Techreluctant.com

If you’ve ever set up email software to retrieve your email, you’ll know that there are some weird sounding settings you have to give the software. For most you have to give the POP and SMTP settings while for some others you need to know your IMAP server settings. Maybe knowing what these acronyms stand for will make the whole email setup thing a little less overwhelming. We’ll start this week with POP.

POP stands for Post Office Protocol. When someone sends you a postcard in the mail, it doesn’t leave the mailbox and go straight to your door. It goes to a post office and someone sorts it and sends it onto your address, possibly even in a timely manner. Very simply put, this is what your Post Office Protocol server does. In tech-world, a protocol is a set of rules for communicating. A POP server uses Post Office Protocol like the person at your post office who gives you the package that was sent to you, but only after he makes sure you are who you are. It’s the rules for how your ISP’s (Internet Service Provider) mail server communicates with your email software.

First, your email program goes to the POP server, makes a connection, then provides the username and password you’ve typed in. If the username and password are correct, your software ask “any mail for someone@somewhere.com”? And the server uses POP to first let your email client know there is email, then how many email there are, and what size they are. It then retrieves your emails so you can read them and, depending on the settings you’ve given it, deletes them from the server or keeps them on the server.

So, the POP server setting your email software asks for when you first set it up, is just the address your email software can use to start these communications. It’s, again very simply put, the address of the post office where you’ll pick up your mail. Your Internet Service Provider (the people you pay every month for your Internet) should provide you with the email address, password, and POP settings you need but if you’ve lost the POP settings and need them, you can usually Google your ISP’s name and POP settings to find what you need to know.

Okay, so I’ll be honest. I should call this one free for most. I’m telling you about a great dictionary and thesaurus that will reside in your system tray (that place in the lower right corner of your screen with all the icons in it) and can be accessed in one click or integrates with program like Microsoft Word. It’s called WordWeb and there is a pro version and a free version. The free version is available to you as long as you satisfy their licensing conditions. And they are a bit different from most licensing conditions. WordWeb is free to you as long as you take no more than two commercial flights per year. Any more than that and they ask you to use the free version as a 30 day trial which you should uninstall in 30 days and pony up the money for the Pro version.I have been using WordWeb for many years and many different versions and I love it. It is one of the most convenient programs I’ve ever used. Like I said, it is integrated with MS Word and can be used with many common programs. If you highlight a word in most programs and right-click on it while holding down the Ctrl button, it will give you the definition, synonyms, antoyms and a bunch of other stuff for that word. Couldn’t be easier. So check this one out, even if you’re a frequent flyer and it’s only free for 30 days.

I have to admit, I am a sarcastic person by nature although I do try to control it. Case in point is that I have never used Let Me Google That For You, no matter how many opportunities to do so. Maybe you won’t be as reserved. If someone asks a question that should be pretty easy to google, you can go to Let Me Google That For You, type in the search they should have done themselves, then send them the link for the results. They will actually get to see an invisible typer type the search, and the site will also show text that says “Was That So Hard?”  Check it out in action.

When I worked on a help desk and people would call in, they would sometimes have to bring their computers in for service. They would inevitably ask, “so do I have to just bring in the hard drive?” They, like many people referred to their computer as the hard drive. They meant the tower, that’s the tower part which holds all the computer stuff, as opposed to the peripherals of a computer like a mouse, keyboard, monitor, and printer. The hard drive actually resides inside your computer’s tower and it’s where all your files, folders and your operating system hang out.

The hard drive looks a bit like a record player (if you remember them). There’s a little arm and even a platter that goes around and around. The data for your computer is on that platter (or platters). How it gets there involves magnets and alloys and stuff you really don’t need to concern yourself with but if you want to know more check out this article at How Stuff Works.

What you need to know about your hard drive is that it is one type of memory in your computer. There’s another type of memory in your computer called RAM or Random Access Memory and we’ll discuss that one next week. The hard drive is usually measured in hundreds of gigabytes these days and the more gigabytes the more files and stuff you can put on your computer. The hard drive will hold all your data until you delete it or until it fails. You should remember that hard drives can fail and that’s why keeping copies of your important data, like pictures and important documents to name just a couple of things, is vital. Back up those things to other media like a recordable DVD, a recordable CD-ROM, a flash drive or an external hard drive. And if you ever have to bring your computer in for repair, you can ask if it’s just the tower that you need to bring in because you know it’s not called the hard drive.

The right-click can help you do lots of things (or left-click if you’re a leftie). One of the most underused is probably the Send To option. If you right-click on any file (click the right button of your mouse instead of the usual left) you can scroll down to Send To and send that file to any number of places including other drives, your documents folder or a mail recipient. Send to mail recipient is great for sending photos. Just select the photos you want to send, right-click on them then choose Send To–>Mail recipient. Your default email program will pop up and you can add the text, subject, and addresses of the recipients. Even better, Windows will ask you if you want to resize the photos which makes pictures taken at high resolution and the best settings much easier to send. So the Send To is pretty helpful on its own but you can improve it. You can add things to your Send To section but that’s a tip for another day.

Any time you sign up for something on the Internet, be it a coupon, a software download, or an account to read a newspaper online, you are asked for your email address. And every time you type that address increases your chances for spam. So create a free email account to use for new sign ups. There are lots of free email account providers out there. My favourite is Gmail but there’s Hotmail and Yahoo mail to name just two more. If you use Gmail you can also set up that account to be accessed by your email software (such as Outlook Express or Windows Mail). Note that many things you sign up for will send extra information to the email address you provide in order to confirm your new account so you should be able to access that email account somehow. By doing this simple thing you can reduce spam and keep your main email account for the things you want to use it for.

Maybe nothing scares the tech-reluctant (or even the savviest of techies) than the thought of a virus on your computer. Antivirus software is a must-have on any windows computer and most new systems come with trial software, usually from McAfee or Symantec, installed. But what happens when that trial expires? You get messages popping up on your screen telling you that you are not protected and that your virus protection can no longer be updated. And maybe you let it slide because you figure you have most of the viruses covered and how many new viruses can they be coming up with anyway? Don’t kid yourself. New viruses are coming out daily. Just because they’re not all in the news, doesn’t mean they’re not out there. You have to stay updated and protected but luckily, there is a free and good antivirus program called AVG.

AVG comes in a free, basic version or if you feel you’d like more protection you can pay for the pro version. The free version comes with antivirus and antispam software and a few other perks. It’s easy to install, easy to use and checks for updates every 4 hours by default, so you’re always up to date. There’s no support from AVG Technologies with the free version but there is an AVG user forum where you can find help from fellow users for most problems.

There are other free antivirus softwares out there. I can’t tell you much about them. I can tell you that I’ve been using AVG free for a long time and that I often install it on the computers of friends and family who don’t have antivirus software. Of course, you could buy antivirus software too but, for me, AVG’s free antivirus software works just fine. You can download it here.

Since we talked facebook yesterday, today I want to tell you about Lexulous, one of my favourite things about facebook. Lexulous used to be Scrabulous on facebook but the Scrabble people didn’t like that they used their game and sued for copyright and trademark infringement. This went on for a while until Scrabulous was eventually yanked with cries of “noooooo” from plenty of us who loved the game. Then Scrabble came out with its own game on facebook. And I think I can speak for many people in saying we did not like it. It was slower and just not the same as Scrabulous. Then a while ago, out came Lexulous which was Scrabulous’s real replacement. The guys at Lexulous had even saved the games we were playing when Scrabulous was yanked from us. Now, Lexulous is not Scrabble. Lexulous has eight tiles not Scrabble’s seven and the tiles have some different values (Z is 12 in Lexulous and 10 points in Scrabble). See the difference? All I know is that Lexulous is fun. You can have as many games going as you want and you can get to it whenever you find the time. There is a dictionary lookup for cheating, a two-word list, you can message inside the game, and if you try a word that’s not real, Lexulous will stop you. If you are on facebook and you like a game of “not-Scrabble” Lexulous is your game. I love it even though I may fall behind on some games and need to get a nudge now and then from my opponents.

Many of you, even the tech-reluctant have heard of facebook and may very well already be part of facebook. But for those who are wondering what all this is about, let’s talk facebook. Facebook is another one of those things referred to by the way overused and all-encompassing term of social networking. Basically, facebook is a way to catch up with your friends. Once you sign up, you can create a profile where you put information about yourself and a picture of yourself. Well, it should be a picture of yourself but I find a lot of my facebook friends turn out to be cats or cars or, more often, children. You can include your address, workplace, web pages, email addresses, etc. on your profile but note this profile will be available to anyone if you make your profile public or all your “friends” if you restrict it to friends only. So, provide information carefully.

You’ll note that I put the word friends in quotes before and I did so for a reason. A facebook friend is anyone who asks you to be a friend and you accept or vice versa. So along with you best friend and your sister, you might also end up being friends with an old classmate you barely remember or the parent of your child’s classmate who you met twice at birthday parties. So, again, be careful of who you become friends with and if you choose to have more friends that you don’t really know well, be careful what you share on facebook. Do you really want that fellow Kindergarten parent to see your picture from a drunken night in Cuba?

Yes, you can add pictures to facebook and video as well. That’s one of my favourite parts of facebook. I like looking at other peoples’ pictures and catching up with old friends without having to call or meet them and look at the pictures of their kids in real life. Maybe at first glance, that last line sounded sad, that I would rather meet people in cyberspace than in real life, but if I had to keep up with all the people I keep up with on facebook, I would have to spend hours with people every day and travel from here to Florida to Texas to Vancouver and well beyond. And really, while I might want to see an old teacher’s retirement party pictures, I don’t necessary want to call her and speak to her about it. Take note, though, that when you add photos and videos, pay attention to the privacy settings. You can choose who can see your photos and videos and the choices include everyone, friends of friends or friends only. I always choose friends only but I know lots of people don’t because I can see their photos even though I’m not a friend. Even choosing friends of friends means hundreds and probably thousands of people you don’t know can now see your photos or videos.

Then there’s the status updates on facebook. Like Twitter, these updates are people letting you know about what is happening in their lives, from the mundane to the exciting. There are all kinds of status updates and I’ll refer you to a post on my other blog at tinachaulk.com to get a taste of what they are.

Each person in Facebook has a wall where you can post messages to the person. Again all the friends can see the wall so private messages are best handled by another feature, a kind of email service in facebook so you can send private messages. There is also facebook chat for people who want more immediate discussions with friends. There are so many other things you can do on facebook like play games with friends, invite people to events, join or create groups, post interesting links, tell people what music you like, recommend books, I could go on and on. The easiest way to find out more about facebook is to join yourself and start looking for your friends. But a warning, it can be quite addictive.