Due to me not having a valid Microsoft Office license, I was looking for an alternative to Outlook to store all my email and appointments, but added to that I also wanted an application that would work with Plaxo(an address book management tool).
So there I went to Plaxo‘s site to see what mail applications support Plaxo, and there I find Mozilla Thunderbird, an Open Source project, from the creators of FireFox and the best of all FREE.
The first time I installed it, it just seemed lighter and response time was excellent. The FireFox feeling was present immediately, as the user friendly-ness combined with internet junkie shortcuts makes it very nice and makes you get what you want done in a breeze.
Everything up and running, now the next problems that arose were:
1. Getting all my old email out of outlook into Thunderbird.
2. Configuring Thunderbird to work with Plaxo
Migrating from Outlook to Thunderbird
Actually, migrating to Thunderbird was quite easy:
1. First, setup Outlook as you default email application and then go into Thunderbird(but not setting Thunderbird as you default mail application).
2. Go to Tools, Import…. , and select Outlook from the list, and voila, all you folders and mail are imported.
3. Now for the most important part 😉 , set Thunderbird as you default mail application.
Using Plaxo within Thunderbird
Actually, all you have to do here is download the Thunderbird extension from Plaxo.
Then, Tools, Extensions (same methodology used for Firefox) and select the extension file downloaded, and your set.
So far I have no complaints with Thunderbird, but still it is my first day.