FreeMail – Origonal Feb 28th, 1994 press release…
I just found this from a google group search of “FreeMail” which is the email system that Glenn and I wrote and which we ended up licensing to Kinkos and then creating our first compnay, FreeMail, Inc, getting a patent, and then selling the company to a nightmare……
Message from discussion FreeMail *wildly new* E-mail
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.protocols.pcnet,comp.protocols.ibm
Subject: FreeMail *wildly new* E-mail
Date: 28 Feb 1994 23:25:07 GMT
Organization: Saroff Design
Keywords: modem, window, e-mail
Subject: FreeMail *wildly new* E-mail
This is a press release (not an ad) which may be of interest.
=================================================
PRESS RELEASE
Saroff Design, a software development house in Missoula, Montana, has
announced the commercial release of a unique and timely communication
product. FreeMail is a Windows software package which allows stand-alone PCs
to exchange unlimited and free e-mail with other PCs. FreeMail does not
require a computer network; FreeMail uses regular telephone lines and
standard modems and is easier to use than simple fax machines. Unlike other
e-mail packages, only one copy of FreeMail must be purchased: unlimited
copies of 'FreeMail Children' can then be given away, allowing fast file and
e-mail transfers between the FreeMail 'Parent' and any 'Child'.
FreeMail is pleasant to use and is ideal for people who want to exchange
letters / news letters, or files electronically without incurring the
on-going membership costs of commercial on-line services. Designed simply,
FreeMail is the perfect software for grandchildren to stay in touch with
their grandparents; for college professors to send and accept assignments to
and from their students; for newsrooms to receive stories from their off-site
reporters; and for businesses to provide their own on-line customer support.
This is done with minimal phone time: FreeMail is a client-server package,
and all connections and exchanges are fully automatic, meaning that
long-distance charges will be less than what the postage would have cost to
send the same amount of e-mail, and that a single phone line can handle a
tremendous amount of e-mail traffic. The store-and-forward way in which
FreeMail works means that you can leave messages and files to be 'picked up'
by callers at a future time, or you can send your messages and files
immediately.
A single copy of FreeMail can make any place an information center.
FREEMAIL WILL WORK AT HOME. FreeMail uses
'software ring-detection' which allows homes with a single
phone line to be able to receive e-mail and files. FreeMail can be used
without having to buy any sort of data switch box. FreeMail can work without
interfering with answering or fax machines which may also be on the same
phone line. 'Software ring-detection' is unique; no other communication
product does what FreeMail does.
USES OF FREEMAIL. With FreeMail you can set up an
on-line support and news center with just one phone line. People use
FreeMail for fast, free, distribution of newsletters, price information,
catalogues, graphic files, tech-support answers, software up-dates,
and e-mail. FreeMail lets people who are working together on any
sort of project easily exchange their work files and notes. FreeMail is
used for automated transfer of daily backup-files. FreeMail is the
perfect software package for exchanging personal letters.
FreeMail has built-in security, as well as automatic site polling and
restriction times for calls. (Site polling can be used to automatically
exchange e-mail and files at set times during the day or the week.) Any kind
of file can be exchanged with FreeMail.
If you are using Windows and own a modem, FreeMail will work for you.
FreeMail will make your life easier.
The list price for FreeMail is $74.95 plus $5.00 for shipping & handling
($15.00 for overnight FedX)
We have a no-risk return policy. If, for any reason you are not fully
satisfied with FreeMail, return it (diskette and manual) to us within
30 days for a refund of your purchase price.
For more information, or to place an order contact:
Saroff Design
1901 Missoula Avenue
Missoula, MT 59802
(406) 542-3867
or send e-mail to: ssar...@aol.com
FreeMail is now shipping.
To run FreeMail, you need the following:
Personal computer using 286, 386, or higher microprocessor.
MS-DOS operating system version 3.3 or later.
Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later.
Hard disk with at least 1.5 megs of free space.
Any modem which recognises standard AT (Hayes) command set.
One 3.5 inch 1.44 meg disk drive, or one 5.25 inch 1.2MB disk drive.
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!! FREEMAIL TECHNICAL NOTES 2/94
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saroff Design - a software house ssar...@aol.com
1901 Missoula Avenue, Missoula, Montana 59802 (406) 542-3867
FreeMail. Technical Notes.
FreeMail was written with Borland's C++ for Windows 3.1, and uses standard
Windows features, including MDI, Common Dialogues for file selections and
printer control, the clipboard, tool bars, floating tool bars, an interesting
graphics.
FreeMail does not require a computer network; FreeMail uses regular
telephone
lines and standard modems FreeMail was designed for the stand-alone Windows
user who need to send e-mail and files to other Windows users and who wants
to
do so as easily and inexpensively as possible.
One copy of a FreeMail 'parent' can create any number of FreeMail 'children'
which can then be given away to any one who is using Microsoft Windows 3.1.
The Children copies of FreeMail are made by selecting a prominent control
button on the FreeMail Parent's main window. All children copies are
self-installing (the parent creates a Windows setup program on the child
diskette). FreeMail may just be the closest thing to a benevolent and useful
virus: it can spread itself, but only to knowing and very willing hosts.
A FreeMail parent can send any kind of file, and any number of files, at fast
modem speeds, to any other FreeMail parent or any other FreeMail child. A
FreeMail child can send any kind of file, and any number of files to any
FreeMail parent (not just to the Child's creating parent). Children copies of
FreeMail also have limited communication abilities with other FreeMail
Children. A single 'Parent' copy of FreeMail can create an unlimited number
of 'Child' copies, allowing any place to become a true information center.
FreeMail is a peer-to-peer client-server communication system. All e-mail and
file transfers are exchanged automatically whenever two FreeMail sites
connect with each other. Using store-and-forward technology, all E-mail is
composed and read entirely off-line. When a user of FreeMail selects files to
be
sent to another FreeMail site, or writes e-mail, the e-mail and files are
placed in
waiting queues until the other site calls in or is called.
Calling other sites is done be selecting a prominent 'Call Now' control.
Setting FreeMail to answer calls is done by selecting a prominent 'Wait for a
Call' control. FreeMail is easier to use than FAX machines.
A FreeMail site can automatically call another FreeMail site at set times
during the day or the week. This 'polling' feature can be used for
unattended, automated transferring of any kind of files or for
timely exchange of e-mail.
FreeMail uses 'software ring-detection' which allows homes with a single
phone line to be able to receive e-mail and files. FreeMail can be used
without having to buy any sort of data switch box. FreeMail can work without
interfering with answering or fax machines which may be on the same phone
line. 'Software ring-detection' is unique; no other communication product
does what FreeMail does. FreeMail WORKS AT HOME!!!
FreeMail can also restrict times during the day or the week when other sites
should not attempt to connect, thus making FreeMail highly useful even for
homes or businesses with one phone line.
Anyone who has had to exchange files with another PC user will appreciate how
easy FreeMail is to use. The setup is entirely automatic: FreeMail detects
the computer's modem, and the setup requires no user interaction except to
choose a site name and to enter phone number information and optional
dialling out access codes.
FreeMail functions as an iconized program; if FreeMail has been set to accept
incoming calls from other FreeMail sites, it will exchange e-mail and files
in the background.
FreeMail's wonderful ease of use is due to its sophisticated client-server
design. This design allows no user interaction while two FreeMail sites are
connected, thus letting a single phone line handle a tremendous amount of
calls per day. FreeMail is not a bulletin board system, but it can replace
much of what bulletin board software is used for: exchanging files and
e-mail as well as giving out specific and repeated information. Since an
unlimited number of the children copies can be given out without any cost,
FreeMail becomes an option for anyone who wants to maintain their own
on-line support service, or distribute news or price information
electronically. FreeMail can send 'persistent' files and mail to all first
time
callers as well as to known sites. This 'persistent' feature is very useful
for
anyone who wants to have the same information given out repeatably.
The installation of FreeMail does not change any existing Windows system
files, and all of FreeMail's files are put in one sub-directory. And,
something rare today, FreeMail requires less than one meg of hard disk space.
MHS & MAPI gateways for FreeMail will be available later this year.
These network mail gateways will be sold as an add-on products for $295.00
each. Other network add-on products are also under development.
FreeMail was written by Saroff Design, a software house in Missoula, Montana.
Saroff Design specialises in Windows applications. The development of
FreeMail started in November of 1992, and beta testing at sites
around the country was completed in December of 1993.
The list price for FreeMail is $74.95
(plus $5.00 shipping & handling. $15.00 for overnight FedX)
We have a no-risk return policy. If, for any reason you are not fully
satisfied with FreeMail, return it (diskette and manual) to us within
30 days for a refund of your purchase price.
For more information, or to place an order contact:
Saroff Design
1901 Missoula Avenue
Missoula, MT 59802
(406) 542-3867
or send e-mail to: ssar...@aol.com
FreeMail is now shipping.
To run FreeMail, you need the following:
Personal computer using 286, 386, or higher microprocessor.
MS-DOS operating system version 3.3 or later.
Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later.
Hard disk with at least 1.5 megs of free space.
Any modem which recognises standard AT (Hayes) command set.
One 3.5 inch 1.44 meg disk drive, or one 5.25 inch 1.2MB disk drive.
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device.
!! END OF FREEMAIL TECHNICAL NOTES
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Success and Space
This is what can’t be learned in school…. Part one of ‘How to Make Ten Million Dollars’
I was wildly in love and wanted it to go forever. I was gambling on infinite possibility… but my timing was off.
On Missoula Avenue we lived in a house that had a small, gas heater in the living room, and no heat in the two, small, bedrooms. To keep warm we had to leave the bedroom doors open. In the six months of cold weather, whenever the wind blew, the single pane windows all whistled. Cold leaked into the house like the constant dripping of sea water that plague submarines in old WWII movies.
The bathroom in that house was so small that there was not quite enough room for the toilet and the bathtub; I had to sit slant-wise to find room for my feet, and sit upright in the 3 foot tub –like a cowboy in a Saturday night wash basin.
We moved into that house when my boy was 2 months old. It had a big, overgrown back yard with an apple and a plum tree. When he was just starting to walk, we built a chicken coop out of hay bales and hatched 5 hens from eggs under a heat lamp. The chickens would let my boy walk up to them and touch them, but would never let the two of us get close; they would ‘baaaw ‘and ‘qwaaa’ and flap away.
My boy had been born premature and had spent his first few weeks in an intensive care unit, but the first year at the Missoula Avenue house had felt so good and we still wanted more kids. We were always broke — we were paying off my boy’s huge medical bills — and I didn’t make much money. I worked as a software consultant. This was long enough ago that very few people had computers. The only places which I could find to pay me for software for were doctors, and the large, local hospital – St. Pats. She worked for the other hospital, Community, which is where we owed money. When she got pregnant the 2nd time, right away there were new medical problems. To keep the baby, she had to go on bed rest. This meant that she couldn’t work and I had to make more money.
I stopped being a consultant then and took a full time job at St. Pats, mostly because the head of their IT department let me work some from home so I could help take care of my wife and my year-old son.
The house became too small. And the winter was long and windy. Even though my boss was a good man, the hospital administration was not, and I was not used to the sort of kowtowing that went with being employed by a catholic hospital. Instead of writing code, most of my time was spent configuring computers and fixing broken printers and teaching people how to do mundane tasks. The hospital’s main administrator had looked at my resume and ignored my history of inventing technology, ignored that I had been employed as a think-tank software engineer, and instead keyed in on my one year as an elementary school teacher. He told my boss, “He’s an educator.” After my daughter was born, and I wasn’t as responsible for caring for my wife and toddler son, the hospital required that I put on a tie and spend 40 hours a week teaching people how to use Lotus 1-2-3 and Word Perfect.
We all have our pockets of memory that we touch that become our moods. I have good memories that I keep dear; Many tiny moments in that Missoula Avenue house with two small kids that help me when things are dark. Children learning to talk and their words coming out of laughter over surprises: soft toys wrapped in bright paper, sweet food discovered for the first time on the end of colored plastic spoons, bath times in the 3 foot bath tub with warm water splashing from awkward hands trying to — delightfully trying to — grab hold of bubbles.
I hated my job. I started to hate my wife. I hated the small space of that house, the drafts, the spiders that would crawl in through the cracks, the lack of space.
I had an idea. I thought that computers would become communication devices. I convinced a friend of mine to work on this idea with me. He worked by day at Microsoft in Seattle. He worked at night on our idea. I worked at night on our idea. Kids would go to sleep and I would go to a computer and a stack of technical books. I had to teach myself new programming languages. I had to learn network protocols and modem technology and graphic interface design. I would work until exhaustion. I wasn’t able to talk, to communicate. I know my wife was hating me too.
A skunk dug under the door to the chicken coop and killed all the birds. My boy raced out of the coop one morning terrified; he had found them, all of their heads ripped off. The hot water tank line kept freezing in a sub zero winter, and angrily I couldn’t afford a plumber and had to spend time to fix things. Our car broke down. Other things broke. The clothes dryer. We hung the kids clothing around the space heater. I have a photo from that time’s Christmas. The kids were surrounded by a sea of torn wrapping paper, and simple presents that made them very happy. Behind them were hanging cloth diapers and a clutter of clothes hampers and blankets and my wife’s unsmiling face. I know that I was just as bitter.
I overhead a conversation. I had quit my job at st. pats to work full time on FreeMail. No money was coming in. She was saying on the phone, “He thinks everyone will have computers in their home. I don’t know what to do.” She was right to worry. I was gambling on a future, and no future is predictable.
Being right doesn’t help the past. We had started to get some money for my idea. Not much, but enough to get me traveling to places where I would evangelize what email could do for large corporations. It was worse than teaching accountants how to use spread sheets. I had convinced the Kinko’s chain that my software would change the way they did business, and they had started using FreeMail, but had their lawyers find ways to keep from paying me much. I had to fly to LosAngeles every two weeks, rent a car, and drive the two hours up to Ventura. Most people at the company didn’t want to change how they were doing things, and I would only get paid if all of the Kinko’s stores started using FreeMail. In 1995 very few people understood what was coming. Typewriters were still being manufactured. I had been right about what would happen, but I was wrong about how long it would take.
Near the end of things she picked me up at the airport one night with the two kids. This was when everyone was still allowed to go up to the gates. When my flight landed and was taxing on the runway, I looked out at the airport and there, glowing in the dark of a winter night, were my two kids standing against the terminal windows, waving at the plane, waving at where they knew I was. All of the exhaustion of LA freeways and meetings in windowless conference rooms faded; I was home. Then I got off the flight and she and I didn’t connect, and when I got in the car the floor by my feet was cluttered with garbage: junk mail, food wrappers from McDonald happy meals and other trash. The first questions she had were about money. I had no good answers.
I was begging investors to get involved with my ideas. I was desperate for a way to any kind of financial stability. When a subsidiary of WorldCom, WamNet, offered to buy FreeMail and give me a steady paycheck, I took the offer. Then WorldCom went bankrupt, WamNet went into a tail spin. It took three months before I was fired. In those three months she left, and we were officially divorced, ironically, on the same day I was in a meeting where I got myself fired for cussing at a WorldCom official. I had asked, in front of a room of WorldCom and Enron and WamNet officers, “What part of ‘Fucking idiot’ don’t you understand?” I had directed this at a famous person who should have been in jail for what he was doing with investors money, and in fact, was sent to jail about a year later. But being right isn’t any good without good timing. When I asked him my question he stared at me, and then got up and left the board room. A few minutes later the building’s security guard as well as the company’s Chief Legal officer walked in and told me I was to be escorted out of the building. Two hours before I had gotten a cell phone call from my wife who told me that the marriage was over.
I was now raising two kids without steady money. I spent the next 3 years buying broken radios on eBay for $25, fixing them, and reselling them for $50. I also built people web sites for $150. But mostly I went to the job service and got day jobs hanging sheet rock or loading construction trash into dump trucks. There was no market for software engineers. The Dot Com Crash had happened at the same time as my crash. People who say that money doesn’t matter have never been broke.
I’ve got all this space now. Two paid off houses. One of them on 20 acres of mountain forest. Big bathrooms, even though I like most just walking outside in the woods and peeing, especially at night when the sky is clear and there are thousands of stars and I still see infinite possibilities. I still love the feeling of unpredictable, beautiful space, where I can go in any direction. I like having rooms filled with books and notebooks. I like that I can work on my ideas now without having to be fearful of losing a place to live, without being fearful of not being able to take care of the people who matter to me. But success is still as elusive as ever. Which is a great thing. You see, I still have a long way to go.
Part one of ‘How to Make Ten Million Dollars’ (c) 2009 by Steve S. Saroff www.saroff.com
MontanaVoice.com
MontanaVoice.com - Visit it!
Steve Saroff’s blog of photos and stories is located at www.MontanaVoice.com. His other web site is www.saroff.com
iWallFlower Staff Favorite
MISSOULA, Mont., May 25 — iCloseBy.com, a Missoula, Montana smart phone software application company, is pleased to announce that their latest free iPhone App, iWallFlower-World Art Project, has been selected as an iTunes App Store “Staff Favorites.”
Using the touch screens on the iPhone and iPod touch products, iWallFlower is a free social networking application which allows people to instantly create and share artwork with each other, while at the same time creating the largest virtual art project in history. Each drawing – which can be created on any Apple iPhone or iPod touch, as well as from a web downloadable drawing tool – instantly becomes an ‘Art Tile,’ placed on an endlessly growing mosaic art quilt, and showing the geographic locations of the artists from around the world. In addition, iWallFlower lets individuals exchange ‘Art Messages’ with each other, letting the emotion of their drawings speak in ways that texting and chat just don’t do. iWallFlower art can be viewed by visiting www.iWallFlower.com. The iWallFlower App can be downloaded from the Apple iTune store, and is currently found in the ‘Staff Favorites’, section at the front of iTune App store.
“This is a great honor,” says company co-founder Glenn Kreisel, “There are zillions of applications on the store, and this is the second App of ours that has made it front and center to the ‘Staff Favorites’ area. iCloseBy.com is a boot-strapped company, but we are moving faster and better than most of the large development groups who are just out for a buck. iCloseBy’s difference is we like what we do and our entire company consists of obsessive and artistic software developers. I feel fantastic that I’ve helped create iWallFlower which is now letting people do art in a new, dynamic way all around the world. iWallFlower is the first social networking application that uses Art instead of text as the message.”
About iCloseBy.com — Located in Missoula, Montana, iCloseBy.com is a leader in making software which brings people together. Other iTunes available apps by iCloseBy.com includes iDialUDrive for making hands-free iPhone calls, iEasyCamera, iBobble-3D, iMarkMySpot, and iCloseBy-WiFi, the “Real Space, Real Time” social networking software package which now has hundreds of thousands of users world-wide.
Visit http://www.iWallFlower.com and http://www.iCloseBy.com for more information.
iCloseBy, iEasyCamera and iWallFlower are trademarks of iCloseBy LLC.
iPod, iTunes and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc.
RemoteScan Corporation
RemoteScan has thousands of customers located in every country in the world. Wherever there is a need to connect imaging devices and scanners to PCs and Workstations, you will find our software in use. Chances are good that RemoteScan software is already in use on some of the computers at your facility. Click here for a sampling of some of our current customers and vendors.
RemoteScan™ products have been available since 2003, and since that time RemoteScan Corporation has become the recognized worldwide leader of software solutions for scanning and imaging device connection in Windows® Terminal Server, XenServer, Citrix® and all other virtualized, RDP, ICA and LAN network environments. Even with changing technical standards of new hardware and operating systems, RemoteScan’s core expertise is continually improving our imaging device technology and offering advanced features and consistent ease-of-use functionality that is not part of other standard device connectivity options.
Over the years, RemoteScan Corporation has earned the respect and become a strategic partner with several of the largest and best known software companies in the world.
Click here to see a list of our partners and vendors.
100% of RemoteScan’s focus is on making sure scanners and imaging devices work, and continue to work, in complex and changing network and enterprise environments. RemoteScan products are used by thousands of hotel, transportation, medical, financial, government, and office workers around the world. RemoteScan is the preferred software solution in environments where scanners and imaging devices are part of the critical workflow of paper-less office, document management and EMR and EHR software systems.
Our technology has been developed by our company founders (former Microsoft lead developers, medical software developers, and creators of the world wide Kinkonet document deliver system), and all of our technical support and ongoing software development is done by full-time employees who will pick up the phone and talk to you when you call
iWallFlower from iCloseBy LLC
iWallFlower from iCloseBy
iWallFlower, real-time scrolling drawings showing emotions and humor from around the world. All of the drawings on this site have been made by Apple iPod touch and iPhone users. If you don’t have your iWallFlower App yet, you can download it for free from the Apple iTunes store.
Click here to go to iWallFlower.com