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Use Outlook Express in News
Reader Only mode 04/13/04
Ever want to check your News Groups but not your email? Right
click a blank area on your
Desktop, select New and then Shortcut and then copy and paste either
of the following
as the file location:
"C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\msimn.exe" /newsonly
"C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\msimn.exe" /outnews
Click next and give it a name then click Finish.
You now have a shortcut with the OE icon that will only open News
Groups.
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Set Outlook Express to automatically
empty the deleted messages folder 05/14/03
Ever shut down and then wonder if you emptied your deleted messages
folder because there's one you don't want anyone to read, or maybe
one that contained a possible virus. You can set Outlook Express
to automatically empty the folder when you shut it down.
Click Tools > Options and then Maintenance and check the box: "Empty
messages from the deleted items folder on exit"
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Go
There
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Use Outlook Express to make
a text web page 10/14/02
If Outlook Express is set to compose e-mail using HTML, you can
use it to create a text web page. The Instructions are on
the Behind the Screen page.
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"Catch up"
the Newsgroup accounts
If you've subscribed to any newsgroups you might notice a number
such as 32,000 or so by a newsgroup when you open the Local Folders
in Outlook Express to read an account. This number represents
the number of news items in the group that you have not read.
To clear it, right click on the group and click Catch up.
It will set unread news items to zero, and the number will go away.
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Slow down or stop
Spam E-mail
Some "web sites" ( for lack of a better word ) use a java script
routine to determine your "Default" e-mail address when you visit
their "sites," and it doesn't matter if Outlook Express is running
or not, as they pull it out of your registry. To stop this,
create a "Bogus" e-mail address so if they do get one it won't be
real. To do this, in an Outlook window click Tools and then
Accounts and follow the steps shown in the little tour that starts
when you click Image on the left. Just remember you MUST make
sure to select a valid "From:" address from the drop down menu in
the "From:" box each time you open the New mail window after you
install this "Tweak."
( This tweak appears in both Outlook and Privacy )
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Go get it
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OE-QouteFix
One aggravating feature of Outlook Express is all of the >>> symbols
it adds to e-mails when the original is included in the reply.
Dominik Jain has created a great utility named OE-QouteFix that
will put them all in order and preserve the original spacing, line
wraps etc. It will even display original and reply texts in
different colors. The icon on the left will be in the Systray when
it is running. Be sure to read ALL of the help files to set
it up properly. The download will be from Major Geeks
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Adding e-mail
folders to Outlook Express
Is your inbox full of e-mails you really don't want to delete.
You can add or create new folders to save them in by right clicking
a blank area of the folders box and clicking "New folder."
The new folder will then be an option when you right click an e-mail
header and click "Move to."
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Rearrange the
Outlook Toolbar buttons
Ever go to click the Refresh button and instead hit the Delete or
Print button. You can arrange the buttons in any order, make
them smaller to take up less desktop space, and even remove the
text labels since you probably remember what they all do.
Simply right click a blank area of the toolbar and click Customize
on the tab that opens. ( This works in Internet Explorer also )
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Subscribing
to Newsgroups
Outlook Express is also a news reader. There are many great
newsgroups out there, and Microsoft has one of many, and in many
languages. The images will show you how to subscribe, and
show the Microsoft news server address. In an open Outlook
page, click Tools, then Accounts, then the News tab on the
popup panel, then Add, and then News.
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Sort the e-mail
in your Inbox
You can sort your e-mail in ascending or descending order by Name,
Subject or Date Received by clicking on which one you want in the
inbox. I use date received order. I had forgotten
about this until Korina e-mailed me a question.
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Get rid of the
Read Receipt pop up
One of my pet peeves is the box that pops up when you click on an
e-mail because the sender has requested a "read receipt" so they
know you read the e-mail. In an Outlook Express window click
Tools, click Options and then click Receipts and you can turn
it off.
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Back up or save your
Address Book
Until I had a major crash I didn't realize how important this was.
I was fortunate in that I had copied my Address Book to a floppy
disk to install in my backup computer. Although Outlook has
an export feature, I've found that a much easier and more reliable
method is to just copy or Send the file to a floppy disk.
You will find it in the Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Address
Book folder.
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Compose e-mails using
HTML
If you set Outlook to compose using html, you can select a default
Font and Font color and change Font sizes and colors throughout
your e-mails. When in Outlook click Tools, click Options and
click on the Send tab and place a dot by HTML under Mail Sending
Format. Then click on HTML settings and place a check
in Send pictures with messages and click OK. ( This
is for the next tip. ) Then click the Compose tab and then
Font settings to set your default Font.
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Insert
pictures and animated .gif images in your e-mail
Yep, you can place animated images right on the page with your e-mail.
To insert a picture or image when you are in the text box writing
your e-mail, click on Insert and then click on Picture. A
panel will open asking where the picture is, so just click Browse
and navigate to the folder where the image is, click on the file
and click open and follow the directions. Sure enough, there's
our little buddy shoveling away.
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Go straight
to E-mail
Want to check or send an e-mail but don't want to wait for IE to
open your homepage so you can click on the E-mail button to launch
Outlook Express? If your ISP uses the POP protocol and your
Outlook connection panel is set properly you can open Outlook and
get your mail without opening IE. In Outlook click Tools,
Options, Connection and then Change and make sure that Outlook is
set to connect using the same connection as IE. ( This won't work
for the "On Line" company )
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Change the name that shows
at the top of the Outlook window
Usually ISP's will "brand" the Outlook Express window with their
name. You can change it using the following steps. Click
Start, Run and type regedit and click Ok. In the panel that
opens click the plus signs by: Current User, Identities, The identity
number, Software, Microsoft, Outlook and click once on 5.0.
In the right panel scroll down to Window Title and right click on
it and click modify. Clear the value and type in anything
you want and click Ok. Close regedit and the next time you
open Outlook what you typed will be there. Yep, mine is named
95 Is alive. The tip on Toolbar wallpaper ( the cloud image
) is in the Internet Explorer section.
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Go get it
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Word Viewer
Ever get an e-mail with an attachment that has the .doc extension
and when you try to open it, it is unreadable. The Windows
95 CD has a utility named Microsoft Word Viewer that will open Microsoft
word documents so you can read them. It is located in the
Other directory on the CD. A newer version is available from the
Microsoft download site.
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