Number 283 - December 2006

Hanging E-Mails
by Bob Thomson, Tacoma Open Group for Microcomputers
My ISP (Internet Service Provider) is Comcast.net. A couple of times in the past year or so, my e-mail has hung up. That is to say, when I invoke Outlook Express to read my e-mail, it tries to load and display my unread e-mail but something interferes and, after several minutes, it "times out" before loading the e-mail. No matter how many times I try, it does the same thing.    Like most ISPs, Comcast allows you to log on remotely to read your e-mail. This is really handy when you are out-of-town and want to keep up with your e-mail correspondence, but you can do it locally as well. To reach Comcast's e-mail server simply use Microsoft's Internet Explorer and enter http://www.comcast.net on the command line to reach Comcast's Web Page. After logging on with your user name and password, you can access your e-mail.    Whenever I have done this, the e-mails did not "hang up" or "time out" so I was able to read them. None of them were unusual or suspicious looking. The reason they wouldn't load under normal circumstances was not apparent, although it may be due to a bad link or overfull mailbox. Anyway, I read them and noted their contents, then deleted them.    Apparently, deleting them solved the problem because subsequently my e-mail came through and loaded normally.	Although I didn't pursue the problem further, it is possible that it is one of the "links" in the address chain of an e-mail that is causing this. Anyone want a good research project? How To Avoid E-Mails Opening Automatically    While on the subject of e-mails, the default mode of Outlook Express is to open with two panes. The upper pane lists the names of the e-mail senders and status. The lower pane opens and displays the currently selected e-mail message. Sometimes attachments are opened as well. This is undesirable because some messages may contain unwanted material, spam or even viruses.    You can configure Outlook Express (OE) not display the full e-mail message but to display only the e-mail titles and sender names. If you wish to see the contents of an e-mail you can double click it to open it. Otherwise, you can delete any message which you have left unopened. To configure Outlook Express not to automatically display the messages, click View and, on the drop down menu, click Layout and the Windows Layout Properties window will open. In the Preview Pane area select the options you want. If you uncheck Show Preview Panel only the panel displaying the e-mail sender's information will be displayed--not the message. For more detail see the April 2004 TOGGLE on-line at www.toggle.org
Number 283 - December 2006