining two or more of those methods and you need to use it for searching across multiple files. You can save searches for
 future use.

 Despite, or perhaps because of, its impressiveness, there were a few
 disappointments, most  notably the absence of fuzzy searches, vital if
 you don't know the spelling of the word you are looking for. Also
 missing are weighted matches that show you which text contains what you
 are looking for more often then any other. It should be added, though,
 that frequency of occurrence has shown to have a low bearing on
 relevance of information. Further, askSam will take you to the first
 document that contains the match by default before proceeding to the
 next match. As a result, search results cannot be used to further narrow
 down your search. Despite these shortcomings I was always able to locate
 quickly what I was looking for. It has been  shown that 80% of all
 queries are two term searches. askSam is more then capable of giving
 you those results.

 To get a listing of your search results you must create a report.
 Report creation is as easy as drag and drop. Once you have created a
 report, for instance a listing of message subjects, sorted by date, the
 underlying hypertext engine automatically creates links between the
 report and the underlying message. This allows one to jump from the
 report directly to a message by double clicking on the report listing.
 Tiling your report and message windows allows you to conveniently browse
 information.


 AN EXCURSION ON ASKSAM'S LEARNING CURVE

 My editor claims that askSam is demanding of effort and that the
 learning curve is substantial. Having conducted usability studies and
 having consulted with database and PIM (Personal Information Manager)
 developers in relationship to Windows user interfaces, I responded by
 saying that it was the menu design that created this impression. Our
 resulting discussions at WindoWatch led us to believe we should share with
 our readers a look at how learning curve and interface design interact.

 Despite recent advances in making software more user friendly it
 remains an unrealistic expectation to buy a database product with a
 sophisticated search engine and expect there to  be no learning curve.
 Many components shape the learning curve of software, one of them being
 perception. This is easy to illustrate. For example, askSam's user guide
 contains a tutorial that takes under three hours to complete. This makes
 the effort to learn the program's features identical to that of, let's
 say, learning CrossTies 1.0 (which we reviewed in the WW October Preview
 issue). Yet CrossTies is generally considered to have "no learning
 curve."

 What accounts for such difference?

 While the Windows version of askSam has improved greatly over its DOS
 sibling, I found the biggest obstacle to be the menu and the dialog
 boxes, specifically the grouping and naming of  certain commands. askSam
 is not a difficult to master program, but it does lack intuitiveness.
 The problem arises in part because of askSam's unique database/word
 processor metaphor. Let's look at the Page Setup command as an example.

 In askSam the Page Setup command is on the File menu. This command
 allows for setting  document options for the entire file. Additionally,
 each individual documents can have a Page  Setup different from the
 default. Both dialogs being identical, it is only logical they were
 grouped together. In the Windows environment this can lead to problems.
 The user interface being a word processor leads the user to look for
 certain functions on the same menu where they are used to finding this
 function in their word processor. For instance, in Winword the  Page
 Setup command is on the Format menu.

 Our fictitious Winword user will feel right at home with the word
 processor interface. So much so, that when he wants to change the margin
 of a particulur document he will automatically pull  down the...Format
 menu. Note that askSam has a Format menu as well, albeit minus the
 PageSetup command. "Stuck" in the word processor mode, he will not, at
 least for a moment, consider the fact that the document in front of him
 is a record in a database.

 The impact of such details on the use of software can be pervasive, yet
 it is unrelated to the  learning curve. There is nothing difficult about
 setting up your page -- the learning curve is close to zero. However,
 the confusion based on the menu design can persist long after you have
 mastered how to accomplish the task. The distinction between learning
 curve and non-intuitive interface design is an important one. Changes to
 the way a program accomplishes certain tasks can be difficult, if not
 impossible, to implement. Making adjustments to the interface is a far
 easier undertaking.

 INVESTMENT PAYS OFF

 askSam's user guide includes an tutorial and well-written step-by-step
 instructions for many tasks, such as import, export and searches. Those
 step-by-step guides are also included in the context-sensitive online
 help. If you are new to the on-line world, or your amount of email is
 moderate a good mail reader may be all you need for now. If, on the
 other hand, you are overwhelmed by email or would like to store all
 those gems you find on-line for reference, then askSam is a tool that
 deserves your serious consideration. You will find the initial time
 spent for  getting acquainted with askSam and for setting up your data
 to be worthwhile.

 Return in this investment will pay off in efficient retrieval of
 information!

 askSam for Windows 2.0
 List price: $149.95 single user; network version available.
 Minimum system requirements:
 MS Windows 3.1; 4 MB RAM; 4 MB hard disk space,

 askSam Systems
 P.O. Box 1428
 Perry, FL 32347
 (800) 800 1997

 Angela Lilleystone studies computer science in Boston and is a member
 of Team Symantec. She can be reached on the Internet at
 9803alill@umbsky.cc.umb.edu and on CompuServe at 71513,3443

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