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
