First - get a good surge protector to keep power surges from damaging your computer.

Do you know how to forward e-mails?
        Please respect everyone's privacy by following the advice below.

 Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail?  Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses and names.  As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every E-mail address that has come across his computer.  Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit.  That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel!  How do you stop it?  Well, there are several easy steps.

 Try the following if you haven't done it before:

 (1)  When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top).  That's right, DELETE them.  Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do.  It only takes a second. 
You MUST click the "Forward" button first, then you will have full editing capabilities for the body and headers of the message.  If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.

 (2)  Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding e-mail addresses.  Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses.  This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address.  If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear.  Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy.  When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients in the "TO:" field of the people who receive it.

 (3)  Remove any "FW :" in the subject line.  You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.

Thanks to Bev and Don for submitting this article.

Benefits of BCC Although in many situations it may be appropriate to list email recipients in the To: or CC: fields, sometimes using the BCC: field may be the most desirable option. What is BCC? BCC, which stands for blind carbon copy, allows you to hide recipients in email messages. Unlike addresses in the To: field or the CC: (carbon copy) field, addresses in the BCC: field cannot be seen by other users. Why would you want to use BCC? There are a few main reasons for using BCC: Privacy - Sometimes it's beneficial, even necessary, for you to let recipients know who else is receiving your email message. However, there may be instances when you want to send the same message to multiple recipients without letting them know who else is receiving the message. If you are sending email on behalf of a business or organization, it may be especially important to keep lists of clients, members, or associates confidential. You may also want to avoid listing an internal email address on a message being sent to external recipients. Another point to remember is that if you use the To: or CC: fields to list all of your recipients, these same recipients will also receive any replies to your message unless the sender removes them. If there is potential for a response that is not appropriate for all recipients, consider using BCC. Tracking - Maybe you want to access or archive the email message you are sending at another email account. Or maybe you want to make someone, such as a supervisor or team member, aware of the email without actually involving them in the exchange. BCC allows you to accomplish these goals without advertising that you are doing it. Respect for your recipients - Forwarded email messages frequently contain long lists of email addresses that were CC'd by previous senders. These addresses are highly likely to be active and valid, so they are very valuable to spammers. Furthermore, many email-borne viruses harvest email addresses contained in messages you've already received (not just the To: and From: fields, but from the body, too), so those long lists in forwarded messages pose a risk to all the accounts they point to if you get infected. Many people frequently forward messages to their entire address books using CC. Encourage people who forward messages to you to use BCC so that your email address is less likely to appear in other people's inboxes and be susceptible to being harvested. To avoid becoming part of the problem, in addition to using BCC if you forward messages, take time to remove all existing email addresses within the message. The additional benefit is that the people you're sending the message to will appreciate not having to scroll through large sections of irrelevant information to get to the actual message. How do you BCC an email message? Most email clients have the option to BCC listed a few lines below the To: field. However, sometimes it is a separate option that is not listed by default. If you cannot locate it, check the help menu or the software's documentation. If you want to BCC all recipients and your email client will not send a message without something in the To: field, consider using your own email address in that field. In addition to hiding the identity of other recipients, this option will enable you to confirm that the message was sent successfully. For more info on this subject read the previous article - this has been mentioned a number of times at club meetings. Thanks to Iain for submitting this article.  For more follow -  click here

Ink Jet Printer Tips.  By Sandy Berger,  AARP.

Use It or Lose It  The most common printer for home computers is the ink jet printer, and the adage "use it or lose it" is best heeded for maintaining this type of printer. Inactivity causes the ink in the print nozzles to dry out which creates printing problems. If you don't use your printer on a daily basis, be sure to print out a test page at least once a week. Using the printer's test page is a good way to make sure that all the colors are being applied without using a lot of ink. See your printer manual to determine how to print a test page. This is usually accomplished by pressing a sequence of buttons on the printer.

Align the Print Heads  Most ink jet manufacturers recommend that you align the print heads whenever you change the ink cartridges. Instructions will either appear on the screen or in the manual.

Turn the Printer Off Properly Always turn the printer on and off using the printer's on/off switch. Some ink jet printers clean and park the print head when they are turned off. If you turn the printer on and off using a switch on the surge protector or by pulling the plug, the print head may not park in the proper position.

Keep the Printer Clean Dirt, dust, and paper shreds can interfere with the printers normal functioning. A can of compressed air can help to clean it out. If the printer environment is extremely dusty, keep it covered when not in use.

Care for the Printer Paper  Use the proper type of paper for your printer and be sure that you don't mix different types of paper in the same bin. Fanning the paper before you put it in the printer can help it move through smoothly. In extremely humid climates, the paper should be kept in an airtight container to keep it moisture-free.

Canceling a Print Job To cancel a print job, select Printers & Faxes from the Start menu. If you don't see Printers there, choose Control Panel. Once in the Control Panel choose Printers and Faxes or Printers and other hardware. If necessary choose View Installed Printers. When the Printers window opens, double-click your printer's icon. You will see a list of current print jobs. Right-click the job you want to cancel and then select Cancel Printing in the shortcut menu.

Two Printers Are Better Than One  Although ink jet printers are still the most affordable, the prices of laser printers have also plummeted. Since the per-page cost of black laser printing is much cheaper than that of ink jets, if you print a lot and don't care about color, a laser printer may be just what you need. Many people, including myself, have both a laser and an ink jet attached to the same computer.

Bonus Tip:  Extending the Printing Life of a Laser Printer Cartridge
Laser printers use a toner cartridge. When the printer indicates that the cartridge empty, you can often still get a little more printing out of it by removing the cartridge and tip it from side to side to redistribute the toner remaining in the cartridge. Then reinsert the cartridge into the printer. Often you can do this two to three times until the cartridge is really completely empty.

Conserve Ink and $ave.  By Sandy Berger,  AARP
       Here are a few tips for conserving on ink:

Print only what you really need. When on the Web, if you click on the Print icon, the entire Web page or document will print. If you do not need all that information, use a slightly different procedure. First highlight what you want to print by dragging the mouse across the words or picture. Then go to the menu at the top of the screen and choose File. In the Print dialog box you will see an area for the Page Range. Click on Selection. Then click on Print. Only what you have highlighted will print. (If the word "Selection" is grayed out so you can't select it, it means you have not highlighted your selection. Go back and try again.)

Print in Draft Mode. This prints everything lighter and significantly reduces ink consumption. Draft mode will give you poorer quality print. Since each printer is different you will have to experiment with this to see if the results are readable for you. There are several ways to access the draft mode, but the easiest is through the print dialog box that we used in Tip #1. Click on Menu, then Print. Choose Preferences. This dialog box will look different for each printer, but you will see a place to choose Draft Mode. This is usually under the Quality Options. If you don't see it immediately, look around. You may have to choose a different tab from the top of the box, or click on another choice to find it.

Use Print Preview. Have you ever had the printer kind of go wild and print ten or twenty pages when you only intended to print one or two? You can prevent these potential disasters by using the Print Preview feature. Again, instead of clicking on that Print icon, choose File, Print, Print Preview. Print Preview will illustrate exactly what is going to print. The screen will show you the first page. Be sure to look at the top of the page where you will see how many pages will print and where you can scroll through to see each page. Often, especially with Web pages, you will only need to print the first page. If that is the case, you click on Print right from the Print Preview screen. This will bring up the handy Print dialog box where, under Print Range, you can choose to print only the pages you need. Click on the circle in front of Pages, and then fill in the pages you want to print. You can stipulate the first page only by entering a 1 in the box, you can choose to print a range of pages by entering 1-2 or 1-4, or you can print selected pages by separating them with a comma ie. 1,3,5 etc. This will also save money on paper.

Print in black only. This is a great way to conserve color ink. You can find the option for this in the Print dialog box. It is generally under the Advanced option. If you decide to print in black only, be sure to use color occasionally to keep the color cartridges from drying up.

If you print a lot, consider a laser printer. Consumable costs for laser printers are less expensive than those for ink jet printers.

A: A forwarded e-mail message can gain a lot of mass. Most e-mail programs include addresses of  previous recipients and senders automatically. Messages can become cluttered after only a couple generations of forwarding.

B: The included information is supposed to be helpful. The idea is that you can see who has already seen the message, and avoid sending it to them. But more often than not, all those addresses are really just clutter. Furthermore, all those e-mail addresses are shared with recipients. And messages can eventually make their way to complete strangers.

There are a couple of simple ways to keep e-mail addresses out of your forwarded messages. First, you can highlight and copy the text of the original message. But don't copy the addresses! Then paste the text into a completely new e-mail. This is the easiest solution.
You could also erase the addresses as you forward. After you select the option to forward, highlight the addresses with your mouse and delete them.
Some e-mail programs are set to forward messages as attachments. In that case, you can't copy or make changes to the message. You'll need to change your program's settings. These settings might also be listed under "composing" or "sending."
Choose to include forwarded messages within the e-mail text or "inline." You'll still have to erase names or addresses from the text.

And since we’re on the topic, consider using your e-mail program’s BCC (blind copy) function to send a mass e-mail. When you use BCC, put your own address in the To: field. Put the rest in the BCC: field. Everyone will be able to see that you got the e-mail, but the rest of the addresses will be hidden. We love that part!