Welcome to the latest Newsletter from PC Resolver (August 2009).

• Hoaxes etc - Don't be worried by them
• BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) - Don't reveal your friends' email addresses
• Windows 7 - Don't buy a computer without it
• Website Steve's Q&A
• Email not received - why you can't receive an email that you need
• Website Names - The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Hoaxes and other "Latest Information"

On my home page under the menus I have a "Latest Information" section where the last 3 posts can be seen. I use this for information such as the latest threats that can't wait to be added to the monthly newsletters. I mention it this month because I've noticed that all 3 current posts relate to hoaxes of one kind or another. I've recently received another hoax via email: the Hallmark Card Hoax. I haven't added this to the list because it's an old hoax and I've mentioned it before! Previous posts can be found in this section: Latest Information or use the search facility on the website if you are looking for something specific. Next time you receive a warning email you might like to look on my website to see if it is something to worry about or not.

BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) - A reminder

When I receive these hoax emails, and other 'circular' emails, I frequently also get to see all the other addressees' email addresses. An unscrupulous company would use these for their own marketing purposes or even sell them on to spammers. To hide these addresses you should use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy); this is explained in my article from last year Email BCC.

Windows 7 - Due 22nd October 2009

It has been widely publicised that Windows 7 will be available in October this year and it looks like it will be. So, is it any good? Well, yes it is! I said before (Windows 7) that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been and it still is - but even better. I've downloaded a trial version of it and can't wait to load it on a spare PC and 'have a go'. Anyway, the reason I mention it is that if you're thinking of buying a computer over the next few months then I recommend waiting until you can buy it with Windows 7 - you'll be glad you waited. In the meantime, if you have to buy before October you should be given a free upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista.

Website Steve's Q&A

Introduction

PC Resolver, in partnership with The Inland Magazine, is publishing a Questions and Answers section in the published magazine. The purpose of this is to answer the most common questions that are currently affecting my clients and readers of the magazine. You are encouraged to contact me with any questions you may have.

The questions and answers themselves are in the Website Steve's Q&A section of Support. This section will grow and will include non-published questions.

A key part of Website Steve's Q&A is questions about websites. Having your own website has never been easier, cheaper or more necessary than it is today. A fully functioning professionally designed and built website costs 300 Euros to build to your requirements and less than 10 Euros a month to host (including your domain name).

I wonder if you can advise me as to why my laptop is not accepting emails from a certain email address? It has not happened before and I receive everyone else's OK. The person sending them seems to think it's my fault - not theirs! Katy from Bañares, Alicante.

I know how frustrating this can be. You have no way of knowing that they have sent you something and they have no way of knowing that you didn’t get it! Your friend is half right: it’s not their fault! But it is probably not yours either.

Here are the most common problems:

1. The email is in your “junk or spam mail” folder.

2. You have a filter or rule set up that is applying to these emails and moving it, deleting it or doing something else to it.

3. Add your friend to your contacts /address list. This effectively creates a “whitelist” in most email providers and increases the chance of it being accepted.

4. Ask your friend to send a simple email that doesn’t contain anything that could be deemed Spam. Unfortunately, legitimate messages about free offers, opportunities, breast cancer etc can be trapped by spam or junk filters.

The chances are this will solve your problem but you might ask why your friend wasn’t notified that Hotmail has rejected their email. They don’t send a ‘bounced’ message because if this really was spam this reply would effectively validate your email address and they could target you more carefully. I have had to change the way I send my newsletters out because they were filtered out by Hotmail and Yahoo as spam.

If this doesn’t work or you don’t want to put up with having little control over what emails you receive then consider changing email providers. I think that Gmail is a good provider (FREE) with better spam control and it comes with many useful features. I would recommend Gmail over the other free providers such as: Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Telefonica, Wanadoo ...!

If you change your email provider I recommend keeping your old one and auto forwarding your email from the old one to the new one. How you do this varies with each provider. This ensures that you don't miss any emails during the transition and you can even use the old one as a backup for your emails: once you have notified everyone of your old one then turn off the auto-forward on the old account and setup an auto-forward on the new one back to the old. Never lose an email again!

What Should I Call My Website? Nigel From Murcia.

Nigel had (wisely) decided that he wanted to have his own Website so that he could promote his business and to offer online sales. He asked for advice about what he should call it. The Domain Name is the one thing that you can’t change so it is essential to get it right and there are 5 rules:

1. Short! Enough Said!

2. Memorable

3. Related To Your Business

4. Easy To Spell And Dictate

5. Avoid hyphens, underscores, numbers and gimmicks

This is why it is “bbc.co.uk” and not

“uk_tee-vee_licence_payers_information_service.co.uk”.

If you have to spell or explain the name of your website then the name is wrong.

Get professional advice when naming your site to avoid costly errors.

Website Steve's Q&A FREE Stuff

WallPapa: Now that you have cleared your desktop screen last month's Fences what are you going to do with all that empty space? Choose a nice wallpaper of course but which one? How about your photos?! Bored with your best photo then cycle through all your photos automatically at an interval that you choose with WallPapa. Just install the FREE application and point it to a folder containing the photos you want and bring your photos to life. This is better than the screensaver that you may be familiar with because you get to see your desktop while you're working/playing/chatting.

Gmail: This is a FREE email account with extras and none of the problems of other free email providers such as: Hotmail, Yahoo, Wanadoo, MSN, AOL ... You can use your Gmail account to send and receive emails from other providers as well so you only have to login to one email account. Once you have a Gmail account you are free to use all the other great Google products such as GoogleDocs an online Word Processor and spreadsheet with an impressive amount of storage. Also, checkout iGoogle ! Once you have customised your Google page to include your emails, weather, sport, news, Sudoku etc you will make this your home page. Oh, by the way, you can search from this page too.

The links for the “Free Stuff” can be found in the downloads section of www.pcresolver.es. Click “Downloads” from my Support menu.

Final Word

As always, I encourage anyone with a comment, suggestion, question, idea or inspiration to contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Please also see The Inland Magazine Computer Problems Forum if you have a specific IT problem.

Steve
PC Resolver
966 967 439
650 354 629

Please email Steve if any of the links in this article don't work.