To Pop or Not to Pop: That's the Question!

If you're asking me for my advice, I'd advise not to.We're talking email. POP3 vs. IMAP. At the company I work for, we've got two choices for configuring an email client (such as Outlook or Thunderbird): POP3 or IMAP.

POP3 email retrieves email from the email server. It then erases it from the server while storing it on the local computer. You can choose to keep a copy of the email on the server, but you have to manually go in and clean up your email on the server after you've already cleaned it out of your email client. If your local computer crashes, probably you will lose your email (unless you've backed it up to another location). Once it pops, there it stays! It's stored in a PST (personal storage) folder until you delete it.


IMAP email is stored on an internet server. If the local computer is lost, crashed or stolen, the email is still retrievable. If you want to have your email sent to your smartphone, but still need to access your email on a computer, you'll want to choose IMAP email. With IMAP email configured on your smartphone, you can delete your email once on your phone and it's gone from the server... eliminating the need to delete the email twice. You'll have two PST's on your computer if you configure IMAP email. One PST is for personal storage of anything that you don't want to keep in the IMAP folder and the other PST tells the email client how to get to the IMAP folder on the Internet. It's kind of like an appendix; you can delete it without too many negative consequences.

If you have more than one person accessing a mailbox, you need to decide how you will use that mailbox. If you want each person to see every email in that box, then forward the email popping it down to each person that needs to see it. If you want the person who deals with the email to erase it and eliminate the need for a second/third person to read the email, then you'll want to configure IMAP email.

Some of you may have heard about an email system called Exchange. Many organizations have moved away from Exchange because of the costs and the amount of administration that is required to maintain it. Usually an organization will need a full-time person just to deal with an Exchange server. It's cheaper to pay a third-party to host email. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it unless the organization had more than 10,000 employees. It's a powerful email system, but overkill for most companies. Email is stored in an OST file in Exchange on a company-owned or rented computer.  An OST and PST file are not interchangeable. If you have to go from one to another, a conversion has to be done.

Patch Tuesday Blues

Ok, I know it's Monday, but tomorrow is Patch Tuesday and I'm not caught up from last Patch Tuesday yet. For those of you who don't know what Patch Tuesday is, it is Microsoft's day to release updates to their operating system. The reason it gives me the blues is because I try my hardest to keep everything up to date and then in one fell swoop, I'm behind again. Last week Microsoft was especially evil (or good-I'm not sure) and they released a record-breaking 17 updates fixing 64 security flaws. OMG, a woman's work is never going to get done at that rate.

If automatic updates is enabled on your computer, you can save yourself a lot of hassle. Especially if you have the computer powered on AND logged on when the update is supposed to take place. Most of you are dreaming about days at the beach when this takes place. The default time is 3 am. Laptops provide more of a challenge since they are powered off at 3 am, but you can set them to automatically run still. Just choose a time when the computer will be on with the option to ask before applying.

For those of you with Microsoft Security Essentials, updates to that roll out with automatic updates. So, good choice!

The difference between a service pack and a patch is the size and the scope. Usually a service pack is huge and is almost a reinstall of the program. You are notified that a service pack is available through automatic updates, but it doesn't install automatically. That is because Microsoft recommends that you back up your data before applying a service pack.


Don't forget your patches maties, argggggggggggggggg!

Backing Up Email Contacts for a Rainy Day

OK, it's rainy, yucky weather; what are you going to do????? Why not back up your email contacts? Hooray, sounds like a plan.

In Outlook:

• go to File,
• Import and Export,
• Export to a File and Next,
• choose Comma Separated Values (dos or windows) and Next,
• Browse to Contacts and Next,
• Type in "my contacts", then Next and Finish.  

Great!  You are done! Now you can import your contacts into a web-based mail system. The mycontacts.csv file should be located in my documents (by default).  Import it to at least one web-based mail system or save the file on a flash drive or external hard drive. You'll have some peace of mind knowing you won't lose your email contacts if your hard drive gets zapped by stormy weather!