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Rick

Printing your email address book – Outlook Express & AOL

As promised, here is the technique for Outlook Express and AOL users:

Outlook Express Users

1. Start Outlook Express
2. Click on Tools from the menus
3. Click on Address Book
4. In the address book window, click on File from the menus, then Print
5. The print window gives you “style” options. Choose Business card for simplicity and to save paper

AOL Users

Use the “Print” option in your address book and choose from a single user, entire address book and choose whether you want all details for just essential information…choose the latter.

Printing your email address book – Netscape/Mozilla

Many people would like to print their address books as a backup. However, a better backup is to save your address book periodically on floppy disk.

Netscape Users

1. Click on Communicator from the menus, click on Address Book.
2. Click on the File menu
3. Click on Export
4. Click in the “save in” box and choose Desktop
5. Name the file address
6. Click in the “save as type” box and choose tab delimited
7. Click on Save
8. Close the address book
9. Click on Communicator from the menus, click on Navigator
10. Click on File from the menus
11. Click on “Open Page”

One Additional Defense Against Email Viruses

This simple tip should not be a substitute for anti-virus programs and keeping them updated, but can be an affective adjunct to anti-virus programs.

As always, remember that viruses can come from friends and family. Although not on purpose, if a friend or family email buddy received a virus unknowingly, they will propagate the virus unknowingly as well.

Because we have a tendency to look at email attachments, institute this easy method of intercepting some of the most virulent of viruses…the Visual Basic Script virus or worm (VBS). Follow these steps carefully and verbatim:

1. Click on Start –> Programs –> Accessories –> Notepad

Use Email Filters to Organize Email

If you receive more than a few email per day, you could probably benefit from using email filters. All major email programs can be used to look at your email as it comes in and then shift it to a designated folder or even delete it.

Before starting to use a filter, set up some email folders to organize your messages. Simply having an Inbox that collects all incoming mail can be cumbersome to work with and makes it easy to lose important messages.

In my email program, I have set up over 25 folders that collect and organize everything from listener mail, newsletters, daily tips that I receive, mail from specific contacts and more. When I check for email, the program applies the rules (filters) that I have setup and shifts the mail to where it belongs.

The efficient way to email your digital photos

I often get emails from family or friends who have recently been on vacation or been involved in some other event and they want to share a handful of photos with everyone in their address book. Some of the email works out great, but other email doesn’t quite make it through the way sender intended.

Emailing photos can be one of the most troublesome things you can do with your email for several reasons.

1. Non-resized photos can take a long time to upload to send through email on a dialup line.
2. Non-resized photos can take a long time to download for everyone you send the email to. Nothing is more aggravating than waiting 20 minutes for a photo to download so you can read your email, only to find out that the photo is of a funny position that the cat fell asleep in.

Geocaching

Computers, the Internet, GPS, and Hiking for Treasure

A customer of mine (Bill) introduced me to a  fast growing sport called geocaching. Geocaching makes use of Global Positioning Satellites (GPS), the Internet and hiking to find ‘treasures’ all around the world!

GPS uses a series of satellites (24 to be exact) to triangulate a GPS users position. One must use a GPS receiver to utilize the system and access the satellites. Cost for a GPS receiver starts at $90. The signal will give you (within 1-3 meters of accuracy) your latitude, longitude, altitude, speed and direction. Learn more about GPS and how it works by clicking here.

The efficient way to email your digital photos

by Adam Cochran

I often get emails from family or friends who have recently been on vacation or been involved in some other event and they want to share a handful of photos with everyone in their address book. Some of the email works out great, but other email doesn’t quite make it through the way sender intended.

Emailing photos can be one of the most troublesome things you can do with your email for several reasons.

  1. Non-resized photos can take a long time to upload to send through email on a dialup line.

  2. Non-resized photos can take a long time to download for everyone you send the email to. Nothing is more aggravating than waiting 20 minutes for a photo to download so you can read your email, only to find out that the photo is of a funny position that the cat fell asleep in.

Does your computer get stuck?

Actually, I should say, "does your web browser get stuck?" Occasionally, we may click on a link from a web page and the browser just sits there and the page never appears. Here’s the remedy… When you experience the above symptom while browsing about the Internet, simply click on the "stop" button at the top of your browser (traffic light in Netscape, circle with an ‘X’ in it for Internet Explorer and AOL). Then, immediately click on the link again and your browser should kick into gear and take you where you want to go. One caution: do NOT use this technique while shopping on the Internet.

Cookies…are they dangerous, harmless or do they just taste good?

Cookies are small (very small…hundreds of cookies will take up less than a tenth of a megabyte on your hard drive) text files that are deposited on our computer systems by some web sites. For example, the polling service I use for our listener poll will deposit a cookie on your hard drive to prevent more than
one vote per question, but that is all it does.

In the majority of cases, cookies pose no threat to you, your computer, or your privacy. Cookies contain as little data as your Internet providers identifying address or your name and preferences for a web site (like Amazon.com or a personalized Yahoo! page). There have been instances of some advertising
companies attempting to ‘track’ your whereabouts on the web, but again it is more your ‘number’ than you and the data collected is for statistical information only. And to reiterate, cookie files take up a minuscule amount of your hard drive space.

Change the Font Size of Your Browser Text

Text on certain web pages can be either too small or too big. Using either Netscape Communicator or Internet Explorer, you have control over this potential problem using the font size command.

These font adjustments don’t have to be absolute. Change them as the need arises since there is a large disparity in the way web sites are formatted.

In Internet Explorer, change the font size by:

1. Click on View from the menus
2. Click on Text Size
3. Click on any of the options listed (from smallest to largest)

In Netscape Communicator, change the font size by:

1. Click on Edit from the menus