Display a custom alert when you receive new mail

Outlook has had a 'new mail alert' dialog for years, but until the new mail desktop alert in Outlook 2003, it was, well, sucky. There's another way you can create a custom alert for new mail as well that is not immediately obvious, so I wanted to mention it:

1. Tools | Rules Wizard
2. Create a rule and make the action “Display a specific message in the new item alert window”
3. Choose your custom text and save the rule

Then when new mail arrives that matches your conditions, you'll get a dialog like this:

(guess which string was the 'specific message' I chose?)

Why would you want to do this? I think it's mostly useful when you only use it for certain types of mail that you choose with the rules criteria. You may turn off the overall desktop alert (tools \ options \ email options \ advanced email options) and only want to get an alert for messages that match certain criteria - maybe they're from your boss, are sent to you specifically rather than a distribution list, etc. And of course, you're not just limited to boring ol ASCII: