How To Set An Automatic ‘I’m Away’ E-mail Reply In Outlook, Windows Mail, Thunderbird.

A few days ago I posted a tutorial on how to set up an automated “vacation” (aka “out of the office”) reply for those folks who use webmail services for email (see, How To Set An Automatic Webmail ‘I’m Away’ Response). Today I am going to provide the same tutorial, but for those folks who use an email client for managing their mail – Outlook, Windows Live Mail, and Mozilla’s Thunderbird.

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 – 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 the feature off again.

[note: you would have to have an “always on” Internet connection, and leave your computer running while you are away.]

Outlook: In Outlook, you need to create a “Rule”; and this Rule tells Outlook what to do with an incoming message. We want the Rule to tell it to ‘send this reply to the Sender’.

Click on the image to go to Step 2. (The walkthrough is on About.com)

Outlook Express/Mail/Live Mail: Again, we will need to set a Rule, but we also need to create a .txt (text) file, containing our response.. so Step 1 is to open Notepad..

Click on the image to go to step-by-step tutorial. (The walkthrough is on About.com)

Thunderbird: Basically, you do the same thing as with the other clients – create a “Rule” – but in Thunderbird, it’s called a “message filter”

Click on the image to go to step-by-step tutorial. (The walkthrough is on am-novice.com)

* My thanks to TuneUp for reminding me.

ATTENTION: You have already seen the ads. “Black Friday” sales are everywhere. I want to remind you that this is the cyber-criminal’s favorite, and most active, time of year. It is the time to redouble your “paranoid common sense” and triple your vigilance for scams, e-mails links, making sure the payment portal is https://, etc.. ATTENTION

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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TGIF | Winners Announced | Etc.

Folks, I am pleased to announce the winners of my latest software license giveaway drawing.

The folks at SPAMFighter have  donated 5 licenses for SPAMFighter Pro to me, to award to my readers. SPAMFighter is a community-based spam filtering tool for Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Thunderbird that automatically and efficiently filters spam and phishing fraud – keeping it out of your Inbox.

When a new e-mail arrives, it is automatically tested by SPAMfighter. If it’s spam, it will be instantly moved to your SPAMfighter folder. If you receive a spam mail that is not detected, click on a single button, and the spam mail is removed from the rest of the 7,258,856 7,264,984 SPAMfighters in 228 countries in seconds.

“Overall, SPAMfighter is a very simple to use product, especially for the novice. It can be setup and run with little to no user intervention and simply begins working on its own. I currently run this as my spam program and have given it an Editors Pick due to its simplicity, effectiveness and ability to keep a free version.” ~ Tim Tibbetts, review on MajorGeeks. Rating = 5/5 Stars

Benefits:

• Award winning technology to block spam
• Protects all the email accounts on your PC
• Protects against “phishing”, identity theft, and other email frauds
• Privacy Guaranteed – we don’t see any of your email
• Blacklist and block domains and emails
• Spam abuse reporting with one click – Get revenge now!
• Unique language filtering tool – Stop emails in languages you don’t understand

SPAMFighter Standard is free for personal use, but the program adds a SPAMfighter footer to your outgoing e-mails, and also displays small text advertisements in its toolbar. Purchase SPAMfighter Pro (retail $29/yr) and you get rid of the ads and footer. You also gain the ability to blacklist or whitelist unlimited domains and addresses (the free edition is limited to 100). The Pro edition can block messages written in specific foreign languages.

And the lucky winners are:

Winners, congratulations! Check your e-mail for your license key. Again, I thank the folks at SPAMFighter for making this giveaway possible. If you use an e-mail client, try it out yourself. You can get started by downloading the trial, here. (It will revert to the free version after 30 days.)

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Well, that was a nice “Friday thing”. Upbeat. Light-hearted. Kinda fun. A couple of readers have written in and asked me why I didn’t post my usual Sunday Beauty images recently.. so, I will put one up here, now, as more Friday Fun.

Today’s free download: Internet Explorer 9 (beta)
Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on September 16, 2010

“First Take: After several months of teasing Internet Explorer’s upgrade with a series of feature-free developer’s previews, Microsoft has unleashed on the world an Internet Explorer 9 beta (32-bit Windows 7; 64-bit Windows 7; 32-bit Windows Vista; 64-bit Windows Vista) with some impressive new features. Like any properly named beta, though, there are also some bugs to be ironed out.

This is the biggest overhaul to the browser since Internet Explorer 7 landed. The changes to the interface are enormous, the browser’s overall usability has greatly improved, it’s more secure, and it’s significantly faster and more standards compliant.”

I hope you all have a marvelous weekend, and thanks for stopping by.

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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Reader Question | How did they get my e-mail?*

Disable the Preview Pane For Safer Computing & Less Spam

A recent article on spam (e-mail) prompted a reader to send in this good question,

Q: “Hi Paul –
You wrote “don’t even open e-mail from unknown sources.. doing so can/will mark your e-mail address as a “live” person, …”.
How do we delete without opening a specific email message?   Even while deleting in bulk the first email in the highlighted selections opens.  I’m using Outlook Express.  Thanks for your help!

* What is being referred to is the feature common to e-mail clients called the “Preview Pane”.”

A: Dear Reader–
You’re correct that most webmail settings, and e-mail clients, (by default) have what is called a “preview pane”, which opens the first (topmost/most recent) e-mail in your Inbox, and shows you the first few lines of the e-mail. Yes.. this will trigger whatever the spammers/hackers are using to verify receipt (such as downloading an invisible jpeg). Because of this, I always turn the Preview Pane off.
To do this in OE, click on the View menu and select Layout.
Then in the Preview Pane Properties, uncheck the “Show preview pane” checkbox.

BTW– by exploring Properties/Options/Settings/Preferences (different names for the same thing), you can disable the preview pane in every e-mail viewer.. (i.e., Thunderbird), and webmail (i.e., Hotmail, Gmail, etc).

Tip of the day: While many people find the preview window a convenient way to skim their incoming mail, using it automatically opens your machine up to security risks — especially if you are allowing HTML, and/or images, as the OE pictured above does — and tells anyone who’s interested that yes, your.name@isp.com is a valid address: suitable for spamming.
The spammers (and advertisers) collect lists of these validated addresses and sell them to each other.

I advise disabling the feature, and doing without the ’speed enhancement’ of previewing. Doing so will reduce the amount of spam you receive, improve your privacy, and close the door on one of the methods hackers can use to infect your machine.

Today’s free download: Open Office 3.0 A new version of very popular free office suite is now available. Support for Office 2007 formatting and improved PDF creation in Writer highlight the big additions for business users. A new Start Center provides a launching pad and makes it easier to switch between tools.

Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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Add A Signature To Your E-mails

Due to my schedule, I must repost for today’s article. This is one of my early (circa 2007) How To’s…

Tip of the day: A quick and easy tip today: personalize your email with a pre-configured signature, and cut down on your repetitive typing. Every email client, and online email account, allows you to create a “signature” which is automatically added to the bottom of every email you send.
I use mine to invite people to visit my websites and it includes clickable links. You may want to provide a phone number or other contact information. Some accounts may allow you to include a (v. small) logo or graphic. Or you can simply enter your name, and save yourself having to type it all the time.

I will demonstrate the steps of creating a signature in Hotmail, and the same methods can be used for other online mailboxes like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and the one that comes from your Internet provider (Cox, Comcast, Earthlink, etc.) — and in Outlook and Thunderbird. I will start with Hotmail:

The place to start, always, is under the Options menu (sometimes “options” is called “Preferences” or “Settings” –  those are interchangeable words in the world of computing menus). This is found in the upper right.
In Hotmail, the choice you want is under “Customize your mail” and is named “Personal e-mail signature”. Other mailbox providers may simply label this “Signature”. Click on this choice, whatever it’s named.

The image below shows what I have entered as my Hotmail signature. As you can see, you enter your text here much the same as you do elsewhere in Hotmail, and you have the same toolbar for text options. To make any link you include “clickable” (should you wish), be sure to include the “http://&#8221;.

When you have your signature the way you like it, hit the “Save” button. While it is true that your signature will be largely ignored by your recipients, it is advisable to keep it short, simple, and professional.

In Outlook, the place to look is under the Tools menu. Click “Options”, and then click on the Mail Format tab, as shown below.

Click on the “Signatures” button, which is down towards the very bottom.

Because this tool is ‘plain text’, and doesn’t have font controls and such, I create my signature in Word, and Copy>Paste it into this window. (I used this same trick in Thunderbird.)

The method to attach a signature in Thunderbird is a little different. Again you start on the Tools menu, but instead of going straight to Options, select the choice right above that; Account Settings.

Although this appears to be a very small and “featureless” window, you can in fact create a signature as complex as the one shown in the Hotmail image.

Signatures save you time, can advertise your business, and take only a minute to set up (or, change/update).

Today’s free download: I cannot, right at the moment, recall if I have already posted the free email client Thunderbird as a link.. I think I have but, just in case, here it is again– it’s good enough (especially at spam filtering) for a double posting.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Managing Your Inbox*

One of the very first things I do in the process of starting my day is I check my e-mail Inboxes. It is as much a part of my routine as my morning cup of coffee. This morning, it struck me that you do not have to be a computer geek to realize and appreciate that electronic communication has become an important — if not vital — part of our lives. And that it has changed the way we live.

If you will pardon a little self-indulgent reminiscing, I would like to tell you in a before-and-after manner, that I am old enough to well-remember what it was like in the days before email, Instant Messaging, and cell phones. In my High School years there simply were no such things. (There were no ATM machines either, if you can imagine that.)

When I wanted to find out what my friends were up to, I picked up a Slimline telephone (with cord) and tried to catch them before they left, but I usually had to track them down by “making the rounds”, in person, of our ‘hangouts’…which put a lot of miles on my 10-speed bike.

Besides ‘Ma’ Bell, the other method of communicating was the mail, now known as “snail mail”. How we ever got along back then is beyond me.

Today the speed at which I transmit written correspondence is limited only by how frequently the recipient checks their Inbox. My pals answer their phones no matter where they are (or their voicemail does) or what they’re doing.. who doesn’t carry a cellphone? I not only talk to my niece and nephew out on the East Coast, but I can see them via “videoconferencing” (free). Or I can “chat” with IM, no matter the miles of separation (also free).

But of all these modern methods, I rely the most on email. Email is the main way I stay informed and in contact with my friends and kinfolk, and the same is probably true for you.

Because I am an “email guy”, I am perhaps overly aware of the negatives of email. I am peeved by spam, alarmed by phishing, nervous about privacy, and paranoid about hackers and e-criminals. I have written a few articles on these ‘negatives’ and how to combat them, and my “Tip of the day” today is,  if you have not read them, to consider clicking on the following links.
Managing your email: eliminating the junk
Managing junk mail in Outlook/Thunderbird
They ARE reading your mail
How to block ads
Simple e-mail encryption

It is my hope that the knowledge you find there will make using the modern miracle of electronic communication a safer and more pleasant experience.

Note: I just have to add.. be very leery of e-mail attachments, and don’t ‘open’ them from people you don’t know. And I know you’ve heard this a million times — never click the link. Type the URL into your browser, it is easy to make them look like they go one place, and they really go someplace else.

Today’s free download: If you are considering building your own website, or are interested in free WYSIWYG web-authoring tools, a nice tool is the free version of Web Easy Professional, by V-Comm.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Outlook as a security risk

Disable E-mail Client’s Preview Pane For Safer Computing & Less Spam

A recent article on scam spam (e-mail) prompted a reader to send in this good question,

Hi Paul –
You wrote “don’t even open e-mail from unknown sources.. doing so can/will mark your e-mail address as a “live” person, …”.
How do we delete without opening a specific email message?   Even while deleting in bulk the first email in the highlighted selections opens.  I’m using Outlook Express.  Thanks for your help!

What is being referred to is the feature common to e-mail clients called the “Preview Pane”.

Dear Reader–
You’re correct that most webmail settings, and e-mail clients, (by default) have what is called a “preview pane”, which opens the first (topmost/most recent) e-mail in your Inbox, and shows you the first few lines of the e-mail. Yes.. this will trigger whatever the spammers/hackers are using to verify receipt (such as downloading an invisible jpeg). Because of this, I always turn the Preview Pane off.
To do this in OE, click on the View menu and select Layout.
Then in the Preview Pane Properties, uncheck the “Show preview pane” checkbox.

BTW– by exploring Properties/Options/Settings/Preferences (different names for the same thing), you can disable the preview pane in every e-mail viewer.. Hotmail, Thunderbird, etc.

Tip of the day: While many people find the preview window a convenient way to skim their incoming mail, using it automatically opens your machine up to security risks (especially if you are allowing HTML, and/or images, as the OE pictured above does) and tells anyone who’s interested that yes, your.name@isp.com is a valid address.. suitable for spamming.

I advise disabling the feature, and doing without the ’speed enhancement’ of previewing. Doing so will reduce the amount of spam you receive, improve your privacy, and close the door on one of the methods hackers can use to infect your machine.
Trust me folks, you do not want to be on a spammer list.

Today’s free download: (For Mac) Evernote is the ubiquitous notetaking/data capture utility, and I was pleased to find it for Apple machines/devices. From site: “Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.“

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Security tip– turn off the preview pane

A recent article on scam spam (e-mail) prompted a reader to send in this good question,

Hi Paul —
You wrote “… don’t even open e-mail from unknown sources.. doing so can/will mark your e-mail address as a “live” person, …”.
How do we delete without opening a specific email message?   Even while deleting in bulk the first email in the highlighted selections opens.  I’m using Outlook Express.  Thanks for your help!

What is being referred to is the feature common to e-mail clients called the “Preview Pane”.

Dear Reader–
You’re correct that most webmail settings, and e-mail clients, (by default) have what is called a “preview pane”, which opens the first (topmost/most recent) e-mail in your Inbox, and shows you the first few lines of the e-mail. Yes.. this will trigger whatever the spammers/hackers are using to verify receipt (such as downloading an invisible jpeg). Because of this, I always turn the Preview Pane off.
To do this in OE, click on the View menu and select Layout.
Then in the Preview Pane Properties, uncheck the “Show preview pane” checkbox.

BTW– by exploring Properties/Options/Settings/Preferences (different names for the same thing), you can disable the preview pane in every e-mail viewer.. Hotmail, Thunderbird, etc.

Tip of the day: While many people find the preview window a convenient way to skim their incoming mail, using it automatically opens your machine up to security risks (especially if you are allowing HTML, and/or images, as the OE pictured above does) and tells anyone who’s interested that yes, your.name@isp.com is a valid address.. suitable for spamming.
I advise disabling the feature, and doing without the ‘speed enhancement’ of previewing. Doing so will reduce the amount of spam you receive, and close the door on one of the methods hackers can use to infect your machine. 

Today’s free link: (For Mac) Evernote is the ubiquitous notetaking/data capture utility, and I was please to find it for Apple machines/devices. From site: “Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.”

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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