BioMail Quick Start Guide

This documentation was last updated for BioMail version 0.61. Please make any comments and additions to the authors.

What is BioMail?

BioMail is a program that simplifies and automates searching for biological and medical literature. BioMail will search PubMed, the largest publically available online database for biomedical journals, using your search terms. BioMail then e-mails you the results weekly, biweekly or monthly as you choose.

Why use BioMail?

BioMail searches PubMed which is updated daily, so you get the most recent information.
Using BioMail allows you all the advantages of doing PubMed searches but you only have to do it once and then sit back and BioMail will send you the search results up to twice a week by e-mail.
It is possible to get the e-mail in HTML format with direct links to PubMed, output in different formats for import into reference manager programs and storage of important papers in a Reference Treasury.

How to use BioMail?

To start using BioMail, go to the BioMail Login page and open a new account.

NOTE:

You can easily access BioMail by typing www.biomail.org in your browser.

Follow these steps to open your account:

Click on the button.

This will bring you to the BioMail New Account Registration page.
Fill in your E-mail address.
Choose a Username and Password, entering the password a second time to confirm it.
Select the Number of searches, 20 is the maximum.

The number you choose here will determine how many blank search forms will be available on your BioMail Configuration Page (you can change the number later).
After all the information is entered click the button and you are ready to begin entering your search patterns.

This is the BioMail Configuration Page. Here you change your password, change the number of searches, or delete your account if you don't want to receive BioMail e-mails any more.
Scroll down until you see your E-mail address, check to see if it is correct.
Begin entering your Search terms.

The first blank space (Search #1) is for your search terms. You can use boolean operators 'AND, OR, NOT', wild cards 'baculovir*', and other special symbols and nomenclature to refine your search precisely.
In the next blank space (E-mail subject#1), you can enter a short description of the search. It will appear as the e-mail subject. Or, you leave it blank, and the search parameters will be the e-mail subject.
Choose either html or text Format for e-mail messages.

If you use Netscape Messenger, Microsoft Outlook, or another html-enabled mail application, or web-based e-mails (e.g. Yahoo mail, Hotmail), it is better to select html format. You will get much more functionality in your mail messages, direct links to PubMed, export formats and Reference Treasury. If you use Pine or an e-mail reader that cannot read html messages, select text format

NOTE:
All html-based functionality is broken if you use Hotmail because Hotmail modifies web-links in BioMail's messages. If you want to use web-based mail program and still enjoy all functionality, use another site instead of Hotmail. Yahoo mail works fine for example.
Select how often you want to Perform the search and how many references maximum per e-mail.
Finally, Test your search by clicking on the button.

You will see the results of you search in the format that you will receive by e-mail. If you selected html format it will have links to PubMed and buttons. If you selected text format, it will be a plain text page.
Repeat steps 7-11 for all the different searches that you want BioMail to do.

For at least one of your searches use the button to make sure that your address is correct and you receive BioMail e-mails.

NOTE:
Test searches do not use the maximum number of references or the frequency parameters that you have set. For all test searches the results are from the last 30 days and have a limit of 50 references.
Click the button either at the top or bottom of the page.

Now you are registered, just sit back and wait for your informative e-mails from BioMail!