Tag: microsoft outlook technical support
Why peeking in the Junk Mail or Spam folder is important
Simple blog today folks.
I hear this on occasion, “I found your email in my junk folder,” so I felt there was value to writing up a blog about the junk/spam folder. When I am remoted into a computer repairing Outlook, I usually have to do an email test to insure it’s sending/receiving and many times…my email doesn’t show up on the client’s computer. The same email is in my inbox, but when I reply, it’s in their junk folder. It wasn’t junk! It was a test email and that should not be flagged period. But it is. The subject line was just “test”.
We have two things to discuss.
- Subject lines can get an email into junk
- Any email can get into junk
These two things are important to remember and you might have important emails sitting in your junk folder. I check mine daily and find tons of little goodies sitting in there. Emails from colleagues, clients, my staff, it doesn’t matter…it finds its way there. A good reminder for you is to check your junk/spam folder on occasion and make sure you’re not missing an important email.
How to survive the Windows 7 White Screen of Death (WSOD)
Goodbye blue screen of death, welcome white screen of death! If you haven’t experienced it yet, consider yourself lucky. (It is annoying.) I get them when I use Outlook 2010 and I have a fast computer, or so I think. My laptop at home that gets the WSOD has 4 gigs of ram. My computer at work has 8 gigs of ram and I get the WSOD occasionally on that computer, too. I do not believe it’s caused by lack of memory. I have tried to troubleshoot this issue for months now and for the most part I have concluded that it’s pushing the bigger programs that are using Windows 7 to their max.
Now, let’s begin with what the WSOD is.
Sometimes while working in the internet or especially in Outlook 2010, or just doing too many things at one time, your computer will start to look cloudy and everything you worked on looks transparent. The application you were working in is totally in a white screen of death mode and frozen up. If you go to the bottom tasks, you can usually continue to work in those, as they aren’t frozen up.
Do not start clicking, clicking and clicking in the white screen of death application. Clicking more only causes the computer to stay frozen or continue to white screen. Your best recourse of action is to just let it ride out. If you don’t need the application and data you were working on (like internet surfing, etc), you can end the task in windows and re-open a new browser window, or do what I do (as I am very impatient!), open a new browser all together, such as Firefox or Chrome. If you do need the data you were working on, the best thing to do is just ride out the storm. Most of the time in Outlook 2010 it will figure itself out and be back to normal in a few minutes. If after five or ten minutes it’s still there, you probably have to hard crash it and the email you were scripting up may be in your drafts or might not be.
If you are getting these WSOD’s often within Outlook, you may want to book some time with me as I have a few setting changes that can help lift that problem, or your email folder size may be too large and you will need to slim it down a bit. The WSOD with Outlook can also come from IMAP settings. I love and adore IMAP, so I had to clean up a lot of my email that was synching with IMAP, works much better now.
What I have learned to do is change settings, clean up the computer more and delete and manage my email better. For IE white screens, it is just using fewer tabs. All simple solutions to make the WSOD become less frequent.
If you are experiencing the WSOD and would like us to take a look at it, call us at 612-865-4475 or send us an email – info@callthatgirl.biz.
Comcast users should avoid installing Norton/Symantec
If you are experiencing a problem with Norton and want assistance, feel free to submit a ticket by clicking here….we know both Comcast and Norton well and can help you with this, quickly and with an affordable rate. Get 20% off your call by mentioning this blog post.
As most of the Minneapolis/St. Paul readers of this blog know, our choices of getting high speed internet are limited to pretty much 2 corporations in town. Comcast and Qwest. As a residential computer repair tech, here is how I see the choices being made.
- Home users with a phone/landline, have Qwest.
- Home users without a phone/landline have Comcast.
According to my website statistics, in the past month out of almost 4000 visitors, 1800 are cable users 951 are DSL. This also includes visitors from around the world too, so it’s not just local stats, but interesting nonetheless.
Now, on to my latest Comcast rant. According to their press relase dated Jan 20th, 2010
http://www.comcast.com/About/PressRelease/PressReleaseDetail.ashx?PRID=957
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Comcast Partners With Symantec to Offer Award-Winning Norton Security Suite to Its High-Speed Internet Customers
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Norton Offers Superior Protection, Robust Family Safety Tools and Fast Scanning Speeds
Call That Girl has a problem with this press release. Norton/Symantec is far from “Award winning” in our computer repair shop. Norton/Symantec is one of the antivirus programs that I see in the shop BY FAR more than any other. Not only are they not catching the latest Malware viruses, but the program is so slow for some users, that they call us to figure out why it’s slow…only to have me SHOW them, their Norton/Symantec is killing their computer. Of a slow painful death. I also have to add, I call it far from ROBUST. Sure it has all the bells and whistles, but it doesn’t work.
- Pay us to remove it? Sure
- Remove it yourself? Great!
- Never install it? BEST CHOICE
- Install and purchase a Malwarebytes Anti Malware license? Most awesome choice! Click on the image below to get Malwarebytes with CTG’s anti-virus protection plan.
Mind you, I also wasn’t a fan of the McAfee product they used to give away either, but if I had to make a choice of one over the other…I would probably chose McAfee.
To close, I will add that Qwest used to (not sure if they do now) offer Windows Live One Care, but they probably won’t be in the future, as it’s being discontinued.
http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-in/default.htm?mkt=en-in
Microsoft’s replacement product though is is quite nice. Read my blog a couple down for a review on that.
If you are here and want to start your own computer repair business, check out my blog series about How to start a computer repair business
How to get your email under control
Last night I was talking to a friend about email and how out control people let it get. I have a few concerns about email. My biggest is why it takes some people days to reply to a simple email. But then I thought about it and I do the same thing. I read it, but won’t reply right away. My biggest problem is that I have 5 ways to check my email and only one of them is where I actually “control” where the emails go. Aka…have folders to sort them in and run rules.
Here is my take on it…
Email Etiquette
Normally, when YOU email someone, you want something from them, have a question, need information or are sending them requested information. As the recipient receives the email, they read it but then mentally sort you into a “mental folder”…
Reply now! She’s important and I need her to communicate back right now!
Ah, I can reply later...This is not that important, but tomorrow I will have more time to reply properly.
oh crap, this again….This is far from important, but you should reply at in the next week or so.
the Dread….I seriously didn’t want this email and really…I don’t need to reply and I won’t. (((delete)))
Now what you should be doing is having folders set up and run some rules to organize all this email. I have about 50 folders for my Outlook in the office. I have rules running for many different topics. Example? All my Linkedin emails go to the “Linkedin” folder. I can see when I have new email and as Linkedin is important, my clients come first. I breeze the Linkedin folder as I see new items, but it’s usually not important.
What about the non-folder items? I read the email, then move each email to different folders.
“Stuff to do later” (which means I may get to it, maybe I won’t)
And then I have oodles of subcategories because not all these emails require a reply or did and I replied and it’s now in a folder for archiving.
My inbox is always clean when I leave the office at the end of the day.
Newsletter Etiquette
We all gets tons of “spam/junk”. What constitutes junk or spam? To me, getting a newsletter from someone I met at a networking event or via LinkedIn is not spam or junk. What is? Viagra and emails from Nigeria telling me I was willed $E100000. How do you handle the junk/spam from someone you know or met F2F or online? Here are my simple rules:
If they are giving information that has value, I keep it.
If they are pushing workshops or just info about themselves, I unsubscribe. I get way too much email a day and know who they are and how to contact them, so it’s just best to get off that list.
Yes, it may seem rude, but I have a huge database that I email a few times a month and see people unsubscribe to my newsletters and many are my clients. They aren’t interested in what I have to say about this and that, etc. I get it! I don’t care….so don’t think you are going to hurt someone’s feelings, business is business and email is alot of my workday.
Last tip! DO NOT have 100’s of unread email either! It only brings you down and you should clean that up and start fresh! I love helping clients clean up their emails….it feels refreshing for them and me. If you’re interested in having me help, I can do that remotely and over the phone.
Happy Wed!