A few items, and some FF
It was a non-interesting week in the tech headlines, IMHO. But you may want to be aware that I’ve seen some really good tech bargains in this “back to school” sale season — if you’re considering a purchase. And here are a couple articles a few of you may find valuable.
* The Microsoft Store: A wretched hive of scams and fake apps
“It appears that Microsoft’s online app store is suffering from a serious infestation of scam and fake apps turning up with discomforting regularity in popular searches.” Read more..
* How to hack Gmail 92 percent of the time
“Impossible? Apparently not, as US researchers have discovered.” Read more..
* AOL announces that it does not follow ‘Do Not Track’ requests
“AOL amended its privacy policy this past week and elaborated on its decision not to respond to web browsers’ “Do Not Track” (DNT) signals.” Read more..
[I’m pretty sure that’s because the websites ignore such request anyway.. it’s a toothless, ‘feel good’ idea.]
Friday Fun Video:
I love that dog!
Today’s quote: “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” ~ George Orwell
Copyright 2007-2014 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
And please, never forget – one person can make a difference.
Find a way to make someone’s day today.
(Best advice I ever heard? Don’t sweat the small stuff.)
Life in the slow lane
It is a summer Friday, and I’m putt-putt-ing along in ssllooww-motion. It is terribly nice to take a vacation once in a while. I hope you all have had some time off, to enjoy the longer days and warmer weather, too.
* I have had several clients call me recently after suddenly being no longer able to log in to their email accounts, or had received emails from friends saying, “Hey! Quit spamming me!“. In each case, a spammer had “hijacked” their email accounts. Affected were Yahoo! Mail, AOL, and Earthlink. (Yes, I have clients still using AOL..) All of those clients use AT&T as their ISP..
And AT&T uses Yahoo! Mail (and owns Earthlink)..
And Yahoo! has had several major “hacks” of the user database(s).
In the cases where they just suddenly could no longer log in, the service provider had shut down the account to stop the spamming, they (my clients) had to contact the service provider’s tech support, prove they were really themselves, and have their passwords reset. In the other cases, they had to log in and change their passwords to lock the spammer out.
Hacker spammers. A few bad apples really do spoil the whole barrel. It’s past time we put some teeth into CAN-SPAM, and made it international. Dontcha think? Day before yesterday, a woman told me she’s reverted to snail mail and the telephone. Doesn’t trust email anymore. Wonder how many others…?
* Changes are in the wind:
Do you remember Rehteah Parsons? Seems they changed a law.. Arrests made in Nova Scotia assault, cyberbullying leading to suicide
“Two were arrested Thursday in the case of Rehteah Parsons, 17, a Nova Scotia girl who took her own life after a sexual assault and cyberbullying, police said.” Read more..
* Snowden’s privacy-oriented email provider shuts down under U.S. government pressure
“An American company that specialized in highly encrypted email suspended operations today. The abrupt shutdown of Lavabit, a small Texas-based company, is suspected to be related to a court order related to its best-known customer, NSA leaker Edward Snowden.” Read more..
* White House Proposes Cybersecurity Insurance, Other Incentives For Executive Order
“Goal is to provide financial and other perks for participation in voluntary cybersecurity framework.” Read more..
How ’bout some Friday Fun Video action.. a little “slower” than my usual..
Today’s quote: “I’m in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life’s no fun
All I’ve really gotta do is live and die
But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why….”
~ Roger Murrah and Randy VanWarmer
Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<
All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
How To Set An Automatic Webmail ‘I’m Away’ Response
You have probably seen one of these: you send someone an e-mail, and later, in your Inbox you see their reply. So you open it and it says, “I’m on vacation. Quit bugging me!”
Okay. Maybe not those words. Exactly. But you know what I am describing. Right? It’s an e-mail feature called ‘vacation responder‘ (aka “I’m out of the office”).
If you go on vacation (or otherwise won’t have Internet access for a while) and you have a vacation responder turned on, an automatic reply – with a message you’ve pre-typed (you do not have to say “Quit bugging me!”) – will be sent automatically to the Sender letting them know you will get back to them, just not right away. When you get back online again, you simply turn it off again.
Find the Webmail you use from the list below.
* Gmail
Here’s how to let people know you can’t respond right away:
- Sign in to Gmail.
- Click Settings along the top of any Gmail page.
- From the General tab, select Vacation responder on in the Vacation responder: section.
- Enter the subject and body of your message in the Subject: and Message: fields.
- If you’ve enabled a personalized signature in your settings, Gmail will automatically append it to the bottom of your vacation response.
- Check the box next to Only send a response to people in my Contacts if you don’t want everyone who emails you to know that you’re away from your mail.
- Click Save Changes.
* Hotmail
To make Windows Live Hotmail reply to incoming emails in your absence:
- Select Options | More options… from the Windows Live Hotmail toolbar.
- Follow the Sending automated vacation replies link under Managing your account.
- Make sure Send vacation replies to people who email me is selected.
- Type your desired out-of-office message under Enter the message you’d like to send while you’re away:.
- Possibly include approximate info on when you will be able to reply personally.
- Who to contact in the meantime or an alternative way of reaching you might also be appropriate.
- In general, keep the message simple. Something like “I’m currently unable to read my mail, sorry! Come February, I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, you can…” shall do.
- The subject Windows Live Hotmail uses for automatic replies is “Vacation reply”, by the way.
- If you frequently get mail from people not yet in your Windows Live Hotmail address book, make sure Only reply to your contacts is not checked.
- Click Save.
* Yahoo! Mail/Earthlink/Mindspring
To set a vacation response:
- Click Options in the upper-right corner of your Mail page. Then select Mail Options…
- From the list on the left, click Vacation Response.
- Check the box that says Enable auto-response during your vacation.
- Select start and end dates for your trip.
- Enter the day your vacation will start in the “”Auto-respond from”” field and the day it will end in the “”up until (and including)”” field.
- Enter a Generic Response. It can be up to ten lines.
- When you are finished writing your Generic Response, click Save Changes located near the upper-left corner of the page.
* AOL
AOL WebMail allows you to setup an away message, that will auto-reply with a custom message or a pre-set message that you choose, when you are away. This is extremely useful if you are on vacation and need to reply to someone who might email you.
1. Click the Settings link, located at the upper right of your AOL WebMail inbox.
2. Click the General link, located in the left panel.
3. In the Mail Away Message section, click the drop-down menu and select an appropriate away message. If you select Custom type your own personal away message in the text box provided.
4. Click Save.
[Note: if your webmail service is not listed here, don’t worry. The method is the same. Look for a “settings”, “options”, or “preferences” menu (those are all the same things, btw.).]
Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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