• Keep messages brief --use bullets, short sentences
• Send email to only the people that really need to see it
• Resist the temptation to send it to everyone in your address book
• Think before clicking on Reply All. Use Reply All only when you're certain that the original recipients of the message need to see your reply.
• Think twice about attaching a document, especially if there are only a few paragraphs. Instead, copy the text into the body of the email.
• Email is best suited to factual information exchange, such as: asking a question, replying to a question, stating your opinion, etc. It is not well-suited to carrying on extended disagreements and/or discussions.
• Email does not replace face-to-face contact. When a group must make decisions, plot strategy or reach consensus, a meeting is better than each member of the group attempting to communicate with others using email.
• Be professional in your tone
• Although email can seem a casual or transient, it lives forever. Before sending an email note ask yourself, "How would I feel if everyone could read this?"
• Consider the consequences of your email being publicly shared
• WHEN YOU TYPE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS IN EMAIL it's the equivalent of shouting-and it's difficult to read and the message loses its impact
• Use italics and/or bold type sparingly for emphasis

Final Words

All these programs can make your life that little bit easier, and hopefull you will give them a shot, and see just how good these programs are. After all their all free, and they are all easy to uninstall should you decide that their just not right for you.

Checking iPod Touch / iPhone Firmware

To check if you have the correct Firmware to do this, simply plug your iPod Touch / iPhone into your computer and open up iTunes. You should see something like this:

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The part highlighted in red (on my screenshot, not your screen) entails your Firmware version. If it is not 2.0 this will not work.

Taking the Screenshot

Taking a screenshot on the iPod Touch / iPhone is very easy. Simply press the Home Button and the Sleep / Wake Button at the same time. You should see a flash when the screenshot it taken.

Note: Make sure you don't hold the buttons down, if you do for too long you could force shutdown your iPod Touch / iPhone.

Emailing the Screenshot

Now that you've taken the screenshot all that is left is emailing the picture to either yourself or your friends. It is a pretty simple thing to do, and I've got a lot of pictures to guide you.

Go to the Photos Application on your iPod Touch / iPhone. It should say “Photos” under it. When you get there you should see something like this:

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Click on the “Saved Photos” Album, you should now see something like this:

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If there is only one photo in the album just click on that image, if there are more, click on the image that looks like the screenshot that you took. You should see something like this now (a different screenshot though, of course):

(View Full)

You'll want to push on the bottom in the lower left corner of the screen (the button is shown in the screenshot above). You should then see a menu; select the “Email Photo” option (shown below):

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You should be redirected to the Mail Application. Note: You must have an email account setup on your iPod Touch / iPhone, if you don't go here for a guide on how to set that up. This is what you should see if you have an account set up:

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Type in the email address(es) of the person(s) you want to email the screenshot to. If you have their email in your Address Book on your iPod Touch / iPhone then you can just type their name as I did (shown below):

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Hit send and you're done! Whoever you emailed the screenshot to should receive it in their email soon. Note: If you're on the iPod Touch you'll have to wait until you have WiFi to be able to email the photo. Here's my screenshot as I received it in my email:

(View Full)

I hope you enjoyed my guide! If you have any other friends curious about how to do this, make sure to refer them here.

Realizing you have a spam problem does not mean you went on some forbidden website or have compromised your email security. The people who use spam to try to get you to come to their web sites or to buy something are pretty clever. They buy email addresses from people and have other ways of hacking or finding out your email address without you ever giving it to them. So do not feel that you are being personally targeted by spam. If you get an spam email, that was probably part of a mass broadcast of that advertisement to tens of thousands of email addresses that spammers try to get to in hopes that a few "suckers" will be taken in and fall for their schemes.

The battle against spam seems to be an endless one. The things you can do seem to work for a while and then somehow things change and the spammers start getting through to you again. You can buy software that is supposed to control it. But what we don't see is that there is a continuous battle of wits going on between people who seem to insist on sending out spam and those who are making money stopping it. Each time spammers come up with some new trick or tactic to get their emails to your inbox, the anti-spam people come out with a "new and improved" product to stop it, which of course, you have to buy.

But that just seems to excite the spammers who have endless patience and technical savvy to figure out around the latest blocks and get through again. And so the cycle continues to repeat and the only ones who seem to be doing well in this ugly battle are the people you pay for anti-spam software. You would almost suspect that they are cooperating in the cycle because it sure does line their pockets each time you have to upgrade your spam software to block the latest waves of spam.

But the confusion and the burden of spam doesn't just end with having to spend your hard earned money on software to stop it. Once you get the software, you have to "train" it. Software designed to stop spam has to somehow know the difference between spam and good emails. If your spam software is too "aggressive", it can end up filtering out emails you need and want which can be even more of a problem than the spam in the first place.

So your installation of the software has to learn from you what key words you want to block that it might "see" in the message box or the body of an email message. Often there is a "blocked list" where you can add any email addresses that send you spam and the software will filter them out and send them to the deleted emails folder or a special folder just for spam. It keeps that special folder so you can quickly scan what it puts there before deleting anything in case the software made any mistakes.

The result is that in exchange for spam "protection,", you get a new hobby of constantly finding new email address that are being used to send you spam and adding them to the blocked list. Spammers know this trick and it seems they can create new email addresses faster than you can add the old ones to the blocked list. Blocking on dirty words or certain key words like "Viagra" or "get rich quick" is also somewhat effective but not totally because as soon as spammers figure out what you are doing, they change their strategies and get their spam to you.

You add to that the daily chore of reviewing the "spam folder' where the bad emails were sent to make sure nothing valid went there and you really have not eliminated the problem of spam. You have just organized it into a bunch of habits you have to be in every day to constantly battle the flood of spam coming your way. It is pretty maddening especially when you consider you have to pay the spam software companies for the privilege of constantly training their software to do a so-so job for you. You wonder sometimes who is training who.

There has to be a better way. And in fact, there is a better way that not only is free, it is effective because it reduces the amount of "maintenance" you have to do tremendously. You still must take a few steps each week to keep this system working but it is a slick, simple and effective way to cycle all spam to trash and keep all of your good email isolated. It is so simple that you will wonder why you didn't think of it yourself. Here is how it works.

A New Way of Seeing Email

The problem is we have been looking at this problem all wrong. The approach we just reviewed is based on an assumption that we must fight all bad email from getting into our inbox by pushing it to a quarantine box. So you get into that constant battle of figuring out the originating email address and adding it to the "blocked senders" list so your software can catch that sender and send that email to the designated folder. Then the spammers change their email addresses and the fight is new all over again the next day.

Obviously, the fight to keep your inbox full of only pure emails is a losing one. Like many problems of this nature, maybe instead of trying to find new ways to fight the battle, we need to change the terms of the fight to give the advantage to you and me. The heart of that new approach lies in one basic question which is …

What is so Holy About that Inbox?

Instead of fighting to push all bad email to a quarantine box, what if we changed the way we saw the battle over email. Instead, what if we "quarantined" good email and let the spammers have the inbox? This is a far more controlled approach and if you implement it correctly, you can put this solution in place with no extra software to buy and very little effort. You just have to use a tool that is…

Right Under Your Nose

There is actually some anti-spam tools built right into most email software such as Microsoft Outlook. In fact, you may be already using one of the most effective tools for managing spam that is not really identified as a spam tool. It is the facility Outlook gives you to route email to email folders you create based on keywords or email addresses. So you can identify all of the email addresses from your family and as soon as they arrive, Outlook can put those in a "family" folder so you know what they are.

This is a terrific feature especially if you get a lot of emails. You can have your newsletter subscriptions go to one email folder, work related emails to another and emails from family and friends to another and keep things straight like this. But this is a tool that can very easily become a foolproof spam protection system that doesn't cost a dime beyond what you paid for your email software. It works every day and on every email and it reduces your spam maintenance from a constant daily hobby to an every once in a while maintenance step. Here is how it works.

• Create a new folder in your email system. Just call it "Good Email" or something similar so you know that this is to become the new holding tank for all the emails you value.
• Now use that tool that allows you to route emails to a selected folder based on email address. Look at every routine email you get that could be considered legitimate. Now add each of those emails to a new email "rule" that routes those emails to the "Good Email" folder that you just created.
• Instantly your inbox becomes the spam quarantine and all good emails are kept in one guarded email folder that you have total control over. Now all you have to do is quickly glance at your old inbox to make sure no new good emails show up there. As soon as you find an email from a new person or company that you want to hear from, you move it to the "Good Email" folder and it is safe.
• When you do identify a new email recipient that you want to add to your elite list of allowed emails, along with moving the new email to the "Good Email" folder, you just open the rule that filters your emails and add that one new email address to the list. From then on out, emails from that sender will always go to your protected folder.
• Each day and maybe each time you check emails, you will see spam "trapped" in your inbox. A quick glance confirms it is all spam. Then with a quick "select all" and delete, the spam goes away, just that easy and just that quick.

The maintenance of adding new email contacts to the allowed senders list will be something you will be doing with some regularity in the first few weeks you have this system in place. But before long, most if not all of your allowed email senders will be on your allowed senders list. Then you just have to add new people on an "as needed" basis. Checking for spam is a task that just takes a few seconds because you know almost everything in your email inbox is spam. And you just delete it all and you are spam free again.

It is a system that is amazingly effective considering how simple it is. You can have it in place in moments and forget about paying subscriptions for spam filtering products. You save money, time and a lot of frustration. And above all, this very simple and inexpensive system is fool proof, it works every time without fail and it accomplishes what all the fancy and expensive software says they will do but they cannot do. It gives control over your email back to you and keeps that control in your hands forever. That is good spam control for sure.

I can't stress this enough. A computer without Anti-Virus Protection is just plain insane. Not only do you have to install it, but you must keep it updated and scan regularly.

Paid Programs:

I use Zone Alarm Anti-Virus (ZoneAlarm) and I am very pleased with its performance. It, like many other anti-virus programs, checks every new file, if it from the internet, from a USB Drive, or from any other source. This is called "Real-Time Scanning", and it is very useful. Especially if you're lazy like me and don't have much time to scan!

Also, for a more "lightweight" program, try ESET NOD32 Anti-Virus (Eset) This is also a very good program, which updates itself whenever you turn your PC on.

Free Programs:

Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus (Grisoft). A good free alternative that I used before I got Zone Alarm. It is efficient, if you don't use the internet heavily. Otherwise, use a paid alternative.

Best in Test:

ZoneAlarm Anti-Virus. This program meets all expectations, and found all of the viruses that I tested it with. As the saying goes, You get what you pay for. www.ZoneAlarm.com

Install A Firewall

Why you need a Firewall:

Connecting to the Internet is like opening a door to your computer. If hackers see that door, they can easily gain access to your PC. Once inside, hackers can steal your valuable personal data, such as bank account details and passwords to many different things. Your PC can be used without your knowledge to launch attacks on other computers, even on entire networks. A hacker can even completely "kill" your computer! But, you can stop this all with a decent firewall. It is necessary to install a good firewall, keep it on, and only disable it if it is absolutely required.

Paid Programs:

ZoneAlarm Firewall: (ZoneAlarm). This program is one of the best out there. It "learns" your Internet Habits, and makes them secure. There is also a "free version" of this.

Comodo Firewall Pro Plus: (Comodo). I found this program to be quite restrictive. It didn't give you as much detail about the program the need access to certain things, and therefore I blocked a few things that were needed.

Free Programs:

ZoneAlarm Basic Firewall (ZoneAlarm). This is the "free" alternative of the other version. This is very good if you don't want to pay.

Best in Test:

ZoneAlarm Firewall. As with the Anti-Virus, ZoneAlarm takes it out. www.ZoneAlarm.com

Regularly run Anti-Adware/Anti-Spyware/Anti-Malware

Every time you visit a website, you may, without even knowing, have downloaded content onto your machine. This content includes key loggers, dialers, spying programs, advertising material, spam bots and much, much more.

Paid Programs:

SpyFerret (here). Paid programs don't give you much more than free programs when it comes to Anti-Spyware. I would recommend that you don't get paid programs, but it is YOUR choice when it comes to security.

Free Programs:

Ad-Aware 2007. (Lavasoft USA). This program performs a "deep search". This means that it checks each and every file, and "quarantines" them.

Spybot Search & Destroy (Safer-Networking). This program checks your computer for all these "nasties" and easily removes them.

Best in Test:

"Ad-Aware 2007" & "Spybot Search & Destroy". (Lavasoft USA & Safer-Networking) I give these products both the award, as they in conjunction with each other, keep your computer clean. I recommend that you run Spybot S&D after every internet session, and Ad-Aware once a week.

Have Spam & Email protection

Don't open unknown emails, don't open unknown attachments. Even if you know who it is from, do not open them if you are not expecting them.

Paid Programs:

Kaspersky Anti-Spam (Kaspersky). This program was as good as the MailWasher, but the interface was a bit harder to get around. If you would rather use a paid program, use this, or go for a free alternative.

Free Programs:

MailWasher (MailWasher). Before you download your email into Thunderbird, Outlook, Outlook Express, etc, you run this tool, and choose all the emails that are of spam. Then, you open up your email client and download your emails. The emails that you "marked" as spam in MailWasher, are now "blacklisted" from your account.

Best in Test:

MailWasher is an excellent program, that I found got rid of my spam problem after a few weeks. I recommend this to anyone who wants to get rid of the spam in their email accounts. 

5) Popup Protection:

Some pop-up's can download virus's and spyware to your machine. Get protection from them, and you won't have to deal with the consequences.

Paid Programs:

Winguard Popup Remover. (here). This program, along with many other paid programs, doesn't give you much more protection from Pop-up's than the free ones. But, if you would rather buy a program, then go for it.

Free Programs:

Firefox Browser (Mozilla). The award winning browser, Firefox, has a built in pop-up blocker. I highly recommend you give Firefox a try. It speeds up your internet browsing, and is overall safer than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which by default, is installed with all Windows Computers.

Google Toolbar (Google). This is a great toolbar for your browser. It not only has a pop-up blocker, but it can be incorporated into Gmail (Google's answer to Free Email), and of course a Google Search Box, right at your fingertips.

Best in Test:

Firefox with Google Toolbar. Firefox comes with a Pop-Up blocker already built in, and with the added extension of Google Toolbar, you have twice the power of blocking these annoyances. 

Patch

It is important to keep your computer patched and up-to-date. This protects your computer from new vulnerabilities, which may allow hackers to gain access to your computer. Your firewall should stop this, but if it is new, it might not. So be on the safe side, Patch regularly. If you have limited allowance on your internet, don't subscribe to “Automatic Updates” Change this to “Notify me if there are any updates, but don't download or install them”. Then, go to Microsoft Update and download the “Critical Updates”.

Backup

Unfortunately, there is no 100% way to keep your computer secure. Therefore, you should back-up all your important data, and keep it stored on a DVD or CD in a safe place. I backup at least once a month. And I keep all my information in a case, stored away securely.

Watch out for scams

“You have just won $1,000,000! Give us your bank details!”

“You are the 999,999 person to view this site, click here to claim your prize.”

“I have a large amount of money, and I need you to help me transfer it……”

You may have seen these types of messages before. But, as you may already be aware, these are scams. Don't click these ads, or open any emails with this content, as it may install spyware, virus's or other "nasties". “If it sounds too good to be true, then it is most likely that it is.” Remember to trust your Instinct. If it seems a bit weird, delete that email or close that site and run Anti-Spyware & Anti-Virus ASAP.

These are 8 ways to keep your PC secure. I take no responsibility for any problems that may occur with these products. They shouldn't cause any problems, but if they do, it is not my fault!

6. Download The Operative System's Actualizations

It is substantial, to get your protection to the maximum against eventual virus attacks, to download this actualizations; because what most worm Trojans seek are commonly found “security holes” in most Microsoft products. For these, the company constantly offers “critical” actualizations which we can download, and for those who are a bit lazy to look for them in the internet, Windows has an option for them to download automatically.

7. Be Careful With The Files You Receive In Your e-Mail

When we receive a new mail, it is highly recommended to virus scan it, even if you know the remittent. Most users do not even know that their computers are infected, and may be sending you a corrupted file by accident.

8. Another Entrance Gateway, Chat

In most chat rooms it's really common to send any kind of files, via a DDC system. If you get one you never requested, or from an unknown source, NEVER accept it, even if it seems really interesting.

9. Other Tips

Pay special attention to archives which may grow in size without any apparent reason. Or if you get strange Windows notes. Try not to download stuff from web pages you may consider unsafe.

10. And Of Course, Update Your Antivirus

Nowadays there are quite good either free or paid antivirus. In both cases they update automatically, so we all have the parches for the dangerous Mydoom y mentioned in the first part of the article.

If you haven't read the first part, brush up on tips one to five.

And publish 10 obvious but really important tips that everyone with a computer must follow. So if you haven't been infected yet, you should read the next:

1. Be Careful With VBS Archives

   Do not open files with the extension VBS (Visual Basic Script, a language which permits to execute routines in the PC) unless you are completely sure that that mail comes from a trustable person, who doesn't want to harm your computer.

2. Do Not Hide Program Extensions

   All Windows operative systems hide commonly known program extensions in windows explorer. This characteristic can be used by virus designers and hakers to hide a program as if it were one with a different extension.

3. Change Windows Explorer Security Form “Minimum” to “Medium”

   To change this you must go to “Tools”, “Internet Options”, and “Security”. After that you may choose the one you like. I recommend using the option to personalize and set it to mid or high, depending on the risk to which you consider you may stand up to.

4. Install a Good Firewall

   This is really important. You may download a free one from the internet, or just configure the one from your operative system (better if you have windows XP).

5. Make Security Copies

   A way is to upload most important archives to internet. There are web pages such as Rapidshare, Megaupload, or File Factory to which you may upload important stuff. In this way you may clear your hard disk without loosing info. Of course there are other ways, such as making backup copies in CDs, DVDs, ZIP drives or pen drives.

1. Make sure that you're protected!

   If you don't have a anti-virus and firewall then you are not protected. Don't count on windows firewall to protect you (even how much Microsoft may tell you). I would suggest that you buy your firewall/anti-virus and that it's from a well known and reliable company such as ZoneAlarm, Norton or Mcaffe. I also suggest SpyBot: Search and Destroy which is very good at getting rid of Spyware and is free.

2. Know your downloads

   If you download something make sure you know what you're downloading. This may sound stupid but sometimes you're not always downloading what you think you're downloading. You never know where a virus might be hiding.

3. Google it

   If you don't know what something is that is on your system or something that you are about to download then search it on Google. The amount times that, by searching something on Google, you save your self form downloading something nasty.

4. Use Mcafee site advisor

   which tells you roughly (with almost 100% accuracy) which sites are safe and which are not. It uses four symbols; a green tick which means it's safe; a red cross which means it's not safe (or certain parts of the site are not "safe"); a question mark which means it hasn't reviewed that site yet; and a exclamation mark which means it's not fully rated so use your own common sense.

5. Check your emails

   If you're sent links or attachments through email, make sure you know the person who has sent the email and exactly what it contains. Even if you know the person who sent the email, be warned that it could still contain unwanted files. Of course don't stop opening attachments or links that friends and family may send you just use caution.

Just remember that although the internet can be a dangerous place that there isn't anything to panic about. As long as you stick to these tips then you should be fine.

The other options is to save your data and pictures on Email a/c like Yahoo.com; Gmail.com; Email2me.com; Netzero.net (paid); Netscape.aol.com; Bluebottle.com (spam free email); mail.lycos.com; Netzoola.com; Hushmail.com(email is encrypted, scanned for virus and filtered for spam); Netaddress.com;Care2.com (Care2 donates to the Environment and other good causes). For students, teacher controlled email a/c are Bigstring.com & Gaggle.net. And using email a/c is secure and virus free.

Even the latest desktop, like Apple iMac with 1 x 320 GB or Apple Mac Book Pro with 250 GB or HP Blackbird 02 with 2 hard drive (160 GB and 500 GB) or Dell XPS M1530 with 500 GB, but most importantly - you will never run of space by using Email a/c ever again.

Well yes this notifies you of new gmail message with a pop up like most do. But it also allows you to interact with the new mail without having to visit your inbox! That one little thing is so convenient its great! Look at the screen shot below for explanation on how it works:

As you can see in the above image, it shows the Subject of the email, and also a quick snippet of text from the email. Then there are a bunch of buttons in red between the subject and the snippet of text. The read; Open, Mark as read, archive, Report spam, and Delete. These are great because you can delete archive etc. all from here and not even having to open up a Firefox window and go into gmail. yes its a small feature but its worth its weight in gold for me!