"Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen,
On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem;"
That's 8 tiny reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh through Henry Livingston's magical air. Counting hoofs and heads in the Christmas stationery below, I make out but 6 animals. Can you spot the rest?
›› Wish a merry Christmas with Santa and his reindeer in the back of your email messages. (Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Outlook, Outlook Express)

While one talks of a "small step" and a "giant leap," the other may concoct plans of a spaceship with two doors...
Speaking of small steps leading to giant leaps:
›› Conquer your inbox, your tasks, yourself and the rest in single, simple steps. Here's how to create sub-tasks to tasks (and sub-sub-tasks) in Gmail Tasks.

Always searching for the right email? The new Mozilla Thunderbird 3 finds it faster.
Search results come in more polished a manner, too, and you can focus them on certain times or people easily. Under Windows and Mac OS X, you can also find Mozilla Thunderbird mail in Search and Spotlight respectively.
Back in Mozilla Thunderbird, searches as well as messages can be opened side by side in tabs. The address book does not come with tabs, but now works a bit like bookmarks — all with a star icon next to the contact and one-click adding or editing.
Also new in Mozilla Thunderbird 3: fast archiving to a single folder and, appropriately, better use of Gmail. Setting up Gmail and other web-based email accounts is easier, too.
›› Mozilla Thunderbird is a fully featured, secure and very functional email client and RSS feed reader. It lets you handle mail efficiently and with style, and Mozilla Thunderbird filters away junk mail too. (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Once every day, maybe twice, sharp motored edges cut through the blades on a putting green. Rigorous pruning keeps the grass pretty resilient and the ball rolling evenly.
To keep the mail rolling smoothly, you can have iPhone Mail trim messages on the server rigorously when you check your email — once a day or maybe twice:
›› If you delete an email in iPhone Mail, you want it gone from your server, too — and not showing up in webmail or your desktop email program? Here's how to make iPhone Mail delete messages from a POP account.

"I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is:" — Herbert Bayard Swope wasted no words revealing the secret — "Try to please everybody."
Now, here's this Outlook add-on that has not tried to please you. Whatever that means for its chances to succeed, you can tell it to leave — succinctly and successfully with the following formula:
›› Outlook complains about an add-on that's not loading whenever you launch it? You want to get rid of all ballast that may make Outlook slower than it needs to be? Here's where to look for add-ons and extensions, and how to remove them from Outlook.

"Murgijaz" is no real word; it is not from Lewis Carroll's pen, and you'll feel its presence this Christmas.
"Murgijaz" meant "short-lasting" and is the reconstructed root of "merry": time flies when you're elated.
Let's make emails fly to heighten spirits and shorten the time till Christmas:
›› Put this wonderful Merry Christmas stationery in the Inbox of those who put the merry in your Christmas. (Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Outlook, Outlook Express)

Always change the font and face? Want to make your choices stick? Now you can specify default formatting in Gmail.
This is not the only new option to appear in Gmail recently, of course: Gmail offline now lets you specify how much mail to keep at hand.
This is not the only new trick to appear in Gmail offline recently, of course: you can now attach files while offline, too.
Also new: a means for Gmail to detect unwanted recipients, a way for you to undelete tasks and a place for Google Docs to show previews.
›› Gmail is the Google approach to email and chat. Practically unlimited free online storage allows you to collect all your messages, and Gmail's simple but very smart interface lets you find them precisely and see them in context without effort.

"If I count 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 50, 100, nobody knows when we take off, " recounts Fritz Lang. In his 1929 sci-fi classic Woman in the Moon, he decided to count backwards instead and — 6-5-4-3-2-1-JETZT — invented the countdown.
Now, you don't have to invent or invert anything to count down the number of unruly (or superfluous) emails in your Mac OS X Mail Sent folder — with the right add-on installed:
›› If you have Mac OS X Mail automatically sort the mail you get, why not have it do the same for the mail you send, too? Here's how to make Mail file and delete outgoing mail automatically, or do anything else a rule can — automatically.

The long and furrowed pink tongue appeared, moved from right to left, and disappeared again. The motion was repeated, and page after page sticking to the tongue flipped over.
After going through five or six sheets of the large old book, the donkey looked up and brayed a long "e", then an "a".
"There you are," said Till Eulenspiegel, who had been challenged to teach a donkey to read, "it already knows two letters. Tomorrow, we'll turn to the 'o' and the 'u'."
Now, if Till Eulenspiegel can make a donkey turn pages, we should be able to make Mac OS X Mail turn to the bottom for replies, should we not?
›› QuoteFix has Mac OS X Mail start your reply at the bottom in a proper fashion. (Mac)

Peter Drucker gives you 90 minutes, not more and rather not less either, to work before you have to take a break.
What should you do in this intense hour and a half? Maybe — maybe — some worthwhile tasks are hiding on your Gmail Inbox:
›› Want to work on an email, keep it out of the inbox, set a due date, add notes and get to the original message with but a click? Here's how to turn emails into tasks managed right inside Gmail.