Clean your inbox

Update:  Following on the heels of Gmail’s update, I thought I would re-share this article as well that I posted nearly 4 years ago. To this day, I still follow these recommendations and email is no longer a thorn in my digital side. Give it a try! Email truly revolutionized communication. The ability to retrieve a message from anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds is mind boggling. However, judging by the size...

I don’t miss spam

I just emptied 536 spam from my email spam folder. Today, I ran across some clients who had problems with email spam, and I recanted the following story. Once upon a time, my email inbox was filled to the brim with spam every single day. Then one cool autumn day in Las Vegas, Nevada at the now defunct Comdex show in 2000 or 2001, I met some nice folks from a startup company called Cloudmark. They were discussing and...

Changing email addresses – It’s not th...

AOL made millions of dollars for years because computer users are afraid to change their email addresses. All week long, I hear, “Oh, it’s too hard to change email addresses now.” Or, “It will take forever to change my email address with everyone.” Come on folks…we’re using computers! You don’t have to fill out a change of address form and march it down to the postal office. You...

Email Filters – Outlook Express

This tip gives you the tools you need to help organize your email with Outlook Express or Windows Mail. Using Filters is like having an assistant go through your email for you and sort it before you see it.  Click here for a previous tip on how to use filters to keep spam out of your inbox. This week’s tip describes email filters using Outlook Express and its rules based system: 1. Create mail folders for Jokes, Spam...

Google buys reCaptcha

Google just announced that they have bought reCaptcha. reCaptcha has been a leading company in helping to thwart comment and account spam by requiring a human to decipher characters and words scanned from books before continuing on in a posting or sign up process. Check out the article here: Official Google Blog: Teaching computers to read: Google acquires reCAPTCHA. ...

Beware of this type of spam

Below is an example of an email spam (unwanted email) that is increasing in frequency. Overall, the email looks to be legit and normal. However, there are two parts of the email that you need to pay particular attention to: Who is it from? In the example below, I have no idea who Allison is. Red flag number 1. If you don’t recognize the name or the email address, be suspicious. Link in the email uses an URL (web...

Gmail guide for beginners – 3 Videos –...

This week’s video tip is a HelpMeRick.com first…it involves 3 videos to cover the topic of Gmail. Directly above each video below, I give a short synopsis of the videos contents. The more I use it, the more impressed I am with Gmail. If you currently use Gmail, don’t be afraid to watch these videos as you might pick up a tip or two yourself. Google offers a good Help section covering their email system, and...

Important Newsletter Information!

If you are a weekly newsletter subscriber, please read this information. After two weeks of soul searching, research, and web browsing, I decided to move the email newsletter subscribers to my FeedBlitz service. Feedblitz picks out my newest articles and delivers them to you in an email. The service works great and I will be moving the address list into it starting on Monday or Tuesday. As soon as I move the list into the...

Reunion spam makes a comeback

Social engineering strikes again. Last spring, a spam posing as a reunion invitation made its rounds around the Internet. The spam/virus gets spread by an unsuspecting and less than alert computer user opens an email supposedly from a class mate inviting them to a reunion. Once the email is opened, a root-kit (hard to detect spyware/virus hybrid) gets deployed on the person’s computer and begins to spread itself from...

My first year with Gmail

I closed Outlook and started using Gmail exclusively one year ago. At first, I thought it would be a good experiment to see what Gmail was really all about, but I was also fed up with Outlook and its limitations. It took me two or three weeks to wean myself of thinking of my email in the same way that I used to with Outlook. For the experiment to work, Gmail had to satisfactorily accomplish 3 key functions of email that I...

Participating and/or Moderating Email Discussion G...

Last month, John, a GJ User Group regular, suggested I lead a discussion about email discussion groups, sometimes known as mailing lists. I thought it was such a good idea, that I made it this month’s User Group topic. Email discussion groups allow emailers with a particular passion for a hobby, political leaning, medical infliction, educational purpose or any other common thread to share ideas, debate, and dialogue via...

Bresnan Email Woes

Although this tip targets one particular Internet provider, ANY computer user will benefit from the advice I give at the end of the article. In Western Colorado, a company called Bresnan provides a large swath of the cable services…including cable Internet. Overall, I have no problems with the Bresnan service. They run an extremely speedy and pretty stable Internet connection. However, my beef with the service has...

Use Disposable Email Addresses to thwart spam

In our monthly computer user group today, the discussion some how made its way to disposable email addresses. Many web sites offer free, disposable email addresses you can create for one time use to sign up for a temporary web services, or make an inquiry to a web site that you don’t want to have your real email address. Beyond anonymity, using a disposable email address will reduce the amount of spam that comes into...

Gmail update

I started using Gmail exclusively as my email program of choice almost eight weeks ago and haven’t opened Microsoft Outlook since. I wrote about it three weeks into the process, and decided to give another update today. As I mentioned in my first installment, I do have a Gmail address, but don’t use it hardly at all. Instead, I utilize a wonderful feature built into Gmail that allows folks with their own domain...

Leave your comments!! Please!

We love getting your feedback on our articles and tips. Unfortunately, too few of you participate. Our most commented articles are our Cameroon Pet Scams and desktop wallpaper articles. I did get a few comments on my annual plea for tax reform, but I’m always surprised at how few comments we get compared to the number of visitors to our site. We do have the ReCaptcha system to thwart automated robot spammers on our...