CoolSoft, LLC
Software that’s FUN, EASY to use and AFFORDABLE
Email Blaster User Guide
Important note:
Email Blaster is distributed by CoolSoft, LLC under license from the developer, Le Groupe Montreal Soft, Inc. Copying or modifying the code without written permission from the developer, or using Email Blaster to send unsolicited emails (SPAM), are strictly prohibited. See the restrictions and License Agreement on the Email Blaster main page. CoolSoft, LLC and Le Group MontrealSoft, Inc. are not responsible for and damages or losses incurred from the use of Email Blaster.
© Copyright 2005. CoolSoft, LLC and Le Groupe MontrealSoft, Inc.
Table of Contents
System Requirements
Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 or Windows XP
IIS 4/5
ASPMAIL (Available from www.serverobjects.com)
Getting Started
When you purchase a license for Email Blaster, you will receive a confirmation email with an order number and download link. Enter your order number and email address to access and download your copy of Email Blaster. This is a self-extracting, password protected zip file. Within 24 hours, you will receive another email with the password to unlock the zip file.
Security – Preventing Unauthorized Access to Email Blaster
We recommend this URL be password protected to prevent unauthorized use of Email Blaster.
Installing Email Blaster
The files must be unzipped to a folder on your server that can be accessed from a URL.
Setting Up Third Party Software
Get and install your copy of ASPMAIL from www.serverobjects.com.
Configuring Email Blaster
There are two items you need to configure in order to use Email Blaster.
1. The permissions for the \temp folder that unzips into the Email Blaster folder must be set to read/write for the anonymous internet user.
2. Using Notepad or another HTML editor, open the “config.asp” file in the Email Blaster folder. The following is what you will see after the copyright text.
==================================================================
'ENTER MAIL SERVER BETWEEN QUOTES IN THE FOLLOWING LINE. EXAMPLE: mailserver = "mail.mydomain.com"
'
mailserver = ""
==================================================================
After “mailserver =” enter your email server information between the quotes "" and save the file. This is the information your server needs to send emails. Be careful not to make any other changes. After saving the config.asp file, you are ready to start using Email Blaster.
Using Email Blaster
We recommend using Internet Explorer, although you should be able to use any web browser. From your browser, enter and navigate to the URL where Email Blaster is installed.
NOTE: The first time you use Email Blaster, you should read the entire text of the Introduction Page and the License Agreement, which can be accessed from a link on the Introduction Page. You should only use Email Blaster if you understand and agree with these terms and conditions. If yes, then click on the Go To Email Blaster link.
This is what the Email Blaster main page looks like:
================================================
Email sending Utility
Add email addresses to database
Add
email addresses to database via a CSV file
Add an email body to the database
Send an email to a specific list
Modify the content of an existing email body
Edit a list of email addresses
Delete EMAIL lists
Delete BODY of email
======================================================
Each page comes with instructions as shown below:
Add email
addresses to database
This page is for smaller lists, and lets you input your list by doing a cut and paste into this page. The number of entries you can input varies depending on the size, connection speed, etc. We recommend using the next page to upload lists larger than 1,000 entries. You can start a new list, or add to an existing list. As shown below, the format is 2 column, Name,EmailAddress.
IMPORTANT: After the last entry, you must insert a new line by pressing the enter key once before clicking on the Validate button. If the enter character is not at the end of the last entry, this will cause the page to freeze. If you make a mistake and this happens, close your browser window and go back to Email Blaster and reenter your list with the enter character after the last entry.
NOTE: Email Blaster screens for duplicate entries, however, on this page, you will be allowed to enter a duplicate email address if the name is different. For example, you cannot enter “John Smith,john@smith.com” if the list already contains that entry, but you can enter “John J. Smith,john@smith.com” because the name is different. However, when sending the email, the second and subsequent records with the email address “john@smith.com” will be filtered out, and Email Blaster will send only one email to a unique email address, regardless of how many times that email address is in the list under different names.
You can cut and paste email addresses from a comma
separated or tab delimited file.
Copy-paste from an excel file is also supported.
Column 1 = name, column 2 = email address
NOTE: The message body must be in HTML. You cannot paste
ordinary text.
Send an email to a specific list
Please Select a List (Dropdown)
Please select a predefined message to send: (Dropdown)
Please enter the "FROM" information you want in each email.:
Name:
Address:
Send a test (to From Email Address) Send for Real
NOTE: Here you can choose a list and email body, enter the sender info (Name and Email Address), send a test message to determine if the messages appears as you want it, and send the selected email body to the selected list.
Email Blaster will send an email body to a unique email address in a list only once, no matter how many times that email address is entered with different names. If the list contains multiple entries of a unique email address, the duplicates will be ignored.
If sending is interrupted, you can restart sending the message to the same list by going back and sending the same message to the same list. Email Blaster will restart where it left off. If a unique address was already sent the message before sending was interrupted, the email will not be sent again to the same address. Only addresses that did not receive the email will be included when you restart the sending.
IMPORTANT: You cannot send the same message body to the same list. If you want to resend the same message, then you have to copy the HTML from the message that was sent into a new message body with a new name. Editing the message will not enable it to be sent again to the same list. Alternatively, you can leave the body alone, and copy the list to a new list, but it is easier and simpler to copy the message to a new message.
How can I tell when Email Blaster is finished sending an email to a list?
Be patient. A long list can take hours to process. Our experience is that 10,000 emails can be processed in under two hours. But that can depend on the server and speed of the connection to the Internet and your experience may be different.
When an email is finished sending to a list, Email Blaster will return a page with the results. You can save the results as an HTML file for future reference by using the “Save As” selection under the file menu of your browser. At the end of the list will be a summary of the Emails sent.
Modify the content of an existing email
body
Enables you to select an email
body to be edited.
Edit a list of email addresses
Enables you to edit/manage lists.
Delete EMAIL lists
Delete BODY of email
Enables you to delete lists and messages.
Support
Visit www.coolsoftllc.com and go to support. To submit a support issue, go to the Request Support link. You will need the email address and order number that appears on your confirmation email when you first purchased your license. We will forward your questions to the developer, and someone will get back to you within a few business days.
NOTE: We do not support third party products like ASPMAIL, web browsers or Microsoft products. If you need support with a third party product, contact the developer of that product.
Email Blaster has been tested in Internet Explorer 6.1 and Netscape 7.2, and functions well with those web browsers. It should work with other browsers too, but we cannot guaranty that.
Known Issues
If you are using Email Blaster with Netscape, and you are in Edit a list of email addresses (ListEdit.asp page), if the list is more than three pages long there are known instances when clicking on Next Page from Page 2 will return to the beginning of the entire list. We have not been able to reproduce this problem with consistency, and it is a rare occurrence, so we cannot isolate the cause. This problem has not been reported from Internet Explorer, and if you encounter it the workaround is to switch to Internet Explorer while working with this page.