Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
October 14, 2007

Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter
http://www.terryscomputertips.com
A computer tips newsletter for users of PC's.

Volume 3, Number 18 — Sunday, October 14, 2007

Part 1  | Part 2

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IN THIS WEEK'S ON-LINE ISSUE:
   1.   HOWTO: Email a Large Number of People
   2.   Updates Last Week
   3.   Exploring PCLinuxOS - Part 1
   4.   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   5.   Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends

Welcome to the on-line edition of my Terry's Computer Tips newsletter.

My emailed newsletter is sent weekly to individuals who have subscribed to the newsletter. Click here to subscribe. It's free!

Are you subscribed to my weekly email newsletter? If you are, and are not getting it, check your Bulk Mail and your Spam folders. If you find my newsletter there, please reclassify it to normal email.

Yahoo, in particular, is doing a bad job of classifying my newsletters. Other free, online email systems are also having the problem.

If you find an email in your Spam folder or Bulk Mail folder that you really want to receive -- be sure to click on their button to reclassify the email in their system. It will help you and it will help others.

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1.  HOWTO: Email a Large Number of People

I answered a question about how to send an email to a large number of people. As individuals, we occasionally want to send out an email to a bunch of friends. Hopefully, we're all aware that email etiquette says that we should not list everyone's name in the To list.

So, how do we do it?

In part, your solution depends on your scale and intent. Let's consider it from both the personal email and the business email perspectives.

If you have a paid web hosting account, you can probably set up and use the mailing program Dada Mail (free, http://mojo.skazat.com/). Dada Mail works with a list of addressees, but each email is sent individually to each addressee.

I tried the free version for a while for my Terry's Computer Tips newsletter. Then, I switched to its Paid version called Pro Dada (the paid version is the same program). I used Dada Mail and Pro Dada for over a year. They were pretty good and had an interface where people could sign up and could unsubscribe.

I had two types of problems using Dada Mail.

First, I got a lot of bounce messages (account closed, mailbox full, etc). In other words, basic administration work to maintain the subscriber list.

Second, I found that other people using the same mail server could send spam and that would affect my legitimate emails. If their spam got reported to one of the RealtimeBlackList (RBL) systems, then mail servers that used the RBLs would block any other emails from that mail server. Some ISPs will block emails for 2 or 3 hours. Others will block them for 2 or 3 days. I had several episodes of "your email was blocked because your mailserver is listed in the RBL list" before I gave up on Dada.

However, the final straw what when my web host was bought by another company, who implemented a "maximum 200 outgoing emails per hour" limitation without warning.

I switched to the mailing list service Aweber for mailing of my newsletters. I had been considering it for a long time, but kept putting off the change, since each subscriber would have to respond to another "yes, I really want to subscribe email" in order to stay subscribed. I only wish I had done it earlier...

I've been extremely happy with the service from Aweber.

Another automated-type way to send a lot of emails is by using one of the add-on programs for Microsoft Outlook. But, if you do bulk emails via your ISP, you may get in trouble with your ISP over mass-mailing. Cox.net, for example, permits mass emailing only by their business accounts and only after the business has filled out a mass-email application and been approved.

You can Google for "mailing list program" without the quotes and check out a few options, if you want to go this route.

The easiest way — if you only have a few addressees — is to address the email to yourself and then BCC all your intended recipients.

ISPs usually have a limit on the number of recipients for an email and will bounce — or drop — the emails that attempt to go to too many addresses. Be sure to enter yourself as the To addressee — many spam filters will trigger on a "blank To" field and decide the email is spam.

If you're interested in the Aweber option, you can give it a free test drive at http://terryscomputertips.com/Aweber

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2.  Updates Last Week

Microsoft (operating systems, email, web browser, office suites):
Microsoft releases almost all updates once per month, on the second Tuesday. This week included Patch Tuesday. The patches that I saw on my Windows XP machines were:

Windows XP

Security Update for Windows XP (KB933729)
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise your Windows-based system and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 6 for Windows XP (KB939653)
Security issues have been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a system running Internet Explorer and gain control over it. You can help protect your system by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Security Update for Outlook Express for Windows XP (KB941202)
A security issue has been identified in Outlook Express that could allow an attacker to compromise your Windows-based system and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - October 2007 (KB890830)
After the download, this tool runs once to check your computer for infection by specific, prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps to remove any infection found. If an infection is found, the tool will display a status report the next time you start your computer. A new version of the tool will be offered every month. If you want to manually run the tool on your computer, you can download a copy from the Microsoft Download Center or run an online version from microsoft.com. This tool is not a replacement for an anti-virus product. To help protect your computer, you should use an anti-virus product.

Microsoft Office 2002/XP

Security Update for Word 2002 (KB942670)
A security vulnerability exists in Microsoft Word 2002 that could allow arbitrary code to run when a maliciously modified file is opened. This update resolves that vulnerability.

Microsoft Office 2003

Update for Outlook Junk Email Filter 2003 (KB942571)
This update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail. This update was released in October 2007.

Firefox (web browser, http://www.mozilla.com, free):
No new version this week. Version 2.0.0.7 was released on September 18, 2007. This was a security update.

Opera (web browser, http://www.opera.com, free):
No new version this week. Version 9.23 was released on August 15th. This release of a recommended security upgrade, in addition to having several other changes and bug fixes.

Netscape (web browser, http://browser.netscape.com, free):
No new version this week. Version 9.0rc1 (release candidate #1 - still not a final version) was released during the week ending October 6, 2007.

SeaMonkey (web browser, email, HTML editor, newsreader; http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey; free): No new version this week. Version 1.1.4 was released on August 3, 2007. This was primarily a security update.

Eudora (email, http://www.eudora.com):
No update last week. Version 7.1.0.9 was released October 11, 2006. Eudora is now free, with no ads and no "paid mode" option.

The first beta version of v8 (v8.0.0.b1) was released several weeks ago and is available from http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope_Releases .

Mozilla Thunderbird (email, http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird, free):
No new version this week. Thunderbird version 2.0.0.6 was released on August 1, 2007. This is primarily a security update.

OpenOffice (office suite — spreadsheet, word processor, presentations, graphics, web design; http://www.openoffice.org; free): Version 2.3 was released during the week ending September 22nd. This includes new feature as well as bug fixes.