Geckology "The Art of Responsible Computing"

Please email comments, abuse, jokes, dinner invites, & suggestions to
geckology@smoothsilicon.com, or phone Gecko 5485 3131, 0449575978


Welcome.

Hope you got through the rains without too much drama
If you did, you are in the fortunate minority.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the Great Wall of Australia.
( It's to keep the rabbits in )
The internet filter is a joke in my eyes. We already have one of the
slowest networks
in the developed world. The filter will slow it down & will not stop the
baddies.
Now to explain my frustration. One other country I know of uses one.
The fact that they do, presents a source of grim comedy for the tech savvy.
Have a look yourself. Go to google.com.au and look up Tiananmen square,
then go to google.com.cn (China) and look at the difference. I fear the
inadvertent blocking of legitimate content.
My 2 cents.
Listening to the wireless the other day, they were talking about net
security software and such. A survey had found that a huge reduction in
undesirable content viewing, was as simple as putting the PC in an area of
the house that was open to others and traffic.
Makes a lot of sense.
That's my gripe for the month anyway.

Now, how did you go with the mouse help last month?
Drop me an email. No such thing as a silly question,
just means I might be able to answer it.
This month, we tackle the issues commonly faced with email.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of them. The very first thing to check is if
you are actually connected to the net, so open Internet Explorer or
Firefox and see if you can get to a site you trust, like google or ebay. (
Google loads quicker). If you can get a site up, we are right to go. If
you can't, check your wires, power to modem/router and plugs, then ring
your ISP.

The secret is to be very slow and methodical. If you get an error message,
STOP and read it. Often they will give you a clue.
We will now set up Outlook Express from scratch. If you have been using
the program, some of this will have already been done. Still, you can use
this guide to check your settings.
To follow along, open Outlook Express, go to "Tools", "Accounts" & click
on the "Mail" tab.
Click your email address and choose "Properties".
When you start Outlook Express for the first time, you will get asked to
enter the name you wish to appear in the "From" field. This is not
critical to getting or sending mail, it is purely so when you send someone
a message, they will know who it is from.
The next screen will ask for details of two servers. These servers are
actual distant machines run by your ISP, Optus, Dodo etc, and these
details are critical. Leave out one dot, or put one letter wrong, and it
will not work, trust me. The first is called a POP server (actually POP3).
Find the details in the email or letter you got when you started your
account, don't guess or speculate. This handles incoming email's from
others to you. Commonly, if you are with Optus, say, it will be
"mail.optus.com", without the quotes. Now, using your mouse skills,
highlight this and copy it, (try Ctrl and c ). Now click in where it says
SMTP server, and paste. ( Ctrl and v ). Yes, these two machines live at
the same address. The SMTP server is responsible for taking your mail, and
sending it to the person/s you addressed it too.
( Outlook Express will jam up if it cannot send one, so if get mail, but
you can't send, have a look in your outbox for a wrongly addressed message
you tried to send recently.)


The next screen shows your account name, and password.
This one is also critical. No mistakes allowed here. Again, refer to the
details provided when you signed up. Your account name is usually your
email address, which will be in the format of "you@your ISP.com". (Some
ISP's may only need the "you" bit, some need ".net" or ".biz", at the
end.)
The password is the biggest reason for help calls, so make very sure of
this. A common problem is that the ISP gives you a temporary password, and
you are forced to change it when you first log in. Now, your old one will
not work. Your sacred piece of paper won't help now. Ring them straight
away if you have an authentication or wrong username/password error
message, while checking or sending mail.
If you need to use SAP, by ticking the box below these, leave it ticked.
If in doubt, leave it ticked and try it.
You have finished.
To go through this, or create a second email account, go to Tools, and
second last should be "Accounts". Then click on the "Mail" tab, choose
your account, and click "Properties".
On the "General" tab, you need only have the email address correct, and
the "Include this account when receiving or synchronizing mail" box
ticked, for it to work.
The "Reply to" is handy if you send an email from home, but wish to check
your mail from elsewhere. You can set this to say, you@gmail.com, then you
can send it from home, and get the reply from anywhere.
Some trouble is encountered if the port numbers are wrong, on the
"Advanced" tab.
110 is standard for POP, and 25 for SMTP, although this should be given by
your ISP, and may be different to reduce SPAM.
Another notable in the "Advanced" tab, is the "Leave a copy of messages
on server"
box. Very important to tick, if you check your mail from two or more
computers.
Otherwise, the second machine won't be able to get it.
By far the easiest way to have all your messages synchronized on two or
more PC's,
is to tick the box, and check mail from both/all of your computers. Your
sent messages will still be only on the machine you sent them from though,
so when you send a message, you may wish to send it to yourself as well.
That way, you can have all your sent and received messages on more
computers than one.
This doubles as a very nice backup, for when you lose data one day. Yes,
when.
Every hard drive made so far, will fail. 1 year or 6, but it will go.

Now, go and send your mail to yourself and make sure you have all your
computers set to leave a copy on the server. ( Your online mailbox will
fill up, so make a note to check it and delete the trash.) Do not stop
there. Get in the car, or drag the dog for a walk.Go and get a thumb drive
or three, (they cost next to nothing), plug them into your computer and
save your documents and pictures NOW.
A spare email and document computer is a good idea too.
A reliable old computer with a free copy of Linux, can give you a backup
web browser, document producer, & emailer that just works, for less than
$100 dollars.
Re-use, re-cycle and rejuvenate, don't let it become a "Toxic Asset" to
our planet.Tell me how you dispose of old IT Equipment? I want to know.

Watch out for the wildlife,

Back to you.
Smooth Gecko