Inbox

By DON McALLISTER

Welcome to InBox, where we attempt to answer your internet questions.

Q. Tony asks: "Can you advise me on how to prevent all the garbage floating on the net from cluttering up my email?"

A. Unfortunately for me, Tony, the Herald Inbox address is a prime target, so I manually created filters to eliminate unsolicited "Junkmail". Yes, programs such as Spamkiller (Available online for US $39.95) will do it but the spammers will invariably find ways around every popular solution given enough time, so why pay for what you can set up yourself for free! Find a common denominator and filter for that. Most versions of Outlook have a simple free "Wizard" for this task which you can find under Tools/Message rules or Tools/Rules Wizard.

Q. Chris connects to her e-mail account, but as she reads the very first message, Outlook Express 6 terminates the connection, forcing her to log on again.

A. It's a common complaint with an easy solution, Chris. Go to Tools/Options/Connection. Remove the tick from "Hang up after sending and receiving."

Q. Does your modem make strangled duck noises during logon? Mo wants to lose the modem noise while connecting.

A. I prefer to hear those connection sounds, Mo. They tell me when the line I've grabbed is noisy and therefore likely to cause speed problems. But it's simple to switch them off. In windows XP go to Start/Control Panel/Phone and Modem/Modems. Highlight the modem you use and click Properties/Modem. Slide the speaker volume to the left (Off). For early versions of Windows, you will find the slide control in Start/Settings/Control Panel/Modems/General/Properties.

Q. Rosie saw an Inbox recommendation to use Microsoft Windows Update and asks what are the pros and cons to updating - for example Internet Explorer 5 to Internet Explorer 6?

A. Microsoft posts updates and enhancements regularly to fix known bugs and vulnerabilities after a product release, Rosie. Fail to get updates and you may find you miss out on new features or, more seriously, become susceptible to malicious code designed to use known problems. On the down side, the latest software requires plenty of resources; it sometimes pays to check older hardware has no known issues, before updating.


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