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Really useful e-mail help: E-mail, the electronic transfer of messages from one computer to another. Yes, that's it. So, what do we need to participate in this exciting world of information exchange? A computer, a connection to the Internet, an e-mail program, a sender and a receiver. If you have a receiver, then you probably have all the ingredients to bake this cake. All Windows operating system from Win95 through to XP Professional are equipped with an e-mail program. It usually is OUTLOOK or OUTLOOK EXPRESS but you can use any number of other programs like THUNDERBIRD, NETSCAPE COMMUNICATOR, EUDORA or similar. Since Windows is the widest distributed Operating System we say that you have OUTLOOK EXPRESS as your e-mail program. (By the way, you can have more than one program, and more than just one e-mail address!) -------------------------------------------------- Firstly, there are some basic values you should be aware of. They are called "NETIQUETTE", ie.Net-Etiquette: Netiquette: A) To write your message in all capital letters IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING!! It is not nice and not necessary. B) Spelling and Grammar is also very important, in particular if you write to the PM or G.G. So, make good use of the 'spellchecker' before dispatching your message. C) E-mail is supposed to be short and precise. Do not write long love letters, novels or trip reports per e-mail. Most recipients are very busy and really do not have time to read your view of the last 5-day cricket match. D) Always place something into the 'subject' line of the e-mail header. If you don't, your e-mail may finish up in the Spam basket without being read. E) There are some hundreds of thousands acronyms and emoticons available for e-mail (see our separate lists), which we suggest to use cautiously. Very few people really know what most of them mean and it could be considered offensive if you use the wrong one at the wrong time! F) You will get many e-mails when you have established a crew of friends. A fair percentage will be e-cards and jokes, which are passed around the Net day after day. Some are very funny and will give you a laugh the first time. However, you will see many of the same ones frequently. It is a good policy not to pass on every bit of information that arrives in your mailbox. Be very selective, because the Net is overcrowded already and likely to breakdown with uncontrolled traffic. G) Often new e-mails arrive in your box which shows a lot of names in the cc (carbon copy) field. That is a definite NO - NO ! Not only does it give every reader your e-mail address, it also allows your name to be 'harvested' by spammers and hackers. Educate your friends to avoid publicising your address. Each e-mail blank form has a section called BCC (blind carbon copy). Use that if necessary. It means that only you know who has received a copy of your message. Customise your Outlook Express Utilities: Your Standard Toolbar consists of FILE, EDIT, VIEW, TOOLS, MESSAGE, HELP. If you click on VIEW then LAYOUT, you will see a window with two sections, ie. 'Basic' and 'Preview Pane'. In the Basic section you definitely want to tick the following four: Folder Bar, Status Bar, Folder List and Tool Bar. Now click on ' Customise Toolbar'. This will show you the available icons / functions compared to those already installed by Windows. Most likely you may not wish to change any icons, but please try and experiment a little to get the feel of the idea. As you can see, you can also arrange these icons into any order you like. When you have finished click OK and you will be back at LAYOUT. Now we will get to the bottom pane which reads'Preview Pane'. If Windows has ticked "Show Preview Pane", it is best to quickly untick the box. (Why? Ok, with the tick your e-mail window will show you part of the opened message as soon as you go to your INBOX. With all these nasty virus problems, it really is not a good idea to open any mail until you are certain that it is friendly. Untick the box and all you will get to see in your INBOX window is the name of the sender, the subject and the date it was sent. It will not be opened if you untick this box.) You then click APPLY and OK to be back in Outlook Express. Now click on TOOLS / MESSAGE RULES / MAIL, this will bring you to a screen which will allow you to make your own rules for each incoming message. Since 99% of all viruses are transmitted as attachments, I do suggest making rule No: 1 to highlight incoming messages with attachments in a RED COLOUR (Warning). So you click on 'NEW' and in the first section of choices scroll to "Where the message has an attachment" and tick it. In the second window scroll to "Highlight it with colour " and tick it. The bottom pane will now tell you what has been done except you will have to nominate the colour. The word 'colour' will be in blue and underscored, click on it and scroll down the list and chose the colour RED. Now click on OK and again OK. The mail rule window should now show you that rule no: 1 is to highlight any messages with attachments in RED. From all the available options, you can easily combine quite an assortment of rules. If you are careful and know what you are doing, it is likely to benefit you immensely. Make sure that for each new rule you click the 'NEW' button so the rule can be numbered and recorded. Your next step brings you to the MESSAGE menu. The two important items here are: 'New message using..' and 'Block Sender' (Block sender will only be accessible when you have a received message in your INBOX). 'New message using....' gives you a choice to use several Windows loaded background designs in your e-mail. Click on any of these and they will be featured in your e-mail body. Try it and see whether you like the idea. You can block any sender with just a click or two. If you have an incoming message, left click once on it and then click on MESSAGE in your toolbar. The drop down menu will have an item called BLOCK SENDER. Click on it and the program will record the name of the sender on a blacklist for future reference. That sender will never send another message to your computer. It would be an easy way to eliminate Spam, but not so. Spammers change their sending name every day and hence you would be forever blocking senders all day long. Sorry, but we are working on it!!! Writing an e-mail: When you compose an e-mail it is possible to write the text in MS Word format first and then send your message to your e-mail form. This is a very handy operation, because you do not have to be connected to the NET to draft your e-mail. This in turn saves you money if you are on a dial-up limited time connection. You could start your e-mail today, sleep on it, add some more tomorrow and then send it. Easy and cheap. Once you have typed your message in MS Word, spell-check it there and then click on FILE on your Standard Toolbar, click on SEND TO and select MAIL RECIPIENT. and your message is already in your mailing program. Type in the address of the recipient, type a subject in the space. All you need to do now is click on SEND. This has taken you 30 seconds, instead of perhaps 30 minutes composing it if done directly. Saved nearly 30 minutes of valuable 'on-line' time. Setting up folders: When you go to your Inbox of Outlook Express you will see in the left hand column the name of some preset folders, ie. Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items, Drafts. All speak for themselves. Since you have friends by the names of Tom, Dick, Harry etc. and you e-mail them regularly; you may wish to make a folder for each and save the respective messages. Click on LOCAL FOLDERS which opens a side panel, then click on FILE/ FOLDER / NEW you will see a new window called 'Create Folder'. Your cursor will already be set for the new folder name, which we will call 'Tom'. Type the name and click on ok, and the new folder will now appear on your side panel together with the standard five others. Do the same procedure for 'Dick' and 'Harry' and now you will have eight folders in your folder pane. Ok, you say, why do all this? Say, you receive an e-mail from 'Harry' and you wish to keep it. In the Inbox where you actually read the e-mail, you right click on the e-mail, which brings up a menu containing "Move to Folder ". Click on this item and the whole e-mail will now be send to the folder marked 'Harry' for safe keeping. Later when you wish to re-visit that e-mail just go to folder 'Harry' and click on the e-mail to open it. Very simple, isn't it? Junk e-mail: It really is the curse of the Internet. I have made myself a folder called ' Junk mail '. I have set a message rule that will divert any messages containing the words: money, sex, free to join etc. direct to my 'Junk mail ' folder. From time to time I'll look at the folder and see whether any messages from friends have been diverted by mistake. If there are none, I'll delete all of the folder content without opening any junk mail at all. A word of advice. Do not respond to any junk mail. Do not buy anything from spammers and do not ask to be removed from their list. If you do ask, you are only confirming that you actually exist. The best program for controlling spam is presently 'Mailwasher'. It is free from http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2054.html A safe way to send your emails (updated 17-8-08) Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses and sometimes their names. As the messages get for- warded along, the list of addresses builds and all it takes is for someone down the road to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over five cents. How do you stop it? Here are some SEVEN steps: 1. Before forwarding an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear at the top of the message. That's right, DELETE them. In FORWARDING mode you have full editing capabilities. Highlight the addresses and delete them. It only takes a second. If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all. 2. Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the "To" or "Cc" fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the "BCC" (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This way the people you send your email to will only see their own e-mail address. When you send to "BCC" your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients" in the "To" field of the ones who receive it. 3. Remove any "FW" in the subject line. You can re-name the subject or even fix spelling. 4. ALWAYS hit your "Forward" button from the actual e-mail you are reading, not from the one who sent it to you!! Ever get e-mails where you have to open ten pages first to read the one page with the wanted information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish to be viewed, it eliminates extra e-mails people have to wade through. 5. Have you ever gotten an e-mail that is a petition? It states a position, asks you to add your name and address and then requests that you forward it to ten or 15 people or your entire address book. As it is forwarded on and on it can collect thousands of names and e-mail addresses. FACT: That petition is worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and e-mail addresses on it. If you want to support the intent of the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the most effective source. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than does a laundry list of names and e-mail address on a petition. And think about this---Who is supposed to actually send the petition in after the names are collected? And don't believe the ones that say that the e-mail is being traced. It just ain't so! 6. One of the emails I hate is the one that says something like, "Send this e-mail to ten people and you'll see something cute run across your screen," or sometimes they just tease you by saying something really good will happen soon. IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! Trust me, some of the same ones went around ten years ago! I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed (could be why I haven't won the lottery??) 7. Before you forward an Amber Alert or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail which have been circling the net for YEARS! Is it real or not? Almost everything that is questionable can easily be checked out at www.snopes.com . Take that moment. If it's not real, don't pass it on! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to: COMPUTERS |
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