I thought my Mouse was bleeding. It happens. They're only
human. The wireless ones go farther when you throw them too. But not this
time, nope, it was me. I had suffered a life threatening paper cut reading
my email and was gushing gallons of blood onto my mouse with every click.
Mommy! It hurts, make it stop.
Email,
what a great invention, a way of life. From 8AM to 8:30 we used to sit with
our coffee, pen in hand, feet on the desk, and listen to Voice Mail. Now,
its email.
Taken
for granted, email is there. Maybe you've got a work account and a personal
account. "People" handle your needs concerning your work account
and if you have a problem you can just dump it on them and go shoe
shopping. Your personal account is probably with Yahoo or Gmail or
Roadrunner or whomever your Internet Service Provider is. Not too much to
worry about there either.
Email
works like USPS mail in that it goes from you to your Post Office to the
recipient's Post Office to the recipient. The way you read and write USPS mail
is your own business. The way you read and write email is through an email
handler. The handler is what you see when you login to email. Gmail's
looks different than Yahoo's etc. They all do pretty much the same things;
Create, Respond, Forward, Spell Check, store Contacts, allow Folders, and
maybe even have a Calendar. So, its pretty much personal preference which
you use.
Outlook
is very popular. It sits right on your computer and your email is delivered
to it. No going to a website or nothing!
But now its your responsibility. Uh-oh, responsibility. Just like
the USPS when mail is delivered to you it is yours. You can't stop the
Postman and get another copy of that check she delivered last week. You had
it, you lost it.
Outlook
calls your email, Contacts, Calendar and Folders your Personal Folders and
keeps them in a file called a PST.
Microsoft has some little, simple, easy to use tools you can use to
protect and repair your Outlook data. The two for today are Personal
Folders Backup and the Inbox Repair Tool.
Personal
Folders Backup (PFBACKUP) is free from Microsoft. Just Google PFBACKUP and
download it from one of the search results. The one I like is entitled
"Outlook 2007/2003/2002 Add-in: Personal Folders..." and points
to a website with Microsoft and Download in the name. Once you have it
downloaded just close Outlook and double click the PFBACKUP file you've
downloaded to install it.
When
you go back into Outlook you will have a new menu selection under File
called Backup. This will let you set how often, and where, you want to
backup your Personal Folders. If you set it to once a week, once a week
when you exit Outlook it will ask if you want to backup. How easy is that?
My cousin's son, Jeff Daniel Phillips, is a Geiko Caveman (Google yourself
silly, he's the hot one.) on TV and even he can do it, probably.
The
Inbox Repair Tool (SCANPST) scans your Outlook PST file and fixes what it
can. This can be a real lifesaver. SCANPST is right on your PC already so
you don't even have to download it. Where it is is anybody's guess so
Microsoft says use Search from the Start menu to find it and launch it from
the results page. Also easy.
Outlook
has limitations, and size is one of them, about 2GB but who really knows.
When you go too far bad things can happen. Usually functions stop working.
Like Delete & Send and Outlook will lock up your PC and make you
reboot. That's when you may want SCANPST.
Outlook has some things to help you avoid the need for SCANPST too.
In
Tools\Options\Other you'll find two items of interest for keeping your PST
from outgrowing its environment.
The
first is a simple checkbox that says "Empty the Deleted Items folder
upon exiting.". If you did actually delete something, exit Outlook,
and at a future date think you want it back go to your Sent Items folder.
Odds are if it had any value you responded to it and that will be in Sent
Items.
The
second is the AutoArchive button. In this section you can set all sorts of
options for the disposition of your aging emails. You'll still have
everything, just in the Archive folders instead of cluttering up your
inbox. If you haven't noticed, or don't have Archive folders, they are
available just downstream from all your other Outlook folders like Inbox
and Sent Items.
So
there you have it; a way to back-up, a way to fix-up and a way to clean-up.
