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Outlook Express

Save pictures from email – Video Tip

It’s been almost one year since I first posted this tip. We have many new visitors this year, and not enough of you are heading my advice yet on this subject, so I’m posting it again. Please believe me when I tell you that this tip alone can save you countless dollars, time, and tears!

Through my travels, I have noticed that many computer users save emails with pictures because they are unsure of how to save those pictures. Saving lots of pictures in your email program can drastically slow down the performance of the email program over time. Email programs typically can handle thousands of messages, but if something happens to the email database, and you haven't backed up those databases, the pictures will be gone for good. Your best insurance for saving pictures is to save them to a folder on your computer (like My Pictures or a subfolder of My Pictures) then back them up on a regular basis.

To save pictures from your email to a folder on your hard drive, do the following:

Outlook Express

1. Click the paper clip icon in the preview pane*
2. Click Save Attachments
3. In the "Save To" box at the bottom of the dialog box that pops up, click Browse and choose where YOU want to save the pictures and click OK
4. Click Save

* If you read your Outlook Express email in its own window, then RIGHT Click on the

Gmail convertee

Three weeks ago, I switched from using Microsoft Outlook (which I had used since 1998) to Gmail.

What is Gmail?

Gmail is the fast, free web based email from search giant Google. Gmail offers free POP3 access (if you want to download your email into Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc), 6.5 GB of storage (and the number continually grows), and the best web based spam filter I’ve seen so far.

AVG Antivirus 8.0 Upgrade Advice

The past few days calls and emails started filtering in about the new AVG 8.0 version folks have seen appear on their free versions of AVG Antivirus. The common query is, “Should I upgrade?” No, home users of AVG Antvirus do not need to upgrade at all. The current free version of AVG will continue to be updated and as… Read More »AVG Antivirus 8.0 Upgrade Advice

Where to buy a book manual for your computer

“Why didn’t my computer come with a manual?”

One of the most common complaints we hear is about how new computers don’t come with manuals. I am here to explain why this is the case.

The sad answer is that if the computer company came with a manual, it would weigh more than the computer.

“But my old computers used to come with manuals…,” Is the next comment.

Back in the old days of computers there weren’t many uses. You would use computers for word processing, finances, Internet and email. In each case there were only a handful of options.

Remember to take out the trash!

If you really like saving all of your email, you might seriously consider getting a Gmail account. With today’s emails sometimes weighing in at 5 megabytes and more, email programs (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc) can get extremely sluggish. Sluggish performance eventually leads to corrupt data which means you lose all your email.

You can take steps to avoid this, however, by following a few simple

Using your backups

This weekend, an emailer asked the question of how to use the backups that we describe on our site. An excellent question I’m sure others have had as well.

Over the years, I laid out step-by-step methods for backing up your email address book, favorites/bookmarks, and even your email. To use these backups, simply use the “Import” function to bring them back into a new installation of a program or even a new computer.

Backup Your Email Address Book – Video Tip

You can back up your address book very simply to a floppy disk or USB Flash drive and the heartache it has the potential to prevent far outweighs the thirty seconds it takes to complete the task. Follow these steps depending on the program you use:

 Outlook Express Windows Mail Users

  1. Insert USB Flash Drive
  2. Start Outlook Express 
  3. Click the Address Book icon from the toolbar.
  4. Click File –> Export –> Other Address Book from the menus
  5. Choose the Text (CSV) option
  6. Click Next
  7. Click in the Save In box and choose your flash drive
  8. Type “address book backup” in the File name box
  9. Click Save
  10. Click OK after backup completes
  11. Pull out your disk, label it and keep it someplace safe

Windows Mail Users(Vista)

  1. Insert USB Flash Drive
  2. Start Windows Mail
  3. Click File –> Export –> Windows Contacts from the menus
  4. Choose CSV option
  5. Click Export
  6. Click in the Browse button and choose your flash drive
  7. Type “address book backup” in the File name box
  8. Click Save
  9. Click Next
  10. Put a checkmark in the First and Last Name fields
  11. Click Finish
  12. Click OK after backup completes
  13. Pull out your disk, label it and keep it someplace safe

Thunderbird Users

  1. Insert a USB Flash Drive
  2. Start Thunderbird
  3. Click Window –> Address book from the menus
  4. Click File –> Export
  5. Click in the Save In box and choose your flash drive
  6. Type “address book backup” in the File name box
  7. Click Save
  8. Pull out the disk, label it and keep it someplace safe

 

AOL Users

Version less than 6.0, Start AOL, open the address book, insert a floppy or USB flash drive and use the “Save/Replace” button to save your address book.

Versions greater than 6.0 do not have the option of saving to a floppy because the address book is actually saved on AOL’s computers.

Juno Users

Refer to the instructions at Juno’s web site for details if you are using Juno 5.0 or earlier. Juno Platinum users can retrieve email in Outlook Express and use the instructions above.

Delete your email twice

No, I’m not so obsessive-compulsive that I do things twice. What I’m referring to in the title of today’s Shotgun/Email Tip is that almost all email programs require you to delete your email twice. Whether you use Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Thunderbird, AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, or any of the myriad of other email services, when you delete your email, the email isn’t gone. Deleted email ends up in the “Deleted Items” folder or “Trash” folder of your email.

To get rid of your email for good, go to your deleted items folder and use its “empty all” option or delete the individual emails you want to get rid of permanently.

Also, don’t forget that your Sent mail folder also needs cleaned from time-to-time.

Internet Explorer prints only HTML

Today I ran into a problem that I hadn’t seen before. A customer’s MSN and Internet Explorer browser (including MSN email and web mail) would only print the HTML coding of a web page or email.

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is the programming that is used to present web pages to us and the coding behind text color, bold, etc. in email. We had cleaned some spyware from this users computer earlier in the day, and even printed out some pictures, but a few hours later I received a call about this strange symptom. At first, I thought it was just a forwarded email gone awry, but after arriving on the scene and seeing that word processing documents, test pages, pictures, and spreadsheets all printed fine, the culprit was definitely in Internet Explorer 7.