Areas of Consulting
Contact
Main Design's
|
OUTLOOK EXPRESS
TOOLS OPTIONS SETTINGS
Here are the settings that I generally use for OE. They are not applicable to everyone especially
those who work in strict corporate environments.
Not every detail has been discussed or analyzed because OE has enough parameters to fill a book and
for good reason as it is linked to your address book and to your browser.
Please remember that some changes to your options will not be effected until you close and restart the program.
GENERAL
If you look at the settings here, what you will see is that I have not set OE to download and read my email
messages automatically. This is because I use a front-end program to deal with spam first
and that program normally starts OE for me. Also, I do not use OE for user groups.
I have found that there are other programs better to deal with that.
READ
Automatically download message.... This is one of those
phrases that at first glance most users take for granted. There is a deceptive meaning to this
parameter that is not openly evident unless you probe the finer explanations that Microsoft provides.
Basically, this setting along with the XP SP2 (service pack 2) are supposed to help protect users from malicious
code and prevent or reduce spamming. To understand how this works, here is an example.
Someone emails you with an html email, you know those are the ones with advertising or pretty pictures.
You pass your mouse over the picture and lo and behold it is a hidden link that opens your browser while at the
same time, it is informing the sender's server of your email address. Now that sender has a program
that verifies your email address as being active and so you receive more spam from them or from others that the
sender sells your email address to. At the same time, if your browser opened, then it is possible for
the sender to initiate the installation of a program on your system. That program can be a virus or
a password grabber or anything else. Not good if you use e-banking, think about it.
You are safer unchecking this setting although you may not see anything very different when you use OE because
this should help reduce or eliminate this stealth linking to html webpages.
My explanation does not provide a 100% certainty because neither does Microsoft.
Note that the READ option is also affected by what pararmeters you choose in the SECURITY option.
The effect of disabling Automatically download message affects only hotmail accounts.
Receipts
Not all email servers acknowledge receipts and most home users need not bother requesting or sending them.
Unchecking it will save you internet bandwidth unless you really need it.
SEND
Every wonder how or why all those email addresses got into your address book!
Here is the reason. If you have this parameter checked, then every email that you reply to is
recorded in your address book. While some of you may think that this is good others do not.
One way around this is to keep multiple address books, yes it is possible but that is for a different section.
If you uncheck this setting, then you add only those that you wish to add into your address book, the default is checked.
By unchecking this setting, you can add email addresses to your address book simply by clicking once on the email that you
see, then right mouse click and select add sender to address book. You will want to open your address book to correct
the person's name especially if they haven't setup their account properly.
As you are probably using OE, the mail sending format is normally set to html. This provides you with the
opportunity to write and format your messages in a similar way that you can using Word. If you
wish to send your message without any formating on occassion, do not uncheck this, simply create a new
email and select Format on the menu Plain Text and no more formatting, fonts, etc. to deal with.
This is a better way to do it since it only applies to that particular email.
News group users should generally use Text mode because the news groups deal with different operating systems.
COMPOSE
For those of you who like fonts, this is the place where you can set the font that you wish to use.
If you are writing in a foreign language though, you should beware that not all of those fonts will work with
your language, e.g. Greek.
Also remember that if you happen to like a peculiar font, that it may not be available to the person receiving
your email.
For those of you sending emails in Greek using non-Greek Windows, yes there are different versions of
Windows, you may see a window pop-up when sending the email. You should choose AS IS
so that you message is sent using unicode. Windows and OE will take care of the rest for the
person receiving the message normally.
SIGNATURES
No picture here, I think that most can figure out what they can do here.
SPELLING
If you are using one of the major languages this probably works great but if you are using Greek well
you are better off composing your message in Word and spell checking it there, copying it and simply
paste it into the email or because OE can integrate with Word simply sent it from there.
SECURITY
Another area that handles nasty emails. Basically using the stronger settings should help
most users stay safe.
Warn me when other applications try to send email as me is another spam protection to hopefully prevent those
clever spammers from trying to fool you by using your own name as the sender.
Download Images - If you check this setting then you will not be able to see embedded pictures that your friends
send you. Could be a terrific idea for those of you who don't want them!
CONNECTION
If you are using dial-up, then it is most likely that you will find these parameters in use. This area
will automatically connect you to the internet if you open OE or attempt to send an email from say Word even though
you did not establish an internet connection manually through your modem.
Unchecking Ask befoer switching connections will disable that if you want to manually connect to the internet using
your dial-up shortcut or icon from the Start Program Accessories Communications Network Connections.
MAINTENANCE
Here you can set OE to empty your delete messages from the trash automatically by checking that parameter but if
you are like me then you probably want to empty the deleted folder by a right click of your mouse on the folder when
you are sure that there are no messages in there worth looking at again.
You can change your email folder storage where your email files are kept.
See the previous page for more information.
|
|
