Announcements

Follow-up to last week's tips:

7/8/03 Stop Messenger pop-ups: There seemed to be a lot of confusion about this one. That XP tip only stops a specific kind of pop-up that comes up through the Messenger program in XP. Disabling it will NOT stop the pop-ups you get from web pages or your ISP (AOL users know this too well). To stop these, you need a pop-up stopper like iClean. That goes for everyone with other flavors of Windows—95, 98, ME—if you are surfing the web, then you need software to stop pop-ups.

My favorite pop-up stopper is iClean—it never misses a pop-up! We have it in stock as part of the Internet Utilities Suite for $12.97 or the Business Advantage Suite for $18.97...

Many XP users found that after changing the Messenger setting to manual they continued to get pop-ups for security software claiming to stop the Messenger security leak. Guess what... these are actually sent through your browser, NOT through the Messenger hole. If you are getting the mysterious pop-ups even when you are offline, then try setting Messenger to "disable" rather than "manual".

7/9/03 System File Checker: Several Win ME users wondered why their system does not have System File Checker. It turns out that like Win 2000 and XP, it has System File Protection which prevents the replacement of protected system files such as .sys, .dll, and .exe files.

7/10 Scan Disk Troubles: In the note for Windows XP users, I made a small typo—it should have said, "What we all came to love as Scan Disk is NOW called Error Checking." I accidentally typed "NOT" instead of "NOW". Ooops!

7/10 Illegal Operation: When James V. gets the "illegal operation" message while checking his email, sometimes he will "Click on little window and move it to the upper corner until you finish whatever it is you are doing. Then click the window to close down the illegal operation."

7/11 Save Old Email: While our tip covered how to save an entire folder, Cheri S. had this advice for saving individual emails to disk: "I just go to File / Save as, when it prompts me to chose where to send it, I go to CD-RW Drive (mine is set up as the E: drive)."

Mcafee Anti-virus & Firewall - Almost Gone!

As expected, the response to this was tremendous on Friday (A big "Thank You" to all who ordered) and we're getting down to the last of our stock. Again, this is the retail box version with full instructions. It includes both McAfee Anti-virus and McAfee Firewall. It's easy to use, updates itself automatically, and keeps you safe online. Basically, just install and go.

Your price is only $14.97 and US shipping is free. Stop by a chain store and you'll find the exact same thing for $40-$50. It's an incredible deal and hundreds have already taken advantage of this offer. Here's the link:

http://www.worldstart.com/store/mcafee-7.0.htm

Again, I want to stress that if you want in on this deal you really need to act quickly. We all need good anti-virus and firewall protection and for $14.97 you just can't go wrong.

Computers 101

Q:
I got an email and the sender name was "Steve" so I eagerly opened it up to find it was spam. I've been a subscriber long enough to know that you would never send me anything other than the newsletters I subscribed to, so, is someone forging your name?

A:
First off, we never, ever, ever give (or sell) the addresses of our readers to anyone—so, no, that spam did not come from us. We also never send attachments, so don't open anything from a "Steve" with an attachment (unless there is another Steve in your life that sent it).

A common tactic of spammers is to use a common display name like Steve, Dave, or Bill. Everyone knows somebody by that name, so you are more likely to open it. even though the name might say just"Steve", there are several ways to find out who really sent an email.

Some email services will show the display name and the address in <brackets>

But Outlook Express just shows the display name. If you right click the name of the sender and choose "Properties", you can find the email address of the sender, when it was sent, and the size of the message.

Click on the "Details tab and you can even find the name and IP address of the server that sent the email (This info is needed if you are reporting a spammer).

Another way to get the sender's address is to open the email and double click the sender's name. This will bring up a window with the name and address of the sender.

In order to prevent this confusion, you will notice that future mailings will show "Computer Tips" as the sender name. The address will continue to be steve@worldstart.com, so you don't need to change your filters or address books.

~David

Have a question for the newsletter? Submit it at the link below:
http://www.worldstart.com/submitquestion.htm

Tip of the Day

What's This?

We often tell you ways to configure Internet Explorer or Outlook Express for maximum efficiency or how to stop annoying default features. Many times you end up in the "Options" menu where you are faced with a long list of features. What does each one do?

Guess what, there is a very easy way to find out what different features do in Microsoft products. Just right-click the item and a little box comes up that says "What's This?". Click that box and you get a little description.

Try it. If you are using Internet Explorer, go to Tools / Internet Options and click the "Advanced" tab. Go to any item in the list (I chose "Enable Page Transitions"), put your arrow over it and right-click.

See the "What's This?" box? Click it and your description should appear.

This also works with the Option menus in Outlook Express and MS Word. Give it a try with other program option lists. It's a great way to find out what you're getting into before you click or unclick a feature.

~ David

Have an original tip for the newsletter? Submit it below:
http://www.worldstart.com/writers-guidelines/index.htm

Amanda's Cool Site of the Day

National Do Not Call Registry

Are you sick of telemarketers calling every day, especially during dinner? If so, you need to go to this government site and register your phone number.

According to the site: "Most telemarketers cannot call your telephone number if it is in the National Do Not Call Registry. You can register your home and mobile phone numbers for free. Your registration will be effective for five years."

If you register your phone number now (between June 27th – August 31st) you will get drastically fewer calls after October 1st, and if you do get calls and it applies to the telemarketing company calling you they could get fined up to $11,000.

I suggest you read through their "More Information" section to find out if this is really for you.

http://www.donotcall.gov/

Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
Send it to Amanda at amanda@worldstart.com