Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Frances K.: I’ve been using Gmail for several years and I really like it. But I heard yesterday that Google reads every email that’s sent or received.
Is that true? If it is I’m going to stop using Gmail and start using something else for my email.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Microsoft’s Outlook.com web mail service is a sleek alternative to Gmail, and I really like it.
That being said, it does come with one major annoyance: It insists on waiting a while between checks for new messages on POP3 email accounts.
But what if you’re expecting an important email that really needs to hit your inbox as soon as possible?
Outlook.com doesn’t come with a Send/Receive button and you can’t alter its built-in schedule for checking POP3 email accounts, but if you really need to check for a new email RIGHT NOW you can force it to check a specific POP3 account any time you wish with this workaround: [Read more…]
Much to the chagrin of the Postal Service, the number of emails sent each day far exceeds the number of “snail mail” letters sent during the same time period. And for good reason…
Instead of writing a letter, stuffing it in an envelope, putting a stamp on it, mailing it, and waiting to see if it ever arrives at its intended destination at some point in the future, you can simply type out an email, click “Send” and have it land in the recipient’s inbox in seconds.
But the convenience and low cost (virtually free) of email comes with one major drawback: It is completely insecure. Since they are not encrypted, email messages can be intercepted and read at any “stop” along their digital routes.
As luck would have it, it’s easy to encrypt emails before they are sent using most any of the major online email providers (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc.) with a browser add-on called Enlocked.
Follow the steps below to check it out: [Read more…]
Have you ever wished you could easily switch from one email provider to another without losing any of your stored emails, attachments or contacts?
For example, lets say you’ve heard that Gmail is the best thing since sliced bread, and you’d like to ditch your Yahoo Mail account and transfer all of your existing emails, attachments and contacts from Yahoo to a new Gmail account (or vice versa).
A great online service called YippieMove will complete the transfer for you in the background while you use your computer for other things. [Read more…]
Microsoft recently announced the release of their brand new web-based email service Outlook.com, and the press release made it sound too good not to take for a spin.
Since I love the thought of being able to access my POP3 email accounts via any web browser on any PC and Outlook.com sounded like it might be a great solution, I signed up for an account and imported all of my POP3 email accounts into it.
After putting Outlook.com through its paces for a week, here are my impressions and recommendations: [Read more…]