Personally, I like to go out to the AT&T Text to Speech site and create .wav files to describe mail that has just arrived. For example:

I create and download a .wav file that says "You have a new e-mail from your wife". I then create a rule within outlook to play said .wav file whenever my wife sends me something.

If you use your imagination, you can start to get a little more complex with this and not interrupt your work every time the default e-mail notification goes off. This is also really cool to use for other uses beside e-mail notification, such as firing off a .wav file whenever there is a certain syslog event, snort event, etc. Nothing to do with perl, but I hope you find it helpful.

I hope this helps,
ghettofinger