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Welcome to this week's edition of the Computer Kindergarten Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, March 18, 2007
In this Issue:
Special Feature: Email: The Good and the Bad and How to Protect Yourself
Websites of Interest: Fire Island Lighthouse; Check the Weather Online; 1-800-Volunteer
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Special Feature: Email: The Good and the Bad and How to Protect Yourself
Email is great. It is relatively easy to learn and you can instantly and effortlessly keep in touch with family and friends around the world. It is accessible from anywhere: whether you are at home, at work, someone else’s house or on vacation, you can look at your email and never miss a message.
But, like everything else, email has a downside too. Tons of junk mail, hoaxes and scams and emails trying to trick you into sending out your personal information flood your mailbox every day.
Following is a list of the things that you can do to protect yourself, your computer and your personal information, and continue to use and enjoy email as it was meant to be.
** Use more than one email account. Have one for your home email, one for your work email and extra ones for all the other things you do online. Never give your home email address to anyone other than friends and family. Your work address only goes to associates at work. For the things you do online, which possibly could generate spam, scams and hoaxes, use other addresses. Have one for legitimate things you sign up for, where you know you will not get spam (always read the privacy policy before signing up for anything). Have another address for shopping and registering at websites - that is your disposable address. Check this one only after a purchase. If it starts getting too much spam, simply create a new address.
Free email addresses are available at yahoo.com, aol.com, hotmail.com and gmail.com.
** When an address starts to accumulate too much spam (junk email), just create another address. Do not bother to sign in and check the old address anymore; eventually it will be deleted by the provider.
** If you check your email from someplace other than your home computer, like the library or elsewhere, always remember to close the browser window. If you do not, it is possible that your username could remain on the screen for someone else to see.
** Also, when using a computer other than your own, clear out the browser cache, cookies, temporary files and history. All of those could contain personal information about you. Browsers will keep that information for your convenience; but on a public computer, you want to remove that information.
Visit our newsletter archives for instructions on clearing browser cache, cookies, temporary files and history:
http://www.computerkindergarten.com/html/020407.html
** For very private and sensitive information, use the telephone. It is a much safer option than email. This applies to any personal information, such as your address, phone number, social security number or any of your usernames and passwords, as well as, any financial information.
** Be careful what you put in an email. It is the same as putting something in writing. If you send a private thought to someone and they accidentally forward it to someone else, it might cause future problems for you.
** Do not use the Reply to All button. This will send your email to all the recipients of the original email. Unless you want everyone to see your response, click the Reply button.
** Keep other people’s email addresses safe, too. Use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) when you are emailing multiple people. If you put the addresses in the BCC line, the recipients will not be able to see any of the other addresses you are sending the email to. Ask your friends to do this, too, when sending to you.
Visit our newsletter archives for more about BCC:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/110203.html
** Do not forward email. Forwarding email can cause more spam for you and all the earlier recipients of that email. If you must forward something, make sure you delete all of the previous addresses first. This way, the person you forward the message to will not be able to see the addresses of everyone who already received the email. And, if a spammer gets that email, all those addresses will wind up on his list and start getting all that junk.
** Back up important data. That includes email, too. If you have important emails, save them to an external source: a disk, external drive, flash drive, or whatever medium you prefer to use.
Visit our newsletter archives to learn how to put files on a CD:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/100106.html
** Do not believe scam titles. You will see emails that tell you that you have won the lottery, someone wants to send you a lot of money, you have won a free laptop, iPod, etc. They are junk email. Don’t fall for the scam.
** Do not fall for phishing emails. Phishing is a scam that uses email to trick you into giving your credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security number, passwords, or other sensitive information.
A Phisher sends an email that claims to be from a business or organization you deal with – for example, your Internet service provider, bank, a website you purchase from, or even a government agency. The message usually says that you need to update or confirm your account information by giving personal information, or something bad will happen, like your account being closed. Do not believe it – no Internet service provider, bank, business or government agency will ever contact you in this manner.
Visit our newsletter archives to learn more about phishing:
http://www.computerkindergarten.com/html/062004.html
** You should never respond to spam; if you do, you are letting the spammer know that there is a real, live person at the end of the email address and you may get even more junk email. Unless you actually respond, advertisers who send spam have no way of knowing whether or not you open and read their messages, or if it is even a real email address they are sending to.
Junk email often have details about how to remove your name from a mailing list in the body of the message. This can be anything from replying to the sender with the words unsubscribe in the subject line to going to a Web site. Never respond to spam! While advertisers from legitimate businesses will usually take your name off their mailing lists, with spammers, when you try to unsubscribe you are really just confirming your email address and you're likely to wind up on more spammers' lists of valid accounts.
** When you get an email from a family member or friend, you assume it is safe to open since it is from someone you know. Unfortunately hackers are able to send out emails that look like they are coming from someone else’s address. And they are able to send these emails out to everyone in that persons address book. If you get an email from a friend where the subject line seems unusual, do not open it. Contact that person and ask if they really did send the email.
** Block spam email. If your email program has a blocked sender feature, make sure you add every junk email to the blocked senders list. Any other emails from that address will then go right into your junk mail or deleted items folder.
** Many email programs have a built in spam filter. Initially, it may put good emails into the junk folder and allow spam emails into the inbox. These filters can be trained to manage email correctly. Put your family members and friends in your address book; that will whitelist those addresses. When an email from a friend goes into your junk mail folder, mark it as not spam and move it into the inbox. When junk mail appears in the inbox, make it as spam and delete it. It takes some time to work with the filter, but eventually it will start putting emails where they belong.
** Scan email attachments. Attachments can carry viruses and other malware. It is important that these are scanned before you open them. Some email programs scan attachments when they come in; Yahoo and Gmail are examples of these types of programs. If yours does not, run a scan on the downloaded file.
Visit our newsletter archives to learn how to scan a downloaded file:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/031206.html
** Use a good password. Do not use your name, or the dog’s name, or any other word in the dictionary. Hackers will be able to crack that in seconds. A good, strong password should have at least eight characters, use a mix of letters and numbers, and lower and uppercase characters.
Visit our newsletter archives to learn more about password security:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/010905.html
With these precautions, you should keep your personal information safe and junk mail at a minimum.
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Websites of Interest:
Fire Island Lighthouse
Visit one of the prettiest and interesting places on Long Island. And, if you do not feel like taking a long walk, or going up 17 flights of stairs, you can take a virtual tour of the lighthouse on their website.
http://www.fireislandlighthouse.com/
Check the Weather Online
AccuWeather
http://accuweather.com/
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
http://www.noaa.com/
USA Today Online Weather Almanac
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wresources.htm
The Weather Channel
http://www.weather.com
1-800-Volunteer
Are you looking for a place to do some volunteer work?
http://www.1-800-volunteer.org/ |
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