October 2003
Viruses
If you get e-mail with the following: Subject: Use this patch immediately ! DO NOT DO IT. Delete that letter and then get it out of your Deleted Items folder. It's a virus, and a bad one.
I have cleaned up more than a few computers in the last few weeks. With that in mind, I have several suggestions.
1. When you've been away from home, or just haven't had your computer on for a week, BEFORE you go for your mail, or surf the Internet, make sure your anti-virus program is up-to-date. The virus definitions file on any anti-virus program should never be more than about 5 days old. Otherwise, if you have received an infected letter, you're a/v program won't catch it for you.
2. Even if your anti-virus program does automatic updates, it's a good idea to "force" an update from time to time. There may be program updates as well, and you don't get those in automatic updates.
3. Be sure to have your anti-virus program set to run every day. I know, there are people that say "once a week" but chances are that they have had a computer get infected, too. I'm running both Norton and AVG, and both programs run every day. Recently my Norton intercepted a virus and quarantined it, and my AVG found it in quarantine and deleted it.
Internet Explorer 5 Image Toolbar
Before Internet Explorer 6, if you wanted to Save, Print, or email a picture you would need to follow the various procedures for each. But with IE6 the Image Toolbar comes up, giving you a few options.
The symbols are not too mysterious: the first icon in the toolbar looks like a little floppy disk, which seems to be the universal symbol for "Save"; the second looks like a printer (guess what that does?); the third looks like an envelope (another obvious one); and the last one opens your "My Pictures" folder.
Now, you may notice that the Image Toolbar does not always come up when your cursor is on a picture. I'm not sure why this happens -- just blame Microsoft and use the old methods for saving, printing, and e-mailing pictures from web-sites.
Outlook Express Troubleshooting
Every once in a while, you may find that your "folder list" along the left side of OE has disappeared. Don't worry - its still there. To put it back, click on View, click on Layout. You'll want checkmarks next to Folder List, Toolbars and Status Bar.
Have you suddenly lost all of your incoming mail? And you KNOW you didn't delete it? Try clicking on View, Current View and make sure the "dot" is next to Show All Messages.
What about when you are creating a new e-mail and realize that the Send button is gone? The chances are that you've somehow turned your toolbar off. While looking at the letter you want to send, click on View, slide down to Toolbars and make sure both Standard and Formatting are checked.
Questions?
Do you have a question that you'd like answered? Or a problem you'd like addressed here in the newsletter? Please contact me and I'll try to include it in a future letter. (TOT Support mail)