ShareThisBy JAMES DERK
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Reader mail fills the box this week as people are hitting the stores looking for their Playstation 3. (As George Clooney said, Good Night and Good Luck.)
Q. I am tired of my e-mail account provided by my Internet Service Provider, mainly because they do not offer me remote access and my e-mail box is a tiny 10 megs. What's the best option for a freebie?
A. Obviously I have not tried them all. Google appears to offer a great deal, fast and free with lots of room, more than most people will ever need. Yahoo had a fast service but recently launched a beta of a new interface that is supposed to look like Microsoft Outlook. Trouble is, at least on my system, it is glacially slow. Microsoft's Hotmail also has lots of space and is speedy.
I would go with Google as my first choice and Hotmail second, but you can't go wrong with either one, really. You can check both from anywhere and both offer good spam filtering.
Q. My laptop's battery is not lasting very long any more. What could be wrong with it?
A. It's getting old. Discharge it all the way and charge it completely a couple of times. When you're working, set your screen brightness as dim as you can stand. Go into the Windows power settings in the control panel and tell your hard drive to spin down after 5 minutes (or just set the settings to "Max Battery")
These days with so many recalls you may have hit the battery recall lottery. Check the serial number on your battery and see if you may be due a new one for free.
If not, check eBay for typically great deals on replacements. (I'd stick with name brands if you can, though.)
Q. I am getting dozens and dozens of stock tips disguised as images in my e-mail. How can I stop this spam?
A. Me too. First of all, anyone who buys one of these stock tips ought to have their entire portfolio donated to WorldVision for the greater good. (You can tell a high-quality equity by how it is spammed to millions of people.) What's happening is the spam is hidden in the photo and therefore your ISP's spam filter can't scan the text to pick up the keywords like they do for normal spam.
And, the filters are reluctant to stop e-mails with imbedded graphics because some may be photos of grandchildren or whatever users really want.
So spam filters have to get better and actually start "reading" the graphics of incoming mail. And that's not easy.
Q. I got a pop-up that AVG Anti-Virus is no longer free. What should we use now?
A. There still is a free version of AVG 7.5 for home and non-commercial users. The pop-up was warning you of the new version and offering you the paid version, which has more features. You need to pay attention but you can still download the new free version.
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: Improve the life of a child. Head to WorldVision at www.worldvision.org and support a child this holiday season.
