There are lots of people who have problems typing, whether they have some sort of disability or injury or perhaps literacy problems. In circumstances such as these, speaking, rather than writing, a message is the perfect solution. Speak-A-Message allows you to do just that - record a message and send it as an email.

Although Speak-A-Message's interface is a little old-fashioned, it does the job well and has plenty of configuration options, allowing you to change the appearance of the tool, choose from web or POP-based email, send photos with voice commentary and even add a small range of special effects to your messages. It also comes with comprehensive online and offline help.

The messages we tried were received perfectly, even by people who don't have Speak-A-Message installed (they are sent as .WAV files and can be read with any type of .WAV-enabled music player, which is most of them). You can modify the text sent in the email, but there doesn't seem to be a way of changing the default message. You don't even have to send the message, and can save it to your computer or as an .MP3 file and use it for presentations or reports, for example. Similarly, you can send photos or slideshows by email, or upload them to a private server where they can be accessed by friends and family with a special code.

Speak-A-Message - a sweet tool for sending basic voice messages by email.