2007 February

Email Reliability in this Internet World

February 26, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

How reliable is email in today’s Internet world? Perfect, isn’t it? You would think that it would be completely reliable — we use it all the time. All we’re doing is pushing around electrons and we’ve known how to do that, in one way or another, for an awfully long time.

Whether we are writing to friends, sending a joke, sending a picture, or sending a business message, email has become a part of our lives. We’ve come to rely on it for easy communications. We don’t even understand our friends that don’t “do” email.

However, as we have increased the reliability of the transmission system. We have also increased the noise and the noise filters that we use to keep control. We also have this concept known as “information overload.” We usually hear about information overload with regard to a person being overloaded with the quantity of information they receive — from mail, from TV, from radio, from emails, from web site.

Unfortunately, we also have information overload with routers, email servers, and email forwarding systems. Sometimes, they get so many emails at one time that they get behind. Occasionally, they lose a few. This is one of the biggest dangers (as opposed to the waste of time and resources issue) with spam. Unfortunately, there is not much we, as individuals, can do about that.

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Some of the other problems we have with email servers also are caused by spam — more accurately, by the measures taken to try to control or to eliminate spam. Our emails occasionally get discarded by email servers that decide they are spam — even when they are not.

If you use an anti-spam program, or if your ISP does, hopefully you have followed my advice from the July 11, 2005 issue of my newsletter. You can read my thoughts about spam (I hate spam!) and how to keep it out of your Inbox.

Filed Under: Anti-spam, Email, Terry's Computer Tips

When I delete an email, it’s gone — right?

February 22, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

There is a little trick to the way POP3 email programs like Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora and Thunderbird store the email messages you receive. A “deleted message” is not really deleted! Did you know that?

Outlook and Outlook Express store all the emails in one huge file, even if you have your emails split between multiple folders. Eudora creates a separate file for each email folder, such as Inbox, Outbox, Trash, Junk and any folders the user creates. Thunderbird similarly uses multiple files for emails.

Personally, I like Eudora‘s & Thunderbird’s approach — if I should ever have a file corruption issue with one of the email folders, I’m not in danger of losing all of my emails, just those in that one folder.

Filed Under: Email, Eudora, Optimize, Outlook Express, Security, Terry's Computer Tips, Thunderbird

Hard Drive Replacement Time

February 20, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

In one of my Terry’s Computer Tips newsletters, I answered subscriber Peter Lieurance’s questions about reinstalling Windows XP.

The following week, I finally did the hard drive replacement that I had been planning. Ultimately, I returned unopened Seagate 200GB drive that I had just purchased and got a Seagate 250GB drive for the same price from the same vendor. Now, that’s a deal…

I decided that, even though I could use the Seagate software to copy my Windows installation to my new hard drive, I would rather do a clean install to get rid of any leftover junk.

Read more in Hard Drive Replacement Time

Filed Under: File system repair, Hard Drives, Windows XP

Adding a SATA Hard Drive to Your System

February 19, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

Recently, a Terry’s Computer Tips reader asked me about problems he was having in installing a Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive in his computer.

We corresponded back and forth until the problem was solved.

Read about the SATA problems and solutions in Adding a SATA Hard Drive to Your System

Filed Under: Hard Drives, Operating System, Speed Tweaks, Windows XP

Why I Recommend Firefox…

February 18, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

I guess it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten on the Firefox versus Internet Explorer subject in my newsletter. For a while last year, I beat it to death…

But, recently, in responding to a reader’s question, I mentioned that I recommended Firefox over IE for web browsing. His response was “You Do?”

The reason that I recommend Firefox over Internet Explorer boils down to security while web surfing.

First, there’s the ActiveX issue.

ActiveX is a proprietary Microsoft technology that allows a web site to download a program to your computer via Internet Explorer — and to automatically run that program.

CounterSpy v2 Released – First Look

February 17, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

Sunbelt released CounterSpy 2 in early February. The new version features a new antispyware / antiadware engine aimed at providing much enhanced capabilities.

In addition, CounterSpy 2 has much improved memory usage and runs on XP, 2000, and Vista (32-bit only). I’ve already updated my computers to CounterSpy 2, which was a free upgrade for registered users.

Sunbelt has continued the 15-day free full-function trial version. At the end of 15 days, if you haven’t licensed your copy, it becomes disabled.

CounterSpy 2 is only $19.95 for one computer, with significant discounts for multiple computer licenses.

Read more in my article CounterSpy 2.0 Released – First Look

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spyware, Operating System, Security, Shopping Deals, Windows XP