emails

Infopackets Reader Dorothy L. writes: " Hi Dennis, I am very interested in the PopUp Stopper Professional program, but would first like to ask you a question regarding some despicable emails I've recently been receiving. I am a senior citizen and a ... grandmother, and would like to eliminate male-oriented offers before I turn 81. Is this possible to do? I have been a long-time subscriber to Smart Computing and the earlier PC Novice... I wish I had known about you earlier! I just happened upon it. Terrific stuff!!" Dorothy emailed me again today: " In checking my e-mail this a.m., ... (view more)

It's been two weeks since the newsletter format has been changed to include "teaser" feature articles and a link to the rest of the story online. Over the weekend, I received a few disheartening emails with regard to the format change. Gan Soon B. ... in South East Asia writes: " Dear Dennis, I am writing to you to register my concern with the new format of your newsletter. Recently, I noticed that you have switched to a format which require users to go online to view the full contents of the newsletter. I figured that you have a valid concern for using that format, and so I didn't ... (view more)

Candice W. writes: " Dear Dennis, I was hoping that maybe you could help me: I found your website though a search. Lately, I've been getting a bunch of returned emails from people I don't even know, and most of these emails contain viruses ... I ... have written to Hotmail's tech support, but all I get is automated responses telling me that it doesn't pertain to my hotmail account. But, I beg to differ because it is my account, and it's a huge problem! Can you tell me what I can do to get this to stop? " My Response: The problem Candice is experiencing is due to a Virus called SoBig, ... (view more)

Sick and tired of junk email and viruses? I sure am! Not too long ago, I received the following email from Infopackets Reader Hugh G., who introduced me to a program called MailWasher: " I just wanted to let you know that I'm using MailWasher, a ... program designed to keep out unsolicited commercial email (IE: Spam) and email viruses away from your computer. MailWasher connects to your Mail Server and allows you to preview and delete emails before they are downloaded to your Inbox! MailWasher also has a really handy feature which allows you to bounce emails back to people so it looks like ... (view more)

Recall -- In the past 48 hours, my computer has been utterly bombarded with the W32.sobig.b@mm.html email virus. The worm clogged my mailbox so severely that I wrote an article about it in the last newsletter . Today, I received an email from a user ... named Andrew with a suggestion for anti-spam filtering software: " Hi, Dennis! Sorry to hear about your virus problems. In your last newsletter, you suggested using free anti-virus software and a firewall, in addition to Outlook Express message rules to combat the W32.sobig.b@mm.html email virus. What about using a spam killer? One of my ... (view more)

I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I'm back from my vacation to Cancun, Mexico. My trip to the Caribbean was fantastic and can't wait until I get to do it again! During my stay, the sunny weather in Mexico ranged ... between 85 and 95 Fahrenheit (or 29 ~ 35 Celsius). Humidity wasn't much of an issue, and the strong coastline breeze provided a much needed rest from the over-powering sun. Addressing web site concerns while away on Vacation Believe it or not, I receive 150 ~ 200 emails a day. To prevent my mailbox from getting clogged, I decided to leave the office ... (view more)

Not long ago, Barry M. from Africa sent me this email: " First off, thanks for all the great info! You've helped me come a long way with my PC confidence and knowledge. Much appreciated! I am running Windows XP Professional. The multiple user ... profile feature of XP is really handy, but I don't want to have separate email accounts in my Outlook Express. If it is possible, I would like all users to access the same information from their XP login accounts. At the moment, if I receive e-mails into my inbox while logged on under my profile, then those e-mails won't be visible to the next user ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bonnie V. writes: " Dear Dennis, I keep getting unsolicited emails that claim they are from a web address which in fact does not exist. Is there a mail rule that I can create in Outlook Express to check for valid web addresses, ... and block the ones that aren't valid (I.E.: a 'faked' web address)? " My Response: Rather than attempting to block all the offending emails, why not just create an anti-spam filter to delete all emails that are not from a list of your friends? Example: Apply this rule after the message arrives; Where the From line does not contain ' friend1 ... (view more)

Are you sick of hearing about my mis-adventures yet? I've got more to talk about, and if you want to keep informed about the status of the web site and newsletter delivery, you'll have to read up on it. So, here goes: The current host will literally ... pull the plug on the (current) web server effective November 30th which is at the end of the 30-day "money back guarantee" period. Access to the infopackets web site might be interrupted temporarily until the rest of the Internet catches up to par with my nameserver update. If you don't know what a nameserver is, or if you want to know ... (view more)

Yesterday I wrote about a problem concerning the usage of the mail queue on the infopackets web server. To recap: whenever the Infopackets Gazette newsletter is sent out (to the list of readers), some emails are entered into a temporary holding area ... (called a "mail queue") if they are unable to reach the recipient. This is a potential problem for the infopackets web server because the mail queue can "overflow" and cause the server to run out of storage spac e. Recall: The Mail Queue Polling solution I was able to save the web server from potentially running out of space by ... (view more)