Leo's Answers #231 – May 18, 2010

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Leo Notenboom

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*** New Articles

Terms of Service Violation: Why won’t my email provider tell me what I did wrong?

I had a free email account for THIRTEEN YEARS. Last month I was suddenly unable to login. One option offered was “Forgot password?”. I took that route and after a couple of screens I got a message saying that I needed to contact customer support. I did. Two days later, I was told that my account had been canceled for violating TOS (Terms of Service)? No explanations whatsoever. I answered asking what violation I had committed. 3 days later I got a message saying they could not tell me any more and that was that. Fortunately, I had absolutely nothing valuable with them.

*

I have enough articles on the dangers of using free email accounts that I’m not going to belabor that point here.

This comment caught my eye because it highlights a very frustrating problem that many people face when situations like this happen: you’ve apparently done something wrong, but they won’t tell you why.

Believe it or not, there’s actually a reason they won’t tell you.

Continue reading: Terms of Service Violation: Why won’t my email provider tell me what I did wrong?
http://ask-leo.com/C4315

* * *

“Windows Live Hotmail has blocked some attachments …” – how do I get around that?

I’ve received an email on my Hotmail account with an attachment. Hotmail refuses to let me access the attachment at all, claiming “Windows Live Hotmail has blocked some attachments in this message because they appear to be unsafe.”

It’s safe, I know it is. How can I get Hotmail to do what I want and let me download the attachment?

*

You don’t.

Seriously, it’s that simple. If Hotmail blocks an attachment, it’s blocked. I know of no way to get at it through the web interface.

I’ll review why, which files are affected, and some ways of avoiding the problem.

And one potential work-around that might gain you access to the attachment anyway.

Continue reading: “Windows Live Hotmail has blocked some attachments …” – how do I get around that?
http://ask-leo.com/C4314

* * *

Is my computer secure now that I’m running anti-virus and anti-spyware software?

I currently installed Avast internet security 5 on my PC running Window 7. I also use malwarebytes anti-malware. My question is: is my pc is secure with those two anti-malware packages?

*

Yes and no.

But mostly no.

I look at it a different way completely:

There is no such thing as a secure computer.

Let me explain why I say that, and what that means you need to do.

Continue reading: Is my computer secure now that I’m running anti-virus and anti-spyware software?
http://ask-leo.com/C4313

* * *

Why are there two iexplore.exe Internet Explorer processes when I’ve run it just once?

When I open up Internet Explorer, just one instance, I get two of them in my process list. No extra tabs or windows open, just the one iexplore. When I close that iexplore, they both go away in the process list. When I open it up again, poof two in processes. One usually runs parallel to whatever website I am on, ie higher memory usage for bigger sites, and the other runs about 16M all the time. I run Spy-bot and Ad Aware regularly. Don’t know what is causing this, wasn’t there before.

*

This has actually spooked a few people since IE8 came out.

I can’t tell you why it’s done, because quite honestly I don’t know.

But I can tell you this: it’s not a problem, and not a sign of anything like malware.

Let’s look at what people are seeing.

Continue reading: Why are there two iexplore.exe Internet Explorer processes when I’ve run it just once?
http://ask-leo.com/C4312

* * *

What’s an ebook, how do I get it and what do I do with it?

Ebook is short for “electronic book”, and while there are several variations the most popular form that you might run across on the web is the “PDF” or “portable document format” ebook.

In fact, I have a few myself.

Let’s review the process of downloading, saving and viewing a PDF ebook.

Continue reading: What’s an ebook, how do I get it and what do I do with it?
http://ask-leo.com/C4310

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*** Comments

Is a periodic password change a good thing?

Mary writes:

Since it’s been advocated that no two accounts should share the same password, many folks are using password managers like RoboForm or PassKeeper.

Posted: May 18, 2010 in: 2010
Shortlink: https://newsletter.askleo.com/4317
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I'm Leo Notenboom and I've been playing with computers since I took a required programming class in 1976. I spent over 18 years as a software engineer at Microsoft, and after "retiring" in 2001 I started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place to help you find answers and become more confident using this amazing technology at our fingertips. More about Leo.