You can begin to get your e-mail messages organized with Eudora filters

Does your Eudora "In" mailbox have dozens of messages, read and unread? Have you ever overlooked an urgent message because it was buried in a sea of mail? Are you spending precious time weeding out junk mail?

You need filters. Think of filters as personal assistants: You tell them what to do with your messages, and they do it.

For example, you might have Eudora put messages from mailing lists in separate mailboxes. Messages from friends or family could go to mailboxes, too, leaving only work-related mail in your In mailbox. Junk mail ("spam") could be sent directly to the trash or to a junk mailbox.

Even if you prefer to keep new mail in your In mailbox, filters can still help. Eudora can apply colored labels to messages from certain people, or raise (or lower!) the priority of those messages. If you're expecting an important message, you can have Eudora play a special sound, open it or print it as soon as it arrives.

Eudora can also automatically forward or redirect messages to other people, or reply using a message from your Eudora Stationery files.

Basic instructions for creating filters are in Eudora's "Help" menu. To learn what all the options do, choose "Filters" from the "Tools" menu (Windows Eudora 3.x) or from the "Special" menu (Mac Eudora 3.x) and then use "Context Sensitive Help" (Windows) or "Show Balloons" (Mac). For detailed directions and definitions, check the Eudora manuals at http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/email/program-docs.html.

In Eudora 4.x, start with the shortcut called "Make Filter" in the Special menu. (Eudora 4 is available for testing through Bear Access; it's in Updates and Extras.)

Open houses on computer-based training

Curious about the new option for taking computer classes right at your Windows computer? Stop in at Technology Training Services' open houses, June 29 and 30, from noon to 4 p.m. in G25A Stimson Hall.

The "@cornell.edu" column runs on the last Thursday of each month and is edited by Beth Goelzer Lyons of Cornell Information Technologies. Send suggestions to citnews@cornell.edu . For more technology news, visit the CIT News site http://www.cit.cornell.edu/citpubs/news/.