News from High Tech House Calls

November 2012

Welcome to High Tech House Calls

Greetings!

We are Experts in Integrating Apple and Windows Based Systems!

We Offer Technical Support and Tutorials For Computers, Networks, and Smartphones at your convenience, in your home or small business.

Got bugs and spyware on your mind?
Is your system down?
Are You Behind in Work?
Did your child download a virus... or worse?
Do your network problems make you feel cursed?

Call High Tech House Calls at 404.229.0839 to schedule an appointment.

Tips on Creating and Sending Holiday Emails

Do you have a long list of email addresses in a distribution list?

If there are too many email addresses in the list, your Internet Service Provider may mark your message as SPAM and refuse to send it.

You can create mini-distribution lists to get around this. Unfortunately, it is hard to determine what the upper limit size of your distribution list is before it is marked as SPAM.
You can turn to a free email distribution service such as MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com/pricing/free). MailChimp can solve your "distribution list size" problem. MailChimp has a built in SPAM checker. You could also try EmailSPAMCheck (http://www.emailspamtest.com/).

Some general rules to help you avoid your email being identified as SPAM are:

Make sure your email has the Subject line filled in.
Avoid sales pitch buzz words or phrases such as "free" or "click here" anywhere in your email.

What are the best ways to share photos?

Adding photos as attachments to an email can trigger another limit imposed by your ISP or your recipient's ISP. Emails have a size limit. How can you avoid the size limitation?

Unless you are only sending one or two photos as attachments, forget using attachments in your email.
You can share digital photo albums you created by uploading your photos to sites such as Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/ ) or PhotoBucket (http://beta.photobucket.com/ ). Once your photos are uploaded and organized in a photo album, you can share them via a link.

Advanced Wireless Printer Troubleshooting

Here is a list of common wireless printer problems and their solutions:

You installed a new wireless router. Your wireless printer no longer connects to the wireless network.

Your older wireless printer may not be capable with your new wireless network. There are various wireless standards (801.11B, D, G, and N). Using documentation from the wireless printer manufacturer, see what wireless standards are supported by the printer. If the printer and the new wireless router are incompatible, it may be time to buy a new wireless printer that supports the newer standards. Another alternative is to connect the printer directly to a computer via a USB cable or connect the printer to the network via a Cat5e cable to a wired network port on your wireless router. It is also possible that the wireless receiver in the printer has failed. If connecting the printer directly to a computer or connecting the printer to the network via a wired connection are not options, the printer will need to be replaced.

You try to print to the printer and the printer says it is "offline".

Go to the printer properties page and make sure that "use printer offline" is not checked. Did this fix the problem? Some HP printers go offline when they "sleep". This is a known problem and currently does not have a solution. If the workaround of unchecking "use printer offline" is unacceptable, you can try to get the printer replaced with a different model if it is under warranty or buy another model printer. You can also try connecting the printer to a computer or connecting via a wired connection to a router port to see if the problem is resolved.

Your new computer with a newer operating system no longer connects to the wireless printer.

It is possible the printer manufacturer does not have a driver that supports your operating system. Check the manufacturer's website to see if this is the case. If no compatible driver is uncovered, a newer printer will need to be purchased in order to print from your new computer. This is a common problem with "old" printers that were purchased when the Windows XP Operating System was new.

Why connect a printer "wirelessly" if connecting directly to a computer or connecting via a wired connection to the router are available?

Sharing a printer among different Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac Operating System computer is easier with a wireless printer. Sharing a printer via a wired connection to a router is just as easy, but the printer must be close enough to the wireless router for a cable connection. Sharing a printer when the printer connected directly to a computer is much more difficult and may be impossible based on the other computers that want to share the printer.

Emails for Small Business with Constant Contact

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Issue: 30

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

In This Issue

Tips on Creating and Sending Holiday Emails

Advanced Wireless Printer Troubleshooting

Controlling and Managing SPAM

Use more than one email account.

Segregate your email addresses. Have one for personal, business, shopping and downloads. Your shopping and download email addresses probably attract the most SPAM. When the SPAM reaches a threshold that you can no longer tolerate, delete the account and create a new one. GMAIL is a great way to create throwaway, temporary email accounts.

Tag email as SPAM.

Mark the email as Junk Mail. Her's how: In Outlook, right mouse click the email and add it to the blocked sender list. Any new emails from that sender will be put into the Junk Mail Folder.

Create a Filter to Detect SPAM.

Email programs such as Outlook allow you to create rules on how to handle particular email address or emails that contain certain words or phases in their subject line or in the body of the text.When the parameters for the rule are met, you can specify in the rule that the email be deleted or filed in the Junk Mail folder. Search the Internet for examples on creating rules specific to your email program. Here is a link to an example of creating a rule in Outlook (http://www.abracadabrasolutions.com/EmailRule.htm).

FAQs:

In general, don't attempt to remove yourself from a distribution list from email you no longer wish to receive unless the email is from a company you recognize. People who create SPAM will redouble their SPAM attack on you when they realize they have a live one as indicated by your attempt to be removed from their list.

You cannot mark an email as SPAM on an iPhone.

Email programs such as Outlook have a built-in SPAM filter. You can turn up the sensitivity of the filter, but be aware that some email that you want in your Inbox may be tagged as SPAM and moved to your Junk Mail folder. Review your Junk Mail folder contents on a regular basis and right mouse click emails as not SPAM, when appropriate. Once this is done, all emails from that sender will no longer be marked as SPAM.

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Carl Thorne
High Tech House Calls
email: carlthorne@hthcatlanta.com
website: www.hthcatlanta.com
blog:www.hthcatlanta.blogspot.com
cell: 404-229-0839

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We cannot write you a check, but we can

donate our services. If you have a charitable event that involves a silent auction,
High Tech House Calls is happy to donate a certificate for our services. We will also highlight your charitable event on our website with a description of the event and a link to your event website.

Please contact us for more details.