Hack 67. Try Another Email Program

This third-party app boasts some nice features and lets you access mailboxes with POP or IMAP.

If you are a BlackBerry Enterprise Server user, then your administrator may restrict certain functions on your BlackBerry. One of the first features that a company may choose to restrict is the ability for your device to use multiple service books.

A service book enables your device to receive mail from a particular service, such as your BlackBerry Enterprise Server or the BlackBerry Web Client. If your company's IT policy restricts access to the BlackBerry Web Client, you may not be able to access your personal email accounts with the BlackBerry's built-in Mail application.

If your secondary mail account is accessible through a web interface, you may try using the BlackBerry Browser to access it. If you can't, you're not out of luck yet. Try this product from ReqWireless called EmailViewer. It is a fullfeatured email client that can access your email by using POP or IMAP.

6.9.1. Install and Use EmailViewer

Most third-party software packages offer over-the-air installs in addition to downloads for use with Application Loader. EmailViewer is no different and, like most, the over-the-air install is far more convenient.

Once installed, you need to set up your email accounts in the program. The navigation in EmailViewer is certainly not optimal. Most actions require a trackwheel click to access the menu, which takes a little getting used to. To set up your email account, scroll to Accounts on the main EmailViewer screen, click the trackwheel, and choose Select from the menu, as shown in Figure 6-28. This brings you to the Accounts list. Click the trackwheel again and choose New to set up a new account.

Figure 6-28. The main EmailViewer screen

In the new account configuration screen, you'll find the familiar options for setting up a typical email client. Notice there is support for Hotmail, Secure POP3, and Secure IMAP, in addition to the standard POP3 and IMAP protocols (see Figure 6-29). There is an Autofill option available on the menu to populate these settings automatically for various popular email providers like AOL, BellSouth, etc.

Figure 6-29. New account configuration

So where is the configuration for setting your outgoing mail via SMTP? It is there, although hidden. By default, the SMTP settings are blank, which tells the client to use ReqWireless's mail relay settings. If you'd like to use another SMTP relay, click the trackwheel and choose SMTP from the menu.

Note that most SMTP relay hosts require clients to be in a certain IP network range to send outbound email. Since you'll be going through the ReqWireless proxy, the IP address that your SMTP server will think you're coming from will likely not be in its allowable IP range (it better not be!). Most SMTP servers support authenticated SMTP, which requires you to enter a username and password to override the IP range restriction, although there are no guarantees that this feature is enabled on yours.

6.9.2. Send and Receive Messages

Once you've configured your accounts, return to the main EmailViewer screen and select Receive. If you've entered more than one account, you will be prompted to choose which account you'd like to view. Figure 6-30 shows the view of an IMAP mailbox in EmailViewer. You get full access to subfolders along with the most recent messages you've received in your account. The last 10 messages will be displayed, although this setting can be changed. You can also choose whether to display the subject and sender in the message list.

Figure 6-30. Viewing a mailbox via IMAP in EmailViewer

The process of composing a message is much different than in the built-in Mail program and will at first feel a little clunky. Instead of showing the To, Subject, and Body fields on a single screen, EmailViewer takes you through each field, one screen at a time, requiring trackwheel clicks to progress. Once you send your first message (see Figure 6-31), the next one will come with ease. Fortunately, EmailViewer integrates with your BlackBerry Address Book so you can use those email addresses when composing new mail. There is also an interface for adding new contacts from within EmailViewer that automatically get added to your device's Address Book.

The first time you send a message through the ReqWireless relay, you will need to verify your identity: ReqWireless will send a one-time authentication email to that email address before it allows you to send through its relay.

Figure 6-31. The last step of the compose process

6.9.3. Other Features

EmailViewer also boasts some nice features not found in your BlackBerry Mail application. Not only can you can view images that are sent with your mail messages, but you can view some Office documents that are sent as attachments. You can also turn on a spam filter, which hides messages it believes to be spam from your message list (without actually deleting them from your account). EmailViewer gives you the ability to send plain text email or HTML email and you can change the reply-to address on outgoing messages. It also lets you configure a signature that is appended to all outgoing messages.