Throwing Out the Trash
by Gary Woods

With the recent attacks from Blaster and SoBig.f I've been looking at some ways to cut down on the flood of email that's pouring through my door. The latest piece of software I found is called Ella ($29.95) and is distributed by Open Field Software. Ella is more than a mere spam blocker it attempts to organize all your email and seems to do a pretty good job.

Ella integrates with Outlook and sorts your email into three folders. The default folders are Inbox, Later and Spam. Later is for unsolicited email that needn't be dealt with until you've gone through your Inbox. The setup wizard then asks you to scan Outlook and identify 10 to 15 examples of messages that you would like sorted into the three folders. Ella examines more than 100 attributes to identify common characteristics, and then sorts your mail guided by those characteristics.

To improve the results, you can provide additional training using the three Category buttons Ella adds to the Outlook toolbar. If a message ends up in the wrong folder you select the item and click on the button indicating the correct folder. Ella then moves the email and alters its filtering rules accordingly.

After you've gone through about 200 examples your error rate gets down to about 2%, which is a whole lot better than my personal error rate. If email spam is making you crazy Ella could be worth a look.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910