Come on folks...were using computers! You don't have to fill out a change of address form and march it down to the postal office. You don't have to send out a post card to every person you know. You don't have to fill out a change of address for all your bills and utilities.

Changing email addresses is actually pretty painless and can be cathartic as well. In fact, think of it as going into the digital identity protection program. Here's how to make it a smooth transition:

Over the next few weeks, the weekly tip will focus on the creation of email filters with the various email packages. See last month's tip for a general description of email filters.

This week's tip describes email filters using Outlook Express and its rules based system:

1. Create mail folders for Jokes, Spam Saved mail, etc by RIGHT clicking on Local Folders from the folder list, then clicking on New Folder. Creating folders will give you a chance to really organize and sort email with this rules technique
2. Click on Tools --> Message Rules --> Mail
3. In the first box, choose a parameter like "where the subject contains specific words" (you can choose more than one parameter) OR where an email address appears in the To or CC
4. In the second box, choose an action like "delete it" or "move to specified folder"
5. In the third box, click on any underlined words to set the parameter (ex: specified words = spam or viagra)
6. In box four, name your rule something descriptive
7. Click OK
8. Click New and repeat the steps to add new rules

Adam brought to my attention this email that came to his inbox with a virus attached. It looks official at first glance, but read my comments on how to dissect an email for authenticity.

Like any medium, we all need to keep a discerning eye on the information we read on the Internet and in email. You don't believe everything you read in the newspaper or see on TV do you? The Internet is no different and tends to breed more fiction because its tools are so readily available.

First and foremost, keep an anti-virus software running on your computer at all times and make sure it is updated at least weekly. Remember, keeping a virus program updated is completely different than the program doing a weekly scan of your computer files. I favor AVG Antivirus on mine and my client's computers, but whatever you use, keep it updated.

I still recommend that emailers save their important pictures and documents sent to them via email to a folder on their computer for easier backup (see my video tip on how to do this by clicking here), but many people also save a great deal of email and don't want to lose it. Outlook Express (Windows Mail) saves all email in files with a .dbx extension. The files are named for the folders you have created in your email, so you will see files like inbox.dbx, saved.dbx, family.dbx, etc. Whatever email folders you have created will have a corresponding .dbx file.

These files, unfortunately, are buried in the Windows files system. This week's video tip demonstrates how to locate these files on your computer so you can then copy them to flash drive (best idea) or CD/DVD.