Hard Drive Space Hog - Email

Another frequently overlooked area for cleaning up your hard drive, and thereby speeding up your computer, is your email folders. Some versions of Windows XP have a pop up helper to remind you to save space here, but it is often disabled or ignored like so many other annoying pop up windows.

First, it is always best to delete those old emails that you don't really need to save - especially those with attachments as they can take up a lot of room. But, did you know that deleting the email from your inbox does not automatically give you more space on your hard drive? Even deleting it from the 'deleted items' folder will not automatically recover the lost space. That's because the 'empty' space that used to contain that email is still there - taking up space! It's kinda like erasing something from a chalk board - the information is gone, but the chalkboard is still there.

The most effective way to regain space from your email folders is to 'compact' them. Even if you haven't deleted any email, this process can save up to 50% of the space taken up by your email. That can mean freeing up 100, 200 or even 400 Megabytes of storage space. If you delete a bunch of emails with attachments your space saving can be far greater. Try to remember to do this at least monthly to help maintain your PC's optimum performance (see screenshot below):

1. Start Outlook Express


2. Click on 'Local Folders' just to highlight it


3. Now, at the top, click on 'File'


4. Mouse Over 'Folders' then click on 'Compact All Folders'

Your computer will begin the process of compacting all of your mail folders. Note: If you have never done this before, the process may take quite some time. You may want to consider starting it at night at let it finish while you are sleeping.

Running out of storage space? Quick Fix...

Are you running out of space on your hard drive? Computers that are 3 or 4 years old with 20, 30 or 40 GByte hard drives can easily run out of storage space. Especially if you store a lot of pictures or music. While you should certainly consider moving large files, like pictures or music, to another storage medium like CD-Rs or DVD-Rs, there is another procedure that can gain you a little time and speed up your computer at the same time. More on moving files to another medium in a later article.

Windows XP provides a disk cleanup utility that can really help - with little risk of removing anything important.

Click on 'start' then cursor over 'All Programs' then cursor over 'Accessories" then cursor over 'System Tools' and click on 'Disk Cleanup'. Windows will run a check (it may take a minute) and then open a window similar to the one below. You can see in this example that I can save 300,294 Kbytes of space by letting Windows remove the suggested files. To put it another way, that's nearly 300 Megabytes of disk space that I can recover almost instantly! If you are getting low memory warnings, this can provide some immediate relief.

2 Computers - 1 Email account

More and more families have 2 computers. Sometimes these computers share a single email address. The problem arises when someone accesses the email from one computer, and then later when using the other computer the email is gone. If you are using Outlook Express for your email (not AOL) then the solution is easy. You want to leave the original email on your ISP's mailserver and only download a copy to each (or both) computers. To accomplish this you must only change one setting on each computer. So, do this on BOTH (or all, if more than 2) computers (see screenshot below):

1. Open Outlook Express


2. On the top - click on "Tools" then "Accounts"


3. Double click on the name of your email account that you want to share.


4. On the next small window that opens click on the "Advanced" tab.


5. Place a check in the box labeled "Leave a copy of messages on server"


6. You may also want to check the box "Remove from server when deleted from 'Deleted Items' to keep from going over your mailbox size limit.


7. Click OK then Close and you're done!

Now both of your computers will have access to all of the email coming to that address.

Nasty Stuff First - Fishing!

Well, actually it is spelled "Pfishing" and not nearly as much fun as "Fishing"!

From a financial perspective, this is one of the most dangerous scams on the internet. Pfishing scams account for numerous cases of identity theft every day.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"In computing, phishing is a criminal activity using social engineering techniques.^[1] Phishers attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Ebay and Paypal are two of the most targeted companies, and online banks are also common targets. Phishing is typically carried out using email or an instant message,^[2] and often directs users to a website, although phone contact has been used as well.^[3] Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, and technical measures.The first recorded mention of phishing is on the alt.online-service.america-online Usenet newsgroup on January 2, 1996,^[4] although the term may have appeared even earlier in the print edition of the hacker magazine 2600.^[5] The term phishing is a variant of fishing,^[6] probably influenced by phreaking,^[7][8] and alludes to the use of increasingly sophisticated lures to "fish" for users' financial information and passwords. The word may also be linked to leetspeak, in which ph is a common substitution for f.^[9] The popular theory that it is a portmanteau of password harvesting^[10] is an example of folk etymology."

So, you ask, how does one protect against pfishing and identity theft? Actually, it's fairly easy. Your bank, eBay, Paypal and other reputable financial institutions will NEVER ask you to verify your personal or account information over the internet. So, whenever you get an email that asks you to verify any such information - delete it immediately, it's that simple. Don't even consider replying to the email - DELETE. If you suspect that someone in your family may have mistakenly given information in this way, then contact your bank immediately - by phone or in person.

Another safe practice - never, never send password or account information in any email. Email is never secure and should not be used for sensitive information.

More Nasty Stuff - that Nigerian Guy

These so-called Nigerian scams (because a lot of them originate from Nigeria) are usually pretty obvious, yet people loose millions of dollars every year to these thieves.

Basically, the thief says he needs help to collect a large sum of money in this country and needs a U.S. bank account to do it. He promises to share his "wealth" with the victim in exchange for using their bank account. Of course, all the thief really wants is that bank account number and some personal information to be used to break into the account.

Variations on this scam target vacation rental owners. The thief is planning a trip for a "client" and says he needs to send just one check to cover all the expenses. He asks the victim to take out their portion of the funds and write a check for the balance and send it on to the next hotel or next destination. The thief then sends the victim a fake cashiers check drawn on a foreign bank. By the time the victims bank finds out that the check is a phony - the victim has already sent a large sum (in a good check) to the thief's other address.

Bottom line is still the same - if it sounds too good to be true, it isn't.