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Leo's Answers Hello! Feel free to forward me to a friend! (See below for details.) If you're having problems with the formatting of this newsletter in email it's always available on the web here: http://ask-leo.com/currentnewsletter.html *** Contents
*** This Week's New Articles on Ask Leo! What is bandwidth?
That's fast. Compared to me, anyway, that's fast. Given your ISP (from your email address) and the speeds you're seeing I'd guess you probably have cable internet. I'm going to bring out the oldest metaphor I have to try and put a handle on how fast is fast. No math, but first just a teeny, tiny bit of computerese. That part's inevitable. Continue reading: "What is
bandwidth?" * * * Sometimes the only solution is to have someone look at your machine. I got a question from a friend this morning that boiled down to something like this:
I told my friend that it was questions like this that are the hardest for me, and the most frustrating. I really, honestly want to help - but... Well, here's my (slightly edited) response, and you'll see what I mean. Continue reading:
"Sometimes the only solution is to have someone look at your
machine." * * * How do I print pictures from websites so that they actually look good?
This is a simple question that, once we dig in, turns out to have both a very simple answer, and a fairly complex one. The simple answer: you can't. Not most of the time, and not with what you're asking for. The complex answer, of course is: it depends. Continue reading:
"How do I print pictures from websites so that they actually look
good?" * * * How do I send periodic email to a large number of people?
A personal email account is the wrong solution for this problem, particularly if it's Hotmail, and particularly if you actually want your messages to be delivered. There are several approaches to the general problem of sending large numbers of emails periodically. Continue reading:
"How do I send periodic email to a large number of people?" * * * How can I protect my email from being read by others using my computer?
Yes, but not really. I know, that's self contradictory, but while we'll look at a technique for you to use, you're actually violating a fundamental principal that could render anything we do moot. Continue reading:
"How can I protect my email from being read by others using my
computer?" * * * What's this spam-fighting technique called?
I do not know the name of the product that provided that functionality. However, I do know the terminology for that general class of spam fighting technique. You may find it "genius", but I gotta say ... I find it one of the most annoying techniques on the market, and would never use it myself. Among other things, you'll end up missing a lot of email you really, honestly, wanted - and probably pissing off a few of your friends. Continue reading: "What's
this spam-fighting technique called?" *** A Word from our Sponsor Your PC will continue to get
slower ... Advertisement. Ask Leo about advertising here. *** Featured Comments A sampling of some of the comments that have been posted recently on Ask Leo! * * * On Kids, Parents and the Internet JohnE writes: Children should NEVER be allowed to be online, unsupervised. Computers should always be located in the family room, never in a child's bedroom. It's not just bullies that are out there, there are plenty of predators who target children, grooming them for sexual abuse, and every child is a potential victim. Remember, these people are as skilled at entrapping kids as double glazing salesmen are at selling their wares, and if you are a parent and you don't supervise your kids online activity, you may never know that they are being set up. Cyberbullying is just the tip of a very unpleasant iceberg. While I agree with your position ("Computers should always be located in the family room...") I think that the media has overblown the real risk of things like predators and child abduction. I'm not saying that they don't happen - they do - I'm just skeptical that they're as great a risk as believing the media might lead us to believe. Bullying, on the other hand, is a real, common and constant threat. In my opinion it's the majority of that iceberg because it affects more children on a daily and ongoing basis. Leo * How can I protect my email from being read by others using my computer? Rahul writes: How 'bout keeping the emails on a USB drive (key or other portable), duly true-crypted? Ken B responds: While a USB drive would allow you to physically remove the data when you're not using the computer, nothing prevents spyware from reading the data off the USB drive while it's plugged in. As Leo said: "If it's not physically secure, it's not secure." * How should I erase my hard drive before I give it away? Mobius writes: Look for DBAN... by far the best nuke program I've ever seen. I don't know anyone that's been able to recover data off a DBAN'd drive. And trust me, I know "social engineering" people who do it all the time on weak reformats. DBAN is Darik's Boot and Nuke available at http://dban.sourceforge.net/ - and yes, it's another good solution. Leo *** This Week's Most Popular The ten most popular articles in the last 7 days on Ask Leo!
*** Leo Recommends AWeber If you're a spammer, you can stop reading now. AWeber will not help you. On the other hand, if you're considering setting up a CAN-SPAM compliant email mailing list, AWeber may be the solution for you. AWeber is an Email Service Provider (ESP) that provides bulk and sequence emailing services. The most common example might be periodic newsletters: for example I use AWeber to send out my newsletter every week to over 28,000 subscribers. Not to sound too "marketing-ish", but AWeber leads the industry in an incredibly important measurement: deliverability. Continue reading my recommendation:
"AWeber Email Service Provider for email newsletters and
more" • Each week I recommend a specific product or resource that I've found valuable and that I think you may as well. What does my recommendation mean? *** Popular Articles from the Archives Here's a podcast (with transcript) from three years ago that covers a topic most of fail to ever consider, until it's too late. Are you ready for your house to burn down? In a recent podcast entitled "Are you ready for your computer to be stolen" I discussed the needs for not only backing up, but encrypting your sensitive data. Losing it is one thing, but having sensitive personal data in the hands of thief is just as scary if not more so. So by now you're all backing up regularly, and keeping those backups in a safe place, right? A safe place ... in your house? In the same structure as your computer? Continue reading... *** Thoughts and Comments One of the neat things that I truly appreciate on Ask Leo! is the fact that folks will often answer comments before I do. As you can see in the featured comments, above, reader Rahul commented on How can I protect my email from being read by others using my computer? asking about keeping email safe on a removable drive. Before I could even get to it, Ken B responded with exactly what I was about to say. So cool when that happens. And it happens quite often. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you're not reading the comments you're missing half the meat. Readers like Ken often chime in with additional information, answers, information - and yes, occasionally even disagreeing with me. It's all very valuable. So thanks, Ken, and all the readers who take the time to leave helpful comments. I appreciate it, as I'm sure the visitors that follow do as well. And in case you haven't noticed, if you find an article that is of particular interest to you, you can now subscribe to the comments for that article using RSS. It's a great way to keep notified as new comments are posted. * As always, thanks for subscribing, reading, and for your feedback. As always, if you appreciate this newsletter or the site, one of the best ways you can say "Thank You!" is to link to Ask Leo! or simply to tell a friend or colleague. Just send folks to askleo.net. 'till next time...
* * * A selection of Leo's articles are available for free re-use at EzineArticles. Some of Leo's other sites: The Ask Leo! Store, Leo's Online Business Card, Forwarded Funnies, Taming Email, MovableType Tips, Leo's Blog, Buy Leo a Latte (or a Beer), A Letter To Myself, Dolls and Friends, Corgwn.com *** Newsletter Administration Do you have a question? A comment, perhaps? Visit http://ask-leo.com/ask to submit your questions. I'll be honest: I'll try to respond, but I get a lot of questions every day - I just can't answer everyone. Rest assured, though, that even if you don't hear from me directly, every email gets read. Leo's Answers Newsletter is a weekly publication of Ask Leo! and Leo A. Notenboom. It's also available as an RSS feed at this URL: http://ask-leo.com/newsletter.xml. Archives of previous newsletter issues can be found on the Ask Leo! web site, http://ask-leo.com/newsletter.html. Forward Me! You're quite welcome to forward this email in its entirety; it's a great way to help Ask Leo! grow. But you should probably delete your unsubscribe link below, so your friends don't unsubscribe you by accident. You may forward individual articles from this newsletter only if you include all and only the text of that article as found in this newsletter, including any links therein. You may not copy full articles from the Ask Leo! website - more on that in my section on copyright: http://ask-leo.com/terms.html#copyright. I'd sure appreciate it if regular readers got a subscription of their own. You can sign up at http://newsletter.ask-leo.com. Interested in advertising on Ask Leo! or in this newsletter? Advertising details here. Newsletter contents Copyright © 2008, Leo A. Notenboom & Puget Sound Software, LLC. Article 12482 | Posted June 10, 2008 |
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