Three years ago, e-mail was the source of most PC virus infections, but that's no longer the case. Now you're more likely to catch a piece of malware from a Web site, whether by downloading a file or simply by opening a booby-trapped page.
Does this mean you may … Read more
Let me begin by stating that most tech-support staff know their stuff and exhibit the patience of Job when dealing with us dumb, short-tempered users. Let me add further that on some occasions in the past I have had a less-than-pleasant demeanor when seeking the assistance of help-desk helpers.
Even though support staffers have saved my bacon on several handfuls of occasions, I feel like I have lost untold hours of my life on tech-support lines in a futile effort to troubleshoot some PC problem or other.
My most recent exchange with tech support occurred after a mail-server upgrade went … Read more
You can't expect any application as complicated and full-featured as Microsoft Outlook to suit you perfectly right out of the box. Here are the Outlook adjustments I rely on to make the program safer and easier to use.
Send and receive mail in plain text In a previous post, I described how to make sure Outlook shows all incoming mail as plain text. Quick recap: in Outlook 2003, click Tools > Options > Preferences > E-mail Options, and in the Message Handling area, check "Read all standard mail in plain text." To do the same in Outlook … Read more
My previous post described how to create a quick-and-simple HTML e-mail newsletter. I mentioned that you should view the plain-text version of the newsletter so you could see how it looks to recipients who have HTML mail disabled.
But what if you're on the receiving end? How can you ensure that you see the full-color, fancy-format HTML messages sent to you by people or organizations you trust, but are protected from potentially malicious HTML mail from bad guys? In Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007, it's easy.
Customize Outlook's message view Start by setting Outlook to view messages … Read more
The other day, a friend asked if I how he could spiff up the weekly e-mail he sends to the members of his bowling team. I told him the simplest way was to download an HTML newsletter template he could customize and then send from Outlook or any other e-mail program.
Start by locating and downloading a newsletter template. You'll find a bunch of free ones at Templates Box. After you download the template you like, open it in an HTML editor. My favorite is the Composer component of the Mozilla Foundation's free SeaMonkey Web suite.
You could … Read more
I spend most of my workday Alt-Tabbing between my Gmail inbox and the Outlook account on my employer's Exchange Server. The problem is, when it comes to contacts, there isn't much overlap between the two: Only a handful of Gmail addresses are also in the Outlook contacts list, and vice-versa.
Rectifying the situation takes only a few minutes. Start by moving your Outlook contacts to Gmail. In Outlook 2003 and 2007, click File > Import and Export, select "Export to a file," click Next, choose either comma-separated value option, and click Next again. Browse to and … Read more
When I mentioned in a post last week that I forward select messages from my office Microsoft Exchange account to Gmail, several people claimed that this puts the company's data at risk.
I failed to point out that the information in the messages was not at all sensitive: no invoices, strategic plans, credit-card numbers, customer records, etc.
But what if I had needed to access private information from this account on a system other than Outlook? Assuming that no company can be trusted, how could I use Gmail without worrying about security?
One part of the problem was addressed … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, the IT guy at my office added my company Exchange Server e-mail account to my notebook computer's copy of Microsoft Outlook 2007. The first time I tried to open Outlook after I left the office, the program crashed because it was unable to connect to the server.
I couldn't even open Outlook long enough to delete the new account. This wasn't a big problem for me for a bunch of reasons. For one, I didn't really need to access my company e-mail account from the version of Outlook on my notebook … Read more
I always think twice or even three times before I enter my e-mail address in a Web form. Even when the site gives me the option not to have any messages sent to the address (usually by unchecking the Web form's "Notify me" entry that's checked by default), I can't help but think somehow, somewhere, some snake-oil salesman is going to get hold of my address.
Now I register at such sites using a separate e-mail account whose mail I filter out of my in-box. When I have to click a link in a confirmation … Read more
On Monday, I described Vaita's free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover, an add-on that finds duplicate copies of Outlook messages, contacts, calendar entries, and tasks. Now, I'll continue to trim my bloated Outlook in-box by using another freebie: the Kopf Outlook Attachment Remover created by Bruno Marotta.
After you download the program and restart Outlook, you see a floating Attachment Remover toolbar that you can drag and dock at the top of the screen along with all the other toolbars to keep it from blocking your view. Click the toolbar's one-and-only button to open the program's one-and-only … Read more
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