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The Computer Club Newsletter
October 2002
By Ron Uncapher
Some of the best Computer Club presentations come from our own members.
At the October 1st meeting, Victor de Groote gave an excellent
presentation on Home Computer Networking. He explained in very simple terms
and with simple diagrams, what a network is and how to set up a network for
your home, with descriptions of all the hardware that you need. If you want
to network and you are still having a problem, give Victor a call.
The November meeting will feature a presentation on the Quicken personal
finance program. Bill Jochem will give an overview of Quicken 2002 deluxe
and highlights of the new Quicken 2003 premier. Bill will show us how
Quicken provides options for management of personal finances using tools
that continue to evolve from their introduction in the days of DOS. The
presentation will use material provided by Quicken and Bill’s experience
using the software. Intuit, the maker of Quicken, has provided several
copies of their software to be used as door prizes. The meeting falls on
Election Day, so vote early and come to the meeting at 7:00 PM on Tues.,
Oct. 5.
There are many programs on store shelves that purport to combat SPAM and
protect your computer from intrusion from various sources. The best defense
is a good anti-virus program that is up to date. But there is a certain
sense of control if you can see what is in your mailbox before it gets to
your computer. Such a program is MailWasher. This program lets you preview
what is in your mailbox at your Internet Service Provider’s server before it
is downloaded to your PC. If you do not recognize the sender, it looks like
SPAM, or there is a huge attachment that you don’t want to download at the
time, you can decide to download it to your machine, block it, send it back,
or just delete it.
MailWasher goes to your ISP’s mail server and downloads only the header
with the source, subject, size, and date. You then inspect the entries for
potential SPAM, an email from someone you do not know that may contain a
virus, or an email with a huge attachment that might tie up your computer by
taking a long time to download. Once recognized, you can make a decision to
delete the email, return it, unanswered, to a SPAMMER so that he thinks your
address doesn’t exist, delay download until you have more time, or go ahead
and let your email client receive your mail. Here is how it works.
To check email, don't open your email client first. Instead, start
MailWasher by double clicking on the desktop icon, or go to START, PROGRAMS,
MailWasher.
The MailWasher program will open and tell you what messages are waiting
on the email server. You check boxes to select whether to Delete or Bounce
the messages. When you are satisfied with your selections, click on PROCESS
MAIL and your mail will be downloaded to your email program. You can
investigate other MailWasher features on the MailWasher Website,
www.mailwasher.com . I have been
using this utility for a while and find it very reliable. The catch is, it
only works with pop3 email. It does not work with AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, or
other web based mail systems. The author promises to have web mail versions
soon. The program is free with an advertisement at the top of the window.
Five to Twenty dollars will get rid of the ad if you really like the
program.
You can download MailWasher at the Website. It is approximately 1.5MB,
that is it will take about 10 minutes to download on a phone based ISP or40
seconds using broadband (Pipeline).
Tip of the Month. Keyboard Shortcut: To switch among open applications on
your desktop, press ALT-TAB. Keep pressing until you get to the app you
want. When you want to work between two applications, pressing ALT-TAB will
move from one to the other. If you like keyboard shortcuts, check out
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q126/4/49.asp for
more shortcuts than you will ever want. They apply to Win95 through Win ME.
Don’t forget to check out the Computer Club Website at
www.TVCUC.org .
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