The Ask Leo! Newsletter
*** Featured
How do I change my email address?
This question (and variants of it) are incredibly common.
Unfortunately, the answer is rarely simple. Changing an email address often means one thing to the person asking and something very different to the services that provide email. Some services make the change easy(ish).
Others? Not so much.
Continue Reading: How do I change my email address?
http://askleo.com/?p=2178
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How do I find someone's email address?
How do I find out my friend’s email address?
I’d like to get in touch with my old college roommate. How do I find out her email address?
I’m trying to get in touch with a business contact, but I’ve lost his email address. How can I find it again?
As you can tell, I often get variations of this question. Most people know someone and want to send them email, but they don’t have their email address. What do you do?
Well, I’ll be blunt. Nine times out of ten, you’re simply out of luck.
But sometimes, you can get lucky.
Continue Reading: How do I find someone's email address?
http://askleo.com/?p=2565
*** Answercast
Answercast #111 - Playing old games, wrong emails, identifying music, backup drives and more...
Do you wonder how to use Macrium to do a restore, or if you can play your old video games on a new computer? Want to learn a cool way to identify music or if it's safe to leave your backup drive connected? Having problems sending clickable links or getting the wrong emails? All that and more in this Answercast from Ask Leo!
Listen Now!
(Includes the raw transcript on which the articles below were based.)
Can I just run Macrium and do a restore?
You typically can't just run Macrium in Windows to do a restore because you'd be restoring on top of a running operating system. But yes, you can easily restore the whole machine. I'll explain.
Continue reading: Can I just run Macrium and do a restore?
http://askleo.com?p=7040
Can I create rescue disks for any point in time?
You can indeed create rescue media to restore your machine to any point in time. Rather than calling it rescue media, though, it's nothing more than an image backup.
Continue reading: Can I create rescue disks for any point in time?
http://askleo.com?p=7042
Can I play my old games on my 64-bit computer?
Games can be some of the most demanding software out there. Many older games will play just fine on newer machines, but occasionally you'll run into problems. I'll look at some of the alternatives.
Continue reading: Can I play my old games on my 64-bit computer?
http://askleo.com?p=7051
Why is email I'm sending being received by someone I'm not sending to?
This is a frustrating situation that happens regularly to businesses running email lists. More than likely someone on your list is automatically forwarding. There is one way you may be able to track down the source.
Continue reading: Why is email I'm sending being received by someone I'm not sending to?
http://askleo.com?p=7098
How do I extract and identify the music in a Powerpoint presentation?
You may not be able to extract music files from a Powerpoint presentation that is not editable. However, there is an amazing way to find out if that song is available to download.
Continue reading: How do I extract and identify the music in a Powerpoint presentation?
http://askleo.com?p=7204
Why can't people click on links I send them?
Ninety-nine percent of the time when links aren't clickable the problem is on the receiving end. It's usually because their email program is trying to protect them from something that looks suspicious.
Continue reading: Why can't people click on links I send them?
http://askleo.com?p=7229
What's the difference between typing and copy/paste?
In most cases it's Windows, not the application, that handles whether or not something is pasted in from the clipboard, or being typed in. The program that's receiving the data usually doesn't know or care.
Continue reading: What's the difference between typing and copy/paste?
http://askleo.com?p=7231
Should I wait for the next edition of Windows?
Windows 8.1 should respond to some of the issues that people expressed having with Windows 8, though not all of them. Your choice of how, when and what to upgrade may have more to do with hardware than with software versions.
Continue reading: Should I wait for the next edition of Windows?
http://askleo.com?p=7235
Is it safe to leave my external backup drive connected?
My fairly strong opinion is that if you're backing up to an external drive, leave it plugged in. Otherwise you'll be missing backups on those days you forget to plug it in.
Continue reading: Is it safe to leave my external backup drive connected?
http://askleo.com?p=7237
How do I tell someone they're entering their email address wrong?
Many websites ask you type your email address in twice for a reason: there's a high percentage of people who cannot type their email address in correctly once.
Continue reading: How do I tell someone they're entering their email address wrong?
http://askleo.com?p=7239
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*** Last Issue's Articles
- Ask Leo! #447 - Windows Update, Change (again), upgrading an older machine and more...
- Managing Windows Update
- Embracing the Most Important Attitude
- Why does the size of my Office file grow excessively after I make simple changes?
- Do I need to have a separate data backup if I backup my system regularly?
- What's the easiest way to upgrade an older machine?
- Will it cause a problem if Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant warns me that a program is incompatible, but it works?
- Why does my browser warn me that "Only secure content is displayed?"
- Can I use a backup image to wipe free space?
- Should I update my hard drive?
- Why does legitimate email from PayPal instruct me to click a link?
- Does my information get deleted from the cloud if I delete the associated software?
- Why am I getting security certificate errors?
*** Word o' the Week
ESP is an acronym for Email Service Provider.
Just as an ISP provides your internet service, an ESP is the company or service that provides your email account, storage and ability to send and receive email with others connect to the internet.
Your email may, in fact, be provided by your internet provider, in which case it is acting as both your ISP and ESP. On the other hand many free email services such as Outlook.com, Yahoo! Mail and Google Mail are all acting simply as email providers, and thus qualify as ESPs.
Word o' the Week features a computer term or acronym taken from the Ask Leo! Glossary. If there's a word you're not sure of and would like to see defined, click here to let me know.
*** Featured Reader Comments
Ken B writes:
We have had several clients come to us with ransomware infections. (Usually freaking out, due to the "FBI warning" they were getting.) While the system would refuse to boot to the desktop, even in safe mode, it turns out that the infections were poorly written (no suprise here) and we were able to boot to the desktop if the wi-fi was turned off before powering up. (Most laptops have a physical switch which can turn off wi-fi.) At that point, we were able to use our cleanup tools and remove the infection.
How do I restore a registry backup if I can't boot?
Terry Hollett writes:
This is my method: http://hitanykey.webs.com/Feb62011.html
I've had to do it a few times now for others. I prefer to use a boot CD like Hiren's but you could use the command prompt through the repair options.Why am I getting security certificate errors?
Michael writes:
OpenDNS can cause certificate errors if you are using it to block offending domains. This happens to me often as I block a popular website that other sites reference via SSL. This often results in certificate errors where the certificate is for OpenDNS but the request was for the site I refuse to let into my house.
Another reason to try multiple web browsers has to do with certificate revocation. This is likely to be a browser configuration option and a browser that checks for revocation may well have a very different result from one that does not. Finally, after changing DNS settings, it is not the browser cache that needs to be flushed but the DNS cache. A reboot will do this for those not familiar with the techie details of doing it manually.*** Thoughts and Comments
Seems this was the week for email-related questions and article revisions. Email's so pervasive, important and occasionally problematic that it represents one of the major topic areas of Ask Leo! in general.
I know I'm email-centric (some would say addicted). I know that for many it's a great way to communicate - as long as things are working properly.
•
I posted a short video to the
Facebook page over the weekend, asking simply "Do computers make us more
stupid?". 
It's a question I received over the weekend and recorded for an upcoming Answercast. Before that comes out, though, I thought it'd be interesting to see what you think. Head on over the video on Facebook and let me know in the comments there what you think.
Leo A. Notenboom
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*** Administration
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