Dumb and dumber computer questions....

[vitauta]

we seem to have a number of very knowledgeable, computer-savvy people in our group, here at dc. i may be the most extreme example, but i bet there are others who, like me, simply don't "get" computers. i'm hoping this thread will help us find answers to some of our often simple, but perplexing computer problems, from those in the know....

my immediate query has to do with a few hundred email messages that piled up while i was off line last week. how do i delete, or rather, zero out the numbers for the emails? i don't like seeing all those big, odd numbers showing...okay, so you already knew i was a bit anal, didn't you?

oh, also, when i started up my new computer yesterday for the first time, i was surprised to see that all my information seems to be intact. somehow, i was under the impression that i would have to pay a computer tech to transfer all my info from the old computer onto the new. what, if anything, have i lost from my old computer's hard drive? is there anything i need from that old computer that would justify a trip to the computer place? thanks.

 

[Janet H]

my immediate query has to do with a few hundred email messages that piled up while i was off line last week. how do i delete, or rather, zero out the numbers for the emails? i don't like seeing all those big, odd numbers showing...okay, so you already knew i was a bit anal, didn't you?

How you delete e-mail depends on what e-mail client you use. Outlook, gmail, yahoo mail and aol all have different interfaces. As far as I know they all have some scheme to do bulk moves to folder or make deletions. Not sure this was the sort of help your were looking for... ?

 

[CWS4322]

I miss my IT person! I hate doing computer maintenance/setup, etc. I used to be much better at it, but now, well things have changed so much.

 

[Timothy]

How you delete e-mail depends on what e-mail client you use. Outlook, gmail, yahoo mail and aol all have different interfaces. As far as I know they all have some scheme to do bulk moves to folder or make deletions. Not sure this was the sort of help your were looking for... ?

Exactly!

Highlite folder - Select All - Delete

That should get rid of all emails in that folder.

OR

Highlite folder - Select All - Move to folder (Pick the trash folder)

That will move them all to the trash.

 

[CWS4322]

Okay--how to import 30 address books from a system that used XP to Outlook in Windows 7 without having to move each address book individually?

 

[vitauta]

How you delete e-mail depends on what e-mail client you use. Outlook, gmail, yahoo mail and aol all have different interfaces. As far as I know they all have some scheme to do bulk moves to folder or make deletions. Not sure this was the sort of help your were looking for... ?

i have managed to performed both moves and deletions of material (though i'm way too scared to delete hardly anything) from time to time. what i have looks like this: inbox(219). as i open the emails from the inbox, the numbers decrease one by one. what i'm looking for is a way to get that 219 number down to zero without the time consuming task of going through all that mail. i'm wondering, what do people do after their vacations, with all their accumulated email?

 

[Timothy]

i have managed to performed both moves and deletions of material (though i'm way too scared to delete hardly anything) from time to time. what i have looks like this: inbox(219). as i open the emails from the inbox, the numbers decrease one by one. what i'm looking for is a way to get that 219 number down to zero without the time consuming task of going through all that mail. i'm wondering, what do people do after their vacations, with all their accumulated email?

What email cliet are you using on your computer?

 

[Timothy]

Okay--how to import 30 address books from a system that used XP to Outlook in Windows 7 without having to move each address book individually?

Exporting address books from different systems can be tricky, but if you choose "Export" from within the host sytem and do so in a CSV format, then CSV (Comma Seperated Variables), should be a format that your new system can import from wherever you kept the file.

If you're sending it from work to home, some businesses block the export commands to prevent computer crimes, but you can still do it to a memory stick via USB.

How in the world did you get 30 email address books?

 

[vitauta]

What email cliet are you using on your computer?

at this time i have active e-mail addresses at both gmx and hotmail, tim.

 

[Timothy]

at this time i have active e-mail addresses at both gmx and hotmail, tim.

Ahhhhh, I see. You only use onine email (Webmail). Do you ever use anything like "Outlook" or any PC resident email clients?

You have a whole bunch of Webmail accounts?

Like several hotmail accounts? That sort of thing?

 

[vitauta]

Ahhhhh, I see. You only use onine email (Webmail). Do you ever use anything like "Outlook" or any PC resident email clients?

You have a whole bunch of Webmail accounts?

Like several hotmail accounts? That sort of thing?

yes, i only have those two. how is outlook different? what is a pc resident e-mail client? you see, it's real easy to lose me--never heard of outlook til now.

 

[Timothy]

yes, i only have those two. how is outlook different? what is a pc resident e-mail client? you see, it's real easy to lose me--never heard of outlook til now.

A PC resident email client is a software program that would be installed on your PC and it would do all the database work of collecting, sorting and storing your emails right on your hard drive, physically on your PC.

A Web-Based email program is what you use now. The software for that type of program is installed on a Web Server that specializes for email only and all the email of all it's members is collected, sorted and stored on the Web Server.

A program like Microsoft's Email Client "Outlook" and "Outlook Express" are sometimes installed by default when you buy a PC with software loaded on it.

I use a software program named MailWasher Pro to download my email in text only format so I can review it and mark each email for deletion or downloading to my PC. This prevents almost all virus code, because it's a text only format that won't download code. Then, if I don't' want one of them, I just mark it as spam and the full code-included email is never downloaded to my PC and thus poses no risk to me.

I then use other software to store my emails in a MS Access Database that I can make sort and manipulate my emails in any way I wish.

As you can see, email can get much more complicated than just signing onto your account and reading it.

I receive upwards of 500 emails each day. Most of them are postings from e-groups that I store in massive databases and use for building other databases.

 

[Zereh]

If you are using either Gmail or Hotmail and you want to mark all of those emails as "read" to get your inbox count down to 0. Instead of you reading each one individually you can do them in large batches.

In Hotmail:
Click the little checkbox on top of the list of emails in your inbox, so that all are selected (which puts check mark in front of each individual email)
Click the Mark As, then select Read

In Gmail:
Select All
Under the More option, choose "Mark all as read"

Select all, in both cases, only selects all of the emails on the first page. You'll have to do this process on each page but it is still much faster than clicking through them one at a time.


Google, Hotmail, Yahoo and the myriad of other free web-based emails are absolutely perfect for 99.9% of us. And for the average person there is zero advantage to using Outlook. For one, it's a Microsoft product that has to be purchased (unless you get a freebie watered down version). If you use Outlook and something happens to your computer which makes your data unrecoverable, you're screwed because everything is lost. If you are an Outlook user and you came to my house and sat at my PC you would be unable to check your email, because Outlook stores everything locally on your hard drive. (And yes, you can sync Outlook with your other devices but again it is really just taking unnecessary steps that the average-joe user doesn't need to be bothered with.)

 

[CWS4322]

Exporting address books from different systems can be tricky, but if you choose "Export" from within the host sytem and do so in a CSV format, then CSV (Comma Seperated Variables), should be a format that your new system can import from wherever you kept the file.

If you're sending it from work to home, some businesses block the export commands to prevent computer crimes, but you can still do it to a memory stick via USB.

How in the world did you get 30 email address books?

Thanks--I'll try that over the weekend. I set up address books for each of my clients, the charity, and the charity on which I was on the Board (donors, media contacts, etc.)

 

[vitauta]

A PC resident email client is a software program that would be installed on your PC and it would do all the database work of collecting, sorting and storing your emails right on your hard drive, physically on your PC.

A Web-Based email program is what you use now. The software for that type of program is installed on a Web Server that specializes for email only and all the email of all it's members is collected, sorted and stored on the Web Server.

A program like Microsoft's Email Client "Outlook" and "Outlook Express" are sometimes installed by default when you buy a PC with software loaded on it.

I use a software program named MailWasher Pro to download my email in text only format so I can review it and mark each email for deletion or downloading to my PC. This prevents almost all virus code, because it's a text only format that won't download code. Then, if I don't' want one of them, I just mark it as spam and the full code-included email is never downloaded to my PC and thus poses no risk to me.

I then use other software to store my emails in a MS Access Database that I can make sort and manipulate my emails in any way I wish.

As you can see, email can get much more complicated than just signing onto your account and reading it.

I receive upwards of 500 emails each day. Most of them are postings from e-groups that I store in massive databases and use for building other databases.

you get 500 e-mails every day, tim? how many do you read or deal with directly? my head is swimming....against all odds, i'm trying to lead a simple life....

 

[Timothy]

you get 500 e-mails every day, Tim? how many do you read or deal with directly? my head is swimming....against all odds, I'm trying to lead a simple life....

Yes, I do get that many, vitauta. I belong to about a half dozen e-groups that I have set to email me every post. Those posts are made into records in my databases. I have the databases created to give me a search screen, where I can search for strings of text that are what I'm using in the coding of my database. For example, I belong to an Excel e-group where the coding and formulas used in Excel are what the posts are made up of. By keeping them in a database and using a search screen, I can find all the instances of certain parts of code from every post ever made in that group.

It helped me tremendously in my work life.

I don't even see these posts or emails until they appear in one of my searches later. I just import the emails directly into my database, where they reside until needed.

My MS Access database now has what were 250,000 emails, now records.

 

[CWS4322]

Gosh--I'd love to set up MS Access to import my volume of email! I'm terrible at setting up MS Access--using it, no problem.

 

[Timothy]

Gosh--I'd love to set up MS Access to import my volume of email! I'm terrible at setting up MS Access--using it, no problem.

I use a fantastic little program named:

ABC Amber Windows Mail Converter

The program will convert any PC based emails into whatever format you wish. I convert it into MS Access and it actually creates a little database for you.

Very cool program.

 

[Zereh]

I'm pretty sure that importing the CSV file into Outlook will not preserve the address books but merely import the data that was within each of them.

 

[Timothy]

I'm pretty sure that importing the CSV file into Outlook will not preserve the address books but merely import the data that was within each of them.

The data is what is the goal. I don't understand your comment.