PCTips - E-mail

Most of the tips in this section are on Outlook Express.

I have found that people who do not use PCs at work tend to stick with the default Outlook Express that comes with Windows.

But if people have got used to using Outlook at work then they may also use it at home, if they have a copy of MS Office. But they very rarely use it to it’s full extent as an “Organiser” program.

Where Did Those Pictures Come From?

Links in E-mail

Incredimail

How to Export Mail from IncrediMail to another Email Program

Has my e-mail got a virus?

Recover an old Freeserve or Wanadoo account and email address

Winmail.dat

E-mail settings for SKY broadband

Additional Sky E-mail Addresses

E-mails not getting through

E-mail Attachments

Cannot connect to BT Yahoo

Spam

Eventually we all get plagued by spam. I get about 50 a day, but most of them are stopped by my ISP’s filter and the few that get through I just delete.

Some people are more sensitive to spam than others, partly depending on who else sees/shares their email account. Somehow people seem to feel responsible for the spam they receive and are ashamed!

The first thing to do if spam bothers you is to check whether your ISP offers a spam filter. The usual procedure is to go to your ISP’s web site and logon to webmail using your e-mail address and password. You can then switch on the spam filtering so that all spam is placed in a junk file on their server and only the non-spam is sent through to your e-mail program.

This does mean that you should check your junk folder on the webmail page every few days to see if the filter has wrongly classified any e-mail that wasn’t really spam. You can then mark that as non-spam and your ISP will send it on to you and try to learn from its mistake.

But these filters tend to be fairly weak - I think that they are afraid that you might accuse them of withholding your vital mail if they are too aggresive with their filtering.

So another way to do it is to use a program like SpamPal (www.spampal.org - it’s FREE). This sits between your internet connection and your e-mail program. As it scans each e-mail coming in it looks at where it came from and checks the servers it has passed through against several blacklists.

If SpamPal thinks an e-mail is spam it adds **SPAM** to the subject line and then sends the e-mail on to your e-mail program. You can then either check each one and deal with it appropriately, knowing that it is probably spam, or you can set up a special Spam folder and set up a message rule to send all messages containing **SPAM** to that folder.

Then you can review the contents of that folder at your leisure. If anything in there is not spam you can add it to SpamPal’s whitelist for future reference.

Similarly if it misses any spam you can add them to SpamPal’s blacklist. Gradually SpamPal learns what’s good and bad in your particular situation.

Not bad for free - a little tricky to set up the e-mail settings, but comprehensive instructions are provided for all the major (and most of the minor) e-mail programs in a downloadable manual that is five times bigger than the program itself!

I recommend that you write down each e-mail setting before you change it so that if you don’t manage to set it up you can reverse the changes.

And whatever you do about spam, set your e-mail program to read your e-mails in plain text - that will stop any nasty programs hidden in HTML messages from running. If you then recognise the sender and want to see their message with all it’s bells and whistles you can view it in HTML on an individual basis. Details for setting this up in Outlook Express are in the current Tip of the day. (Click below)

E-mail Sorting

My neighbour was concerned that his e-mail was coming in “out of sequence” and sometimes he wasn’t seeing new e-mails because they were “at the bottom of the list”.

He was using Outlook Express and the answer was that he had accidentally clicked on a column heading and changed the sort sequence.

When you are viewing the Inbox (or any other folder) in Outlook Express (or Outlook) there are usually (at least) 3 columns, headed:
From, Subject and Received.

Beside one of these column headings will be a tiny triangle pointing up or down. This indicates the column that defines the way that the e-mail listing is sorted. So if the triangle is in the “From” column the e-mails will be sorted by the senders name, either forwards or backwards, depending on the direction of the triangle.

If you click on that particular column header the triangle will turn upside down and the e-mails will be sorted in the reverse direction.

If you then click (deliberately or accidentally) on a different column header you will totally change the sort sequence of your e-mails.

My neighbour was used to his e-mails being sorted by “Received” with the newest at the top. But he had accidentally clicked on the “Subject” header so that new e-mails about Zebras always went to the bottom of the list.

Incidentally, if you change the sort sequence in one folder then that will also apply to all other folders (not like Windows Explorer, which remembers different sort sequences for different folders).

Where Did Those Pictures Come From?

My elderly caller was confused - he had received some photos from his son by e-mail and when he double clicked on them they opened up nicely in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.

But when he scrolled through them with the left and right arrow keys he got a lot more pictures that he was sure his son had not sent him. Where had they come from?

The pictures sent by e-mail were actually stored in a temporary folder. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer was scrolling through all the pictures in that folder - and also in that folder were images that had been downloaded from the internet during normal browsing.

Eventually the files in the temporary internet folder will get deleted or overwritten by others.

Links in E-mail

Take care when sending links in e-mails - I suggest you put them in the body of the e-mail, not in the subject line. Because.......

My daughter sent me an e-mail with a web site address in the subject line. I opened the e-mail in Outlook Express but the web site address was not a clickable link. No problem I thought, just copy and paste the link. But I couldn’t do that either!

So, a URL in the subject line of an e-mail does not become a hyper-link in Outlook Express, nor can you select it and copy it.

But when I tried it in Outlook there was no problem.

So avoid links in the subject line unless you are certain that the recipient is using Outlook.

So many people think that Outlook Express is a cut down version of Outlook. But it isn’t. It was designed by a different team. And I don’t think they ever met!

Incredimail

I came across two clients on the same day who were running Incredimail instead of Outlook Express - and neither of them knew why.

Somehow both of them had been “tricked” into downloading and installing Incredimail without really knowing what they were doing.

Incredimail is, so I am lead to believe, a perfectly good alternative to Outlook Express with additional bells and whistles to make it attractive.

When installed it will copy over all your e-mails from Outlook Express (and probably Outlook as well, but I haven’t checked that) together with your contacts (Address Book) and e-mail server settings. It will register itself as the default e-mail client in order to make the changeover as seamless as possible.

But:

1. There is no built-in option to export your messages into another e-mail program if you want to change again. However there is a way of exporting mail from Incredimail using another program - see the next tip

2. The program is supported by advertisements shown in a small section of the window.

3. Users who don’t realise what has happened may still open Outlook Express but find that they don’t get any e-mails because Incredimail defaults to checking for and downloading e-mails every 5 minutes. This effectively hijacks the e-mails from Outlook Express.

This last problem caused a small business a lot of hassle because for two days the boss kept checking Outlook Express for e-mails that had gone to Incredimail without his knowledge.

How to Export Mail from IncrediMail to another Email Program

There is a very full explanation of how to do this using IncrediConvert at: http://email.about.com/cs/incredimailtips/qt/et012403.htm

I have tried this and it works fine. There are just a couple of things that I need to emphasize:

The .eml files that the program produces can be dragged and dropped into Outlook Express but cannot be dragged and dropped into Outlook. So if you want to get your mail into Outlook you need to first put it into Outlook Express and then use the Outlook Express export function to move it to Outlook. Annoying, but it works. I don’t know if you can drag and drop the .eml files into any other e-mail program.

After clicking on the “IncrediConvert” link on the above page you will be taken to another page on the same site. You then need to click “Visit Their Web Site” and instead of doing that you will find yourself downloading the program as a zip file. Wierd, but it works.

I suggest that after you have downloaded IncrediConvert you disconnect your internet connection whilst you do the transfer. Then you won’t lose any emails that come in between you copying them from IncrediMail and deleting the program.

You can uninstall Incredimail using the normal uninstall program that comes with it.

Has my e-mail got a virus?

The message you sent yesterday appears to contain some self-generating virus and keeps repeatedly appearing in my Outlook Express. I have already deleted about 200 Megabytes of it but it still keeps coming. I have deleted it from my server but it seems to regenerate itself in cyberspace between my system and my server. I think that I may lose all my Outlook Express program in the end as I am fighting a losing battle with it. It has fortunately been filtered as Spam by my system so is not causing so far any further problems and there are no viruses present in my system.

I can at least send messages via Outlook Express but not receive them except by going to my Server - hence this message to you.

I don't think this is a virus at all.

I think that there is some error either with the message or with the e-mail server.

That error means that the message is not being deleted from the server after you have downloaded it. So the server keeps sending it over and over again.

"I have deleted it from my server but it seems to regenerate itself in cyberspace between my system and my server". That is not possible - it must still be on the e-mail server, I think. Or......

"It has fortunately been filtered as Spam by my system so is not causing so far any further problems". Does that mean there is an anti-spam program running? Could that have gone faulty? Anti-spam programs act as an interim server between the e-mail server and Outlook Express so it could be that the fault is with the anti-spam program that keeps forwarding the e-mail to Outlook Express and not deleting it.

It seems as though your PC is clean of viruses but what's happening is not the sort of thing that viruses do.

Step one - go to ISP's webmail page, log in and delete the message.

Step two - if that doesn't work, uninstall the anti-spam program.

Your most helpful analysis of the possible cause of my e-mailing problems has indeed solved the problem.

There were in the end 75 spam messages not getting into my system which was nevertheless trying to download them. The first of them was your message and that was the only one identified. However upon disabling my McAfee anti spam system they were all downloaded and the problem has hopefully gone away.

I have in fact also got an anti-spam system from Cloudmark running so perhaps having 2 of these systems on at the same time is not a good idea though this is the first time I have had this problem.

Many thanks to you and apologies for false accusations of spreading viruses.

Glad to have been able to help.

Yes, two anti-spam programs is a situation I would avoid - they are likely to "fight"

The same goes for software Firewalls (most third party firewalls automatically switch off the Windows XP firewall for just that reason).

And also Anti-virus programs.

But curiously running more than one anti-spyware program is not usually a problem.

My advice on Spam is:

If possible, use your ISP's anti-spyware filter if they have one. You set this up on their web site and they store what they think is your spam in a folder on their server for a few days.
You can go in and look at this every now and again to check that they haven't stopped some "proper" messages. You only get to download what they think is non-spam.

Set your email program to read all messages as plain text (in Outlook Express, it's Tools, Options, Read all messages in plain text). That means that no malicious code can run and you can delete the remnants of spam without fear of "getting infected". If you then want to see the remaining messages "in glorious technicolor" then you just click View, Message in HTML whilst the message is displayed. And then if you want to see the embedded pictures just click on the bar at the top of the message that starts "Some pictures have been blocked".

Recover an old Freeserve or Wanadoo account and email address

This tip applies to Freeserve and Wanadoo accounts of the form:

user@user.wanadoo.co.uk
user@user.freeserve.co.uk
user@user.fsnet.co.uk etc.

If you don't used your Freeserve or Wanadoo account to dial-up to to the Internet for over 90 days, then your account will be suspended and you won't be able to connect.

If this has happened to you then you can reactivate your account for up to 260 days from when you last dialed in.

Go to “retrieving your account and restoring settings” at: http://www.orange.co.uk/time/ret_rest_account.htm and left click on the “retrieve account” button.

On the next page you will have to click the “Pay As You Go” or “Any Time” button, as appropriate, and then fill in your lost e-mail address and password and left click the box to accept the new terms and conditions (you don’t have any choice if you want to continue). Left click the “next” button.

If it has worked then the next page will confirm your login name and e-mail address and will invite you to left click an “install” button.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS - YOUR ACCOUNT HAS ALREADY BEEN RECOVERED.

But if you DO left click “install” then your dial up internet connection settings will be changed to Orange and your e-mail address will be added as an account to your default e-mail program. This may be exactly what you want, but if the reason that you lost the old account was because you changed ISP (maybe got broadband) then you won’t want your connection settings changed. In this case, don’t click the “install” button, just exit the web site.

Your e-mail address will be restored immediately (if it’s within 260 days) and you will be able to access it either through Orange webmail (sign in under “your email” at www.orange.co.uk) or through your e-mail program. If you didn’t click the “install” button then see my tip: How to set-up Outlook Express to send and receive e-mail from a previous ISP

If you can't get online to do this, call Wanadoo Customer Support on 0870 872 0099. (Lines are open from 8am-10pm, seven days a week and calls are charged at national rates).

Remember - after 260 days your account is lost forever.

Winmail.dat

When someone uses Microsoft Outlook to send messages with attachments and uses Microsoft Word as the e-mail editor then Rich Text Format (RTF) instructions are created and the message includes an additional file called Winmail.dat. Winmail.dat files can only be opened by other Microsoft Outlook users.

Recipients of the e-mail who are not using Outlook will not be able to open the files.

Winmail Opener is a small and simple utility that allows you to view and extract the contents of winmail.dat files. With Winmail Opener you can view the rich text message contents and the attachments embedded into the winmail.dat file.

Get it from:

http://www.eolsoft.com/freeware/winmail_opener/

E-mail settings for SKY broadband

The key settings for a Sky broadband account are:

E-mail address: Your full xxx@sky.com e-mail address

Incoming Mail (POP3) Server: pop.sky.com

Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server: smtp.sky.com

Account Name: everything before the @ sign in your xxx@sky.com e-mail address

Password: the password for your xxx@sky.com email account

Outgoing Mail Server requires authentication. (see instructions below)

For detailed Outlook Express instructions see:

How to set up a new e-mail account in Outlook Express or:

How to change an e-mail account in Outlook Express

In addition you will also have to do the following:

Open Outlook Express and left click Tools then Accounts.
Left click to highlight the account that you just created or changed to Sky.
Then left click on the Properties button.
Left click the Servers tab and under Outgoing Mail Server, left click to select the box My server requires authentication
Left click OK

Additional Sky E-mail Addresses

Sky customers can have an additional 9 e-mail addresses on their account.

But to set them up you need to register an “Additional User” for your Sky account. So if you want the e-mail address for yourself you have to create a fictional additional user, just to get another e-mail address.

Go to www.sky.com, left click on Login/Register, enter your Sky username and password and left click Login.

Go through the procedure to register an additional user and you will eventually be invited to pick an e-mail address for this fictional person.

Long-winded, but it works.

To add the new address to Outlook Account, see:

How to set up a new e-mail account in Outlook Express

E-mails not getting through

These are the usual reasons for emails not getting through.

1. Wrong address - you wouldn't believe the number of cases I see where folk put spaces or other invalid characters in an email address. People try to put "real world" spelling and punctuation into email addresses. i.e. an address might be:
MWSmith@anisp.co.uk - now any combination of upper and lower case letters doesn't affect it, but put a space or a full stop between the initials “M” and “W” and it becomes a totally different address! If the bit after the @ sign is correct then you may or may not get a "bounce" message from the recipients server - but some don't bother - it wastes their bandwidth.

2. Messages pass through numerous servers between sender and recipient. Any/all of them can have anti-spam precautions in place which can just throw away mail according to an arbitrary set of rules. Sometimes a server has a list of other servers which have been known to send spam recently - so anything from those servers is dumped for the next 24 hours or so. If someone else on your ISP has a compromised PC that is sending spam (part of a "botnet") then the spam filters might brand the whole of one of your ISP’s servers as a spammer and block it. Hence everyone else using that server will be blocked. But that's not your ISP's fault.

So if your ISP's server is accepting your e-mails - which it is if you don’t get a bounce from it, then all it can do is pass them on to the internet system. They can do nothing more.

Because no one organisation runs the internet there is no-one that you can blame for over zealous spam filtering. Not like being able to blame the Post Office for snailmail not getting through!

People hate spam and expect their ISPs to try to stop it, but there is no 100% perfect way of doing that without sometimes stopping genuine mail and sometimes missing spam.

The best way would be to charge for each mail sent - that would stop most of the spam. You don't object to sticking a stamp on a letter, so why should email be free?!!!!!!

E-mail Attachments

Some people still have dial-up connections - so if you are lucky enough to have broadband give a thought to your recipients when your e-mail them. It may only take a few seconds for you to send all those photos of the kids, but it may take many many minutes for your recipient to download them.

My friend has a dodgy dial-up connection (he is trying to get it fixed) and got into an endless loop with his e-mails. Someone had sent him a lot of photos as an attachment to an e-mail. When he connected to his ISP his e-mail program downloaded several e-mails, then got to the big one and spent several minutes until eventually the connection went down. Because the whole download session had not completed successfully none of the e-mails were deleted from the server. When he reconnected the e-mail download started again from the beginning. So he was getting duplicates of e-mails that he had already got. And couldn’t work out why.

I sorted it out by connecting to his account through webmail using my broadband, copying the photos to a file and then deleting the offending e-mail. So it then didn’t take long for his e-mail program to complete the download of the remainjng e-mails successfully and delete them from the server.

Cannot connect to BT Yahoo

A new subscriber to BT broadband received a BT Home Hub and managed to successfully connect to broadband.

But he couldn’t log in to BT Yahoo to use his new e-mail address. Everytime he tried to login the login box would return but with no error message.

After hours talking to BT’s help desk in various places around the world they concluded that it must be his McAfee firewall that was causing the problem.

He called me because he didn’t know what to do about the McAfee firewall - should he disable it or uninstall it, and if so, how?

He had the full McAfee Security Suite, so I ran a few trials with various elements disabled and discovered that the thing causing the problem was not the firewall but the McAfee Privacy Service.

So I uninstalled the Privacy Service through Add/Remove programs and the job was done.

I’m sure he can manage without the Privacy Service - most of the rest of us do! I’m not really sure what it actually does. (Apart from causing problems!)


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