Rain, we need it, but it does put a damper on some of our favorite activities, at least the outdoor ones. What is a person to do on a sodden day? Well, since this is a computer column, let’s see if there isn’t some fun and exciting things to do on or with our computer. Here is a list of stuff to do on a rainy day.
First and foremost, backup files, pictures or anything else you don’t want to lose. I know, boring! But think of three of your neighbors last week that called me with computers that would not run. Only one had backups of all their files and after a new hard drive was installed we were able to move the back upped files to the new drive and they were up and running. No fuss, no muss. But, the other two, no backups. Fortunately, or not, I have some equipment and software that allows me to attempt to recover information from a non functional drive. On one of these hard drives, my software spent twenty-nine hours snatching files until the hard drive finally stopped permanently. I probably recovered sixty- five percent of their data. The other drive, I was able to get virtually all of the files they needed. So, while it is raining, stick in a flash drive or a CDrom or go to drive.google.com for five gigabits of free online storage, or Skydrive for seven gigs to store documents and spreadsheets online also for FREE and back up the important stuff.
How many folks are still using Microsoft’s Outlook Express to get their emails? Outlook Express or OE replaced Internet Mail and News in 1997 with the release of Internet Explorer 4. Over the last eighteen years it has seen few external changes even while many behind the scenes changes regarding security issues and filter capabilities were added. Outlook Express was a very important tool for computer users back when we paid for Internet time by the minute. (Don’t even remember that it was so long ago.) We would open OE, it would immediately dial out, grab our emails and then hang up. We could then read the emails at our leisure, reply to them, create new messages, all without paying for online time. When we were ready, we would hit the send and receive button, OE would dial out and send our messages, grab any new messages and hang up again. Outlook Express disappeared from Windows Operating Systems with the introduction of Vista which brought us Windows Mail.
But today, with only five people still paying for Internet time by the minute, and only seven more still using a dial up connection to the Internet, Microsoft has raised the ante with the introduction of Windows Live Mail. Windows Live Mail is now bundled with the Windows 7 operating system so those with new computers are already using Windows Live Mail.
Email, for most people is the primary function for which the computer is used. As we receive more and more emails pertaining to everything from jokes, purchase receipts, to personal letters, the risks from bogus emails and the effort needed to manage and organize our email becomes ever more onerous. Windows Live Mail was designed to address these issues and some issues that are more commercially oriented. With thousands of messages in your inbox, trying to find that one e-mail message you want can be a challenge. This is especially true for saved e-mail, which might be months or years old. Windows Live Mail includes a built-in Instant Search field. Type in a keyword and Instant Search will find and list all the emails that match the keyword.
Windows Live Mail also includes a built-in Junk Mail Filter that automatically screens e-mail to identify and separate out junk e-mail. In the past the user needed to train the filters to identify junk mail before it would block the junk emails. Windows Live Mail uses preconfigured filters that are continually updated via Windows updates and starts catching junk emails from the first time we use it.
Appearance of the new mail program is web like. Very modern and high tech looking which makes Outlook Express look antiquated. Windows Live Mail is one of the programs bundled into Windows Live Essentials. To download and install a copy of Windows Live Mail, or any of the other programs available in that suite, go to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-live/essentials-other-programs. Your computer must be running Windows XP-SP3, Vista and if you have Windows 7 there is an excellent probability that Windows Live Mail and other pieces of the suite are already installed.
I think the rain has stopped.
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Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer: Courtland Nederveld: 9781467985895: Books
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