IT Queries: Computer problems answered

My system is ms 2000 and I have a problem with Incredimail.

When I try to send or forward an email once I click on send the window freezes and I have to press alt ctrl delete to be able to shut down.  I am still on dialup.  I have rung my ISP who told me to change my outgoing stmp to 124.254.72.68 but this made no difference.

Is there anything to fix this or is it time to get a new computer ?

A Windows 2000 system is pushing 12 years old, which is over a hundred in computer years, so it may be worthwhile buying a new system.

With the Incredimail problem, it may be related to the Windows Scripting Host, you can download the most recent version that works with Windows 2000 from the Microsoft web site.

If that doesn’t work, you should look at giving your computer a clean up which may help. Of course, make sure you’ve backed up your data before running the programs.

Once you’ve done all the cleanups, it will be worth visiting the Windows Update website and run any outstanding updates.

Updating Incredimail may help as well, although it may simply be time for a new computer.

I have a problem with spammers using my domain name to send out their spam. They must forge the “From” address so that the spam looks like it comes from my domain, when it could in fact be coming from any PC in the world. In many cases, the “From” address that the spammer uses isn’t quite right anyway, eg. instead of myname@mydomain.com.au, it might be gobbledigook@mydomain.com.au.

The problems are:

1) My domain sometimes gets blacklisted which makes it impossible for me to send my own email to my own customers

2) I get the occasional complaint from people who think I’ve actually sent them the spam

3) And most annoyingly, my inbox is frequently full of literally hundreds of  ”Postmaster” auto-responses, because many (possibly most) of the email addresses that the spammer sends to are not legitimate addresses, but because my domain is in the “From” or “Reply To” field,  I’m the bunny who ends up with all the automated “Your email could not be delivered” errors!

This seems to happen in waves – it won’t happen for ages, and then I will be bombarded for a couple of days by this nuisance.

Is there any way of preventing this from happening?

Spammers use a number of ways to avoid detection and one of them is to hijack someone else’s email address or domain as the return address. 

The frustrating thing is there’s little you can do about the problem and it is a really irritating problem that affects many people who own domains.

One thing you should check is how your website is hosted. Spam checkers shouldn’t disqualify your address because of this and it sounds like you are using shared hosting where the provider isn’t doing all they can to discourage spammers from using their service.

You may find changing hosting services will fix the blacklist problem

When I send an email with an attached photograph. It doesn’t appear to leave my Outbox but arrives at its destination as many as 19 times. I have contacted our service provider, Harbour IT who took me through a series of tasks but the problem still exists. Can you help?

The likely suspect is the time your email program waits before giving up. You need to change your timeout settings.

In Outlook Express, click Tools, Accounts, highlight your email account and click the properties button.

In the account properties window, click the Advanced tab and under Server Timeouts move the slider to the extreme right, which will show the timeout as being five minutes.

Click okay, restart the computer and see if that clears the problem.

Not able to send using Reply and Forward with broadband BigPond on Outlook emails. We just get a standard reject email.

We have emailed bigpond re this issue several times and though they said they would address the issue in a general email they have not come back to us.

The reason is your email is setup to use the Optus Broadband connection. When you’re connecting through Bigpond, the Optus servers reject the attempt to go through system as they don’t know who you are.

To fix this, you have to set up Outlook Express to use the Bigpond servers.

To do this, open Outlook Express, click  Tools, Accounts, highlight Bigpond and click the Properties button.

In the properties, the servers should both be set to mail.bigpond.com, the account name should be your Bigpond email address and the password your Bigpond password. Remember my password should be ticked and nothing else should be ticked.

Click okay and close then Outlook Express should be fine.

I keep getting attachments with a .ics at the end of them. What are they and should I be worried?

An .ics attachment is an iCalendar file. Somebody is probably trying to invite you to an event so you don’t need to be worried about them.

If you are running Outlook Express or a version of Outlook older than 2ooo (Outlook 200o needs service pack 3 to read them properly) then you won’t be able to read them.

Should you want to enter these into a calendar you’ll have to look at another program. Google’s online calendar is one that handles iCal files without a problem.

I run a mailing list for my football club and I’ve started using Outlook to send invites for meetings and events. The people who don’t use Outlook are complaining they can’t read the invites. How do I fix this?

The problem is the format Microsoft Outlook uses for invites. The industry standard is  iCalendar which applications like GroupWise and Google Calendar can read, however Outlook uses its own format which most other programs can’t read.

Outlook 2003 and 2007 will allow you to change the setting so you can send the calendar invitations.

Open Outlook and click Tools, Options then select the Preference tab. Click the Calendar Options button and tick the box alongside “When sending meeting requests over the Internet, use iCalendar format”. 

Click okay and the problem should be resolved. 

Note that people using older versions of Outlook may not be able read iCalendar invites and Outlook Express doesn’t support calendars at all.

I have Vista on a computer in one state and XP on a computer in another state.  I have a large email list with many group lists.  I can export/import the address book from XP in Vista.  But when I return I cannot export/import the list from Vista to XP.  It will not allow the group lists, which I need.

Over 2000 email addresses and about 25 group lists, frequently changing.  I am in my 70\’s and send out daily messages to retirees as a volunteer.  How can I get the group lists from Vista Windows Mail to XP’s Outlook Express.

With Vista, Microsoft introduced a new address book that isn’t compatible with the older Windows Address Book (WAB) used by XP and earlier versions of Windows. 

Like many things in Vista, the new Windows Contacts added complexity without adding any worthwhile new features.

Unfortunately, we can’t find a solution to transferring groups from Vista back to a Windows Address Book. The best we can suggest is using another email program such as Mozilla Thunderbird or a third party contact manager such as the free Open Contacts.

Given you have so many contacts to manage, it may be worthwhile talking to your ISP or web host to see if they include a list management service, some will do this for free while other will charge a nominal fee for it. Either way, you may find this simplifies your life and saves you a lot of time.

I have set up a home wireless network with a main Dell desktop and a Dell notebook both running Vista home premium and Live Mail.

Is there a way the laptop can receive emails please?

I have tried forwarding them without success and thought I had configured everything to share emails,but apparently not.The laptop will operate email on its own but messages that come thru to our email address stop at the desktop.

If you are using Windows Live Mail it’s probably easiest to simply use the web based service by just logging on through the web browser on both machines. That way you’ll have a common address book and sent items.

The downside with doing that is you can’t use it while you’re offline.

If you want to use an email client like Windows Mail or Outlook you’ll have to change the advanced settings of the email program to leave a copy of the messages on the server as we’ve shown in an earlier query.

Should you do this, make sure you tick the option to delete the mail after a certain number of days or eventually your email will clog up.

We have currently changed providers from optus to bigpond.  Everything has installed ok.  However, when people send us an email they get an error message refering to the optus account.  This account has been cancelled and I have checked this again to make sure.  The email still gets through to the bigpond address.  I have removed and reinstalled Outlook 2003 and the problem still persists.  Is there anything I can do?

Unfortunately the problem is at the senders’ ends, they are sending a mail to the Optus account. 

You can check this by sending an email to yourself.

You’ll need to confirm with them they are sending only to the @bigpond.com address and not including the @optusnet.com.au

If they are only sending to the Bigpond address then you’ll have to check with them that email forwarding isn’t setup and trying to send the message onto the old Optus account.

Thank you for your quick response to our hotmail question. Can you please tell me how it is possible for someone to hijack an email address? We have changed the password, and checked for viruses(none). Thanks again.

Unfortunately there’s no one answer to this. The most common answer is they have simply guessed, many people’s passwords simply aren’t very secure.

Other ways are users not logging out of public computers at places like Internet cafes, airport lounges and business centres properly, which gives others the opportunity to log in.

In other cases it might be that family members or former work colleagues have known you passwords and accidentally given them away.

The worse case scenarios are that someone has hacked your computer or Internet connection and was able to extract your passwords.

Finally, it could be simply poor security at the email providers end. Some systems have bugs that let bad guys crack the passwords, although we haven’t had any reports of recent problems at Hotmail.

Overall though it pays to be a touch paranoid with your passwords. They are too valuable to lose.