Email Tips

Clean your inbox

Rick — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:14:04 -0500

Email truly revolutionized communication. The ability to retrieve a message from anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds is mind boggling. However, judging by the size of your inboxes (see this week's poll), you could benefit from some tips on how to keep your inbox clean.

I used to keep as many as many as 50 or so email stacked up in my inbox, but I always felt that I was behind in my work and consequently much of the email went unread and unanswered. A little more than a year ago, it all changed after I read an article that struck a chord with me called Email Zen. I immediately started practicing the techniques and suggestions in the article and found myself with a cleaner inbox and a better overall outlook (no pun intended) about email and my email communication. I continue to strive for the empty inbox and find that if i get more than 10, I start to get a little jumpy.

From reading that article and my own experience over the past eighteen months, here are my suggestions for reaching harmony with email:

Import Outlook Contacts into Gmail WITH Street Addresses

Rick — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:25:27 -0500

After running into this issue one to many times lately, I finally found a fast solution. Problem: Outlook users who want to export their address books (contacts) and import them into Gmail can get almost everything imported except street addresses. It's maddening. Madness be gone, the solution is now just a few steps away.

Exporting your contacts from Outlook:

Open Outlook (note this is NOT Outlook Express)
Click File --> Import/Export
Click Export to a file
Click Next
Click Comma Separated Values (Windows) option
Click Next
Click Contacts from the list of your

read more

Creating an email group in Gmail - Video Tip

Rick — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:50:13 -0500

I'm thrilled that so many people are heeding my advice and starting to use Gmail. Search Gmail here at the site to find three how-to videos about Gmail to see why so many people are jumping to Gmail.

New Gmail users frequently ask me how to setup an address group in Gmail. Groups allow you to send a single email to a group of people in your address book by addressing the message to the group instead of the individuals in the group.

To create the group:

In Gmail, click the contacts link
Click the New Group icon
Type a name for your new group
Click OK
Click All Contacts
Place a check mark in the boxes of the contacts you want to belong to your new group
Click the Groups menu
Click the name of the group you want for them

That's it! It makes more sense watching it being done so watch the video below to see these steps in action AND see how to use your group after you have built it!

Can your email be read like Sarah Palin's?

Rick — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:55:57 -0500

Not likely. In the Sarah Palin case, her Yahoo email account was not hacked...her password was hacked. That means the hackers guessed Sarah Palin's password (maybe it was hockeymom). Seriously, it could have been that easy. More likely, however, the hackers used sophisticated programs that were used to crack the password.

The number one defense you possess to safeguard your email, bank account, or any other online account is a strong password.

A strong password contains a mix of upper and lower case letters, numerals, and special characters like (# @ ! * & _ - + ).
Never use the same password for all your accounts.
Never use words that can be found in a dictionary (these are the easiest to hack)
Change your important account passwords often.

I know, I know..."It's too hard to remember.". Write it down! No one said you have to memorize it. Write it down, but keep it in safe place and don't forget where you put it. OR, you can use any number of password manager programs. Read my Password Mania tip for more info.

If you aren't running for Vice President of the free world, you automatically reduce your chances of being hacked by almost 1 billion times. But, don't get lazy and leave your account information open to the chance of being hacked.

Create a Permanent Email Address for Yourself

Rick — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:50:51 -0500

Are you tired of having to change your email address when your Internet provider goes out of business or gets gobbled up by another provider, or you move, or you just want to change Internet providers?

Informing everyone in your address book that you have changed email addresses doesn't take a great deal of time, but it is annoying nonetheless. In today's Shotgun article, I explain how you can create an address that is permanently yours regardless of who you use for an Internet provider.

Gmail guide for beginners - 3 Videos - Video Tip

Rick — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:54:08 -0500

This week's video tip is a HelpMeRick.com first...it involves 3 videos to cover the topic of Gmail. Directly above each video below, I give a short synopsis of the videos contents. The more I use it, the more impressed I am with Gmail. If you currently use Gmail, don't be afraid to watch these videos as you might pick up a tip or two yourself.

Google offers a good Help section covering their email system, and you can find it by clicking here. My short video series here are meant to just get you started quickly and give you the highlights of this email system.

Web mail...remember web mail

Rick — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:39:58 -0500

Believe it or not, there are still folks out there using dial-up Internet. As email attachments grow in size with full-size pictures and videos, even email can be difficult for dial-up users.

Bresnan Email Woes

Rick — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:18:24 -0500

Although this tip targets one particular Internet provider, ANY computer user will benefit from the advice I give at the end of the article. In Western Colorado, a company called Bresnan provides a large swath of the cable services...including cable Internet. Overall, I have no problems with the Bresnan service. They run an extremely speedy and pretty stable Internet connection.

However, my beef with the service has always been their sub-standard email service.

Only 50 megabytes of space per email address (most services offer 1000 megabytes and up)
Horrific spam filtering...filters legit email, and lets a lot of spam through
Web mail application is among the worst I've seen

Over the past few weeks, Bresnan customers have been pleasantly surprised to see that all of the sudden 99% or more of their spam messages have stopped arriving in either their screened mail folder or their inbox. They were happy. What they and I didn't start to figure out until this week was

Use Disposable Email Addresss to thwart spam

Rick — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:54:16 -0500

In our monthly computer user group today, the discussion some how made its way to disposable email addresses. Many web sites offer free, disposable email addresses you can create for one time use to sign up for a temporary web services, or make an inquiry to a web site that you don't want to have your real email address. Beyond anonymity, using a disposable email address will reduce the amount of spam that comes into your real email inbox.

Good news for Vista users

Adam — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:24:59 -0500

We love Cloudmark Desktop. It is the best spam filter on the planet and that has been proved by very complicated scientific tests.

The only problem with Cloudmark Desktop is that it only works in Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird. Until now, Vista users who wanted to benefit from the powerful filtering of Cloudmark had to switch their email application over to Thunderbird or Outlook. It would not work in the free Windows Mail (Vista version of Outlook Express).

Well, those days are gone. Cloudmark has released a beta version of Cloudmark Desktop for Windows Mail.