Are there people you email every day? Of course you have them in your address book, but wouldn’t it be cool to have a desktop shortcut for them? Double-click and you’ll get a message window from your default email client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird) ready for your message. This doesn’t work with web based email: Yahoo, MSN/Hotmail, AOL.

Right-click the desktop and choose New/Shortcut.

The New Shortcut Wizard will guide you through the process. Enter “mailto:” (without the quotes) then click Next.

Enter a name for the shortcut then Finish. Double click to be sure that a blank email opens.

Now to personalize it: right-click the shortcut and choose “Properties”.

Under URL type in the address after “mailto:”. If you want more than one address, just separate them with commas (if both addresses don’t come up when testing try a semicolon).

You can also enter BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) recipients by following the address with a question mark, bcc=, and the address

In addition you can create a shortcut key. This will allow you to open an email without your mouse. And you can change the icon with the click of a button and a little browsing.

Now just double click the icon or use your shortcut keys to have new message windows come up already addressed to your family and friends.

~ David

David Samuel Thomas