Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
October 19, 2008

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

Volume 4, Number 19 — Sunday, October 19, 2008

IN THIS ON-LINE ISSUE:

   1.   Email Using Gmail with Outlook
   2.   Fun on the Internet
   3.   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   4.   More Reader Comments on Anti-Spam Programs
   5.   Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends

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

 

  

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1.  Email Using Gmail with Outlook

Google's free online email program Gmail (gmail.com) offers a great deal in the way of web email services. First, you get a lot of space for your emails, currently 7,250 MB (7+ Gigabytes!).

Gmail has great spam filtering, with few false negatives — that is, Gmail seldomly thinks that spam isn't spam. Unfortunately, I can't really comment on false positives, as I don't use Gmail enough to know how many emails it thinks are spam that really aren't.

Many people use Gmail for their various mailing lists, as it's reading interface does an excellent job of grouping related messages.

Google also offers, for free, the ability to download emails from Gmail to your favorite POP3 email client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc.). Even more amazing, it offers outbound SMTP mail service, too.

This week, Charlie K. wrote me to ask about troubles he was having with Outlook and Gmail:

Terry,

I have a G-mail address which I access via Outlook using POP3.

That all works well, except when I email myself (I often cc myself as a reminder on mails I have sent).

When I do that the email arrives in my G-Mail inbox OK, but accessing via POP3 does not get the mail downloaded to Outlook.

Is there some fault on my part – or is this just a “feature” of Google’s mail service??

Many Thanks

Chas

I wrote back to Charlie that I hadn't experienced the problem, but that I did not use Gmail's POP3 (download emails to my computer) functions. I tried emailing my Gmail account, using a From address that matched my To address at gmail.com. The message showed up as new and unread, exactly as I expected.

Charlie wrote back with some more critical information, and the logical answer, too:

Terry,

Thanks for the very quick reply.

I think I have resolved the problem via the Google Mail Help Group.

To paraphrase a response to a similar question to mine

"if you are sending from Outlook via your Gmail account (i.e. using smtp.gmail.com), then the cc will appear to Gmail as a "send to yourself". Gmail ignores such messages as it sees the sent copy as sufficient.

Pretty sure that is my situation.

Incidentally, that is what happens if I send via the G-Mail account, but if I send via my ISP's mail server, then it all works normally.

Thanks again

Chas

In other words, Charlie was using Gmail both as his inbound email server (where he gets his emails) and his outbound email server (the one he uses to send emails).

Since his From address ended "@gmail.com", Gmail considered that he had read the email he sent, so it did not deliver it when he downloaded his new emails.

That makes perfect sense.

Every once in a while, I like to write about new sites (or, at least, new to me) that are designed for fun.

First, let's take a look at some ASCII art. ASCII stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange." In the 1960's and 1970's, before the days of dot-matrix printers and other printers capable of graphics, when the only things we could print were alphabet characters, numbers, and some punctuation codes, one of the great pastimes of computer geeks was to create art using those printed characters.

I remember 132 column printouts, about 15 inches wide, where that width was the width of the image — and the image might be 4 or 5 feet tall!

So, the first site I want to offer for your enjoyment is Joan Stark's ASCII Art web site. The art is all Joan's original work, unless otherwise noted, and it's amazing.

Even if you're not old enough to remember ASCII art, you'll be amazed at this similar use. It's a Star Wars fan site, but it's not your usual Star Wars fan site.

How about an ASCII-animated version of Star Wars?

You can use the Telnet client program built into Windows XP. If you use Windows Vista, it's not installed by default, but it's easy to install. From Microsoft's Vista Telnet FAQ:

By default, Telnet is not installed with Windows, but you can install it by following the steps below.

To install Telnet Client

1. Click the Start button Picture of the Start button, click Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Turn Windows features on or off. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
2. In the Windows Features dialog box, select the Telnet Client check box.
3. Click OK. The installation might take several minutes.

Start the Telnet program:

• Windows XP: Start > Run > type CMD and press the Enter key
• Windows Vista: Click Start, type Telnet and click OK.

Then, visit the Star Wars asciimation by typing:
telnet://towel.blinkenlights.nl

3.  My Computer Security Software Recommendations

Anti-Virus

I'm often asked about several other popular anti-virus or anti-virus combination packages. Yes, I realize that they are not in my recommendation list. "Enough said..."

For the last five years, until very recently, my personal choice has been ESET's small, fast NOD32 anti-virus program, which offers a FREE 30-day evaluation license. I consider NOD32 one of the best in anti-virus protection. Unlike some of its competitors, ESET offers multiple-year licenses also, and includes program updates in the multiple-year license.

Now, I've changed from my long-time programs NOD32 (antivirus) and CounterSpy (antispyware) to Sunbelt's new VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware.

I've found that VIPRE puts even less load on my computer than the speedy combination of NOD32 and CounterSpy. I've also been impressed with the way its "deep scan" has found and eliminated risks that were stored in zip files, which is one of the latest malware email tricks.

Read more about anti-virus programs on my web site.

Related articles:

• Anti-Virus Programs and Online Scanners
• Free Online Antivirus Scan
• NOD32 Anti-Virus Review - A Look at NOD32
• VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware Review

Click here for more information about VIPRE.

Firewall Software

While the Windows XP firewall is much better than no firewall at all, don't count on the Windows XP firewall to meet your needs. You need a two-way firewall, which the Windows XP firewall is not!. Microsoft woke up and supplied a two-way firewall with Windows Vista.

The Windows XP firewall does not control outbound communications originating from your computer — and you should want to have control if adware/trojans/spyware or even commercial products want to talk to the Internet. Whether they are calling home or spewing spam, you want to be able to control your computer.

Do you want Windows Media Player to call home every time you play something? It does! Do you use the Search function in Windows Explorer to find things on your hard drive? Did you know that every time you search, Windows Explorer talks to Microsoft?

I didn't know that when I ran ZoneAlarm, but the Sunbelt Personal Firewall flags that to me, and I can stop it or allow it to happen. Many other programs try to call home when you run them, too.

I recommend my choice for a firewall program, which is Sunbelt Personal Firewall.

You can try the full-featured "paid version" of Sunbelt Personal Firewall free for 30 days — after that, you can register it or, if you're using it on a home non-business computer, you can let it revert to the free, lesser-function license.

Sunbelt Personal Firewall is regularly $19.95 (with discounts for multiple computers and/or multiple years!) for a non-expiring license for the program and includes one year of their updates subscription.

Related articles:

• The Internet Versus You
• Do I Need a Firewall Program?
• My Sunbelt Personal Firewall Review

Anti-Spyware / Anti-Adware Software

CounterSpy, from Sunbelt Software, has received many kudos from the computer press for its always-running and periodic full system scans. It has been my personal choice for my PC's and my family's PC's.

Sunbelt's CounterSpy v2.5, both improved CounterSpy's performance against malware and reduced its impact on system resources and responsiveness when its scanning.

Sunbelt continues to release updated program versions — the current version is v3.1. Nicely, they do NOT install the updated programs automatically. You have to use the Update process in the program, which means that you'll know that something significant has changed.

Now, I've changed from my long-time programs NOD32 (antivirus) and CounterSpy (antispyware) to Sunbelt's new VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware.

I've found that VIPRE puts even less load on my computer than the speedy combination of NOD32 and CounterSpy. My computer seems to have much more pep and power than it had previously. I've also been impressed with the way its "deep scan" has found and eliminated risks that were stored in zip files, which is one of the latest malware email tricks.

Related articles:

• Fighting Against Spyware & Malware
• My CounterSpy Review
• My VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware Review

Anti-spam Software

In today's Internet world, the question is not "if" you will get spam, but "how much will you get?"

I use and now I recommend POPFile as my first choice for handling spam. POPFile sits on your computer, between your email program and your ISP mailbox, and handles emial as it downloads.

POPFile uses a different approach to handle spam than some other programs do — it does nothing to reduce spam. It is designed as an email classification tool — you train it to recognize spam and any other type of email that you want to classify. These classifications can help you sort your emails into appropriate folders in your email program.

Sunbelt Software, who makes the anti-spyware program CounterSpy (which I use and recommend) and the firewall that I use and recommend (Sunbelt Personal Firewall) also has a well-regarded, award-winning anti-spam program called iHateSpam for Outlook and Outlook Express. Since I don't use Outlook or Outlook Express for email, I haven't tried iHateSpam.

Mailwasher Pro would be my first choice to handle spam before it ever gets into your computer's Inbox. Mailwasher Pro uses on-line Realtime Black Lists mail servers sending spam recently, "training" by you of what you think is spam, and your own "friends" and "blacklist" lists. Note: I found that PopFile generally meets my needs and stopped using Mailwasher Pro, even though PopFile works AFTER the emails have been downloaded. If I used a dialup connection, I would be more interested in Mailwasher Pro.

Mailwasher Pro can even bounce spam messages, as if your email address was not valid, although the usefulness and appropriateness of this is questionable. There is a free version called "Mailwasher," but it omits the functions that I consider critical for this purpose -- such as safely previewing the emails safely before they ever get to your email inbox.

Related articles:

• Spam Filtering
• Keeping spam out of your Inbox
• Getting Control of Your Inbox
• How Can I Prevent spam?

Cable/DSL Router

If you have a cable modem or a DSL modem, you need to have another layer of inexpensive protection between you and the Internet. A cable/DSL router isolates your computer from direct connection to the Internet. Your computer can easily request your email, web pages, etc. through the router. The responses come back to the router and are smoothly routed to your computer. But, someone on the Internet side of the router can not initiate a connection to your computer — they can only respond to your request.

Even if you only have one computer to connect to your cable or DSL modem, I recommend that you purchase and use a cable/DSL router because of the protection it can give you against attempts to attack through some flaws in Windows itself.

A router isolates your local network, whether it is only one computer or several, from the Internet by actually making it a separate network. The router gets the "public" IP address and handles all your outbound communications and the responses to them. But, it blocks computers on the Internet side from being able to initiate communications with your computer! This will prevent you from falling prey to many worms that try to attack security holes in Windows itself.

For a wireless router, I recommend the Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I'm using the relatively new version 6 of this router.

If you don't want wireless, I recommend the Linksys BEFSR41 wired router, which I also use. Either way, based on my experience, I recommend Linksys routers for price, reliability and Linksys' habit of releasing updated firmware for their products..

See these related articles:

• Wireless Security
• Wi-Fi Hotspots and Computer Security
• Wireless Networking Problems & Wireless Networking Security

In last week's online newsletter, several subscribers had written about the anti-spam systems and spam filter programs that they used to keep their mailbox clean.

One of those comments was from reader Ron Spruell about his experience with Gmail's spam filtering:

I don't know what Google does, but the Spam on this account has been almost zero.

And I wrote:

He's right — Google's gmail.com does a great job of deleting spam. However, it's such a good job that I wonder what its false-positive (mistakenly labelling an email as spam, when it really wasn't) rate is.

I prefer spam-filtering systems that identify the email as suspected spam, but then still delive it to a folder so that I can confirm that the message isn't a good one.

Well, long-time reader Ken Kennedy wrote to tell me that issue is covered;

GMail already has this! It's called the Spam Folder!! GMail holds messages in the Spam folder for 30 days, then deletes them. I probably get 500 spams a month, and GMail only lets through 3 or 4 in that time. As for false positives, I gave up checking the Spam folder long ago, as I got tired of fishing for good emails and never finding any. In the unlikely event that there is a false positive, if its sender doesn't get on my case within 30 days, then it probably wasn't that important anyway. So far, so good.

Here is my anti-spam procedure that just plain works, and it's FREE.

I have quite a few email accounts. I have configured GMail to pick each of them up. (settings > accounts > Get mail from other accounts:). As I use Thunderbird on my computer, I take advantage of GMail's ability to have messages picked off its server.

(almost)No Spam
(so far)No false positives
No Cost
One "get mail" in TB downloads mail from all accounts via GMail, and its excellent spam filtering.

Ken Kennedy
London, ON

That's great to know, Ken. I haven't experimented with using Gmail's POP3 or SMTP functions, but I think it's about time for me to try them.

Long-time subscriber Mike Sattler commented on my blog about the spam solution he uses, Mailwasher Pro:

Hi Terry, I have used Mailwasher Pro for many moons and would not be without it. I have many people who insist on sending emails with very large attachments ( usually video files) which sometime measure up to 10MB. This all counts against my download allowance but with Mailwasher I can delete them from the server before having to download them. It is the same with all the spam email most of which are already marked as spam and ready for deletion and all I have to do is cast an eye over them to make sure they are in fact spam before letting Mailwasher do it job. It also has an excelent system for making my own filter rules.
All the best... Mike Sattler

Thanks, Mike. Mailwasher Pro is a great program and, as you point out, lets you delete spam before it ever gets to your computer!

Subscriber David Volente commented from the U.K. about three different solutions he uses to the spam problem:

I would certainly agree with the comments about G-Mail`s spam handling as being one of the best. I have it set up in Thunderbird and I just have to go to the on-line spam folder every now and again to have a check, but very rarely does a genuine mail find its way there amongst all the dross for certain bodily parts enlargement, replica watches, etc. When it does, it`s usually because I have used a disposable address (using www.spamgourmet.com or similar) that G-Mail isn`t quite sure what to do with! I still use Mailwasher on my accounts, but I can`t remember the last time I saw a spam message in there.

Thanks, David. That's two votes for Mailwasher.

For people with dialup Internet connections or, like Mike, who have limits on their download allowances set by their Internet Service Provider, Mailwasher Pro is a great solution. It lets you delete the spam before you download it, saving time and money.

For people with high-speed Internet connections, Mailwasher Pro will let you prevent the security problems that can come along with today's spam emails.

You can download a free fully-functional 30-day trial of Mailwasher Pro . The publisher provides a 6 month money back and lifetime upgrade guarantee.