HOUSECALL information technology

How often has this scenario happened to you?  You have a large file that you are unable to send by email due to administrator set capacity limits.  Were you able to find a work around for this annoying issue? Maybe this forced you to go to the office on a weekend so you could save the large file to the server so your boss could get access to it. Possibly you divided the enormous file into multiple smaller documents that fall below email capacity limits leading to many attachments and and a confusing or incomplete document. Enter file hosting services.  File hosting services are web sites specifically designed to host content, typically large files, that can be accessed anywhere.  The goal of a file hosting service is to allow you to quickly upload your large file and get a download link in return which you can give to the person who needs access to the large file. There are a number of file hosting services online but a reputable one that we have used is Sendspace.

To use Sendspace simply go to their website and follow their quick upload guide. To be sure your file uploaded successfully all you have to do is check your inbox. Once the file has been successfully uploaded and the link has been sent, Sendspace sends a confirmation email so you can be sure the file made it to its final destination. Once the file has been downloaded Sendspace will even send you a link to delete the file so that you can remove it from their servers.

With any file hosting service there are different levels of membership and different costs associated with each level. Sendspace is no different, however for average use a membership is probably unnecessary since you can upload files up to 300 MB for free.

One major consideration with using any file hosting service is data security. Remember that your files are going to a third party server and then being made available via and email to your intended recipient. This method of transfer is by no means considered secure. We highly recommend that you do not use a file hosting service for any files you consider confidential. If you need to transfer large files securely talk to your HouseCall Systems Administrator and they will help you find a safe, secure solution.

So, next time you have a large file you need to send someone, there are a number of file hosting services readily available to make it possible.

Have you ever wondered what life would be like without wi-fi?  Coffee shops would be less crowded, laptop technology would not be as advanced as it is today and the iPhone may never have been invented.  Like petroleum, the world is addicted to wi-fi.  With all of wi-fi’s benefits, it is no wonder that its is as popular as it is today.  Below are outlined the key benefits and concerns related to wifi.

Efficient

Information transfer is fast and convenient.  For example, businesses can send price quotes to clients from remote locations.

Flexibile

End users are not restricted to one physical location when connecting to a wireless network.  This enables more efficient use of space within an office setting.

Cost effective

Wireless networks are relatively cheap to install in an office environment.  It also enables greater options when selecting computer equipment.

Accessible

Wi-fi is quite popular in a public setting such as a coffee shop, bookstore, hotel or restaurant.  Its available signal makes it easy to connect to the internet.

Security

Wireless networks are considered more vulnerable to hacker attacks.  This  involves unauthorized access to your personal network and can lead to sensitive information being stolen.  It is imperative to set up a strong password for your wireless network.

Coverage

Wireless coverage areas have a limited range of connectivity (often from 50-300 ft).  Be aware of the range of the wireless signal you are connecting to.  It is very frustrating to be dropped from the internet simply because you stepped out of the coverage area.

Speed

The transmission of data is usually slower than most wired networks.  This is because wired networks generally support a greater bandwidth and can withstand greater amounts of network activity.

The U.S. House of Representatives is currently in the process of migrating to Exchange 2007. This means there are some changes coming to your email system. This post will explain the most important changes related to moving to the new email servers

1. You will have roughly 3 times the storage space on the new servers
2. Exchange Extended Mailbox comes with the new servers, and will automatically move older emails to secondary storage. This means no more “Your e-mail is over it’s size limit” emails!
3. The way accounts are created and modified will be different
4. Outlook Web Access gets a new look and gains some features
5. You can now use your House email with Apple Mail
6. There is a migration process your office will have to go through once

Storage Space

Let’s start with an easy one. Unless you had a special exemption*, you started receiving size limit warning emails when your mailbox reached 135,000 kb. On the Exchange 2007 system, that limit will be at 375,000 kb. Just think of what you can do with all that extra space!! The point where you stop being able to send and receive emails is beyond that but won’t be an issue because of Exchange Extended Mailbox (EEM)

*Note that, if you did have a special exemption previously, it will go away when you migrate and you will be assigned the default storage limit. In almost all cases, this will still be more space than you had before.

Exchange Extended Mailbox (EEM)

Let me start by saying that this is not as complicated as it sounds. It is very easy to use. The way you store old emails is about to completely change in a very good way!

When your mailbox reaches the trigger point of 375,000 kb, EEM will kick in the following night and move mail messages older than 30 days to secondary storage until your mailbox is back under the limit. This process is called moving to the vault or vaulting. If you are at a PC, using Outlook or Outlook Web Access, vaulted messages appear in your Inbox (or whichever sub-folder you left them in) just like regular messages, with the exception of having a different icon.

The selected messages in this screenshot have been vaulted. The others have not.

The highlighted messages above have been vaulted. Notice how the icon to the left is different from the non-vaulted messages below them. (In this case, the more recent messages are vaulted because I manually did so for the purpose of creating this screen shot. More on that later.)

Messages that have been vaulted no longer count against your mailbox size limits. If you are wondering when moving messages to your PSTs (or Personal Folders or Archive Folders) enters into the process, it doesn’t. You no longer have to create a secondary organizational system for old email. You can just organize your email in your Inbox and sub-folders and EEM will take care of keeping you under your mailbox size limit. There are just a few limitations to messages which have been vaulted:

1. You may have to wait an extra second for the message to open, though it is normally VERY quick
2. You will not be able to see all of very large, vaulted messages on your Blackberry or on an Apple mail client without unvaulting them. You will notice this most commonly with message attachments not being viewable, but it will also apply to the text of very long emails. Anything over 4000 characters will not be visible without unvaulting.
3. If you are exporting messages to a file, to take with you to a new job or for backup purposes, the messages that have been moved to secondary storage will not be exported in full. There are ways to deal with this issue, so just ask your Systems Administrator for help.
4. If you are running the most recent version of Mac OS, 10.6 Snow Leopard, using Apple Mail, or using Office 2010 on a PC there is currently no way to vault and unvault mail, though plug-ins are expected to released to handle this process.

Considering that these limitations will only apply to emails that are more than 30 days old and all can be quickly overcome by unvaulting the message, you will be saving all that time you previously spent archiving emails.

What do you do if you need to unvault a message? As part of the migration process, the Symantec Outlook Add-in will be automatically installed on your computer. It is a small, additional toolbar that will appear in Outlook.

Symantec Outlook Add-In Toolbar

You will most often use the two buttons on the right to unvault and vault messages. For example, if you wanted to sent the first message in the screen below to secondary storage, because you knew it didn’t have an attachment you needed to access from you Blackberry and you didn’t want it to count against your mailbox size limits, you would select that email, and click on the Send to Vault button

Then a window will pop up to ask you if you are sure you want to vault the message. If you do not want these messages to appear every time, click the checkbox next to “Do not show this message again”.

Once it has been sent to the vault, the message will still show up in the message list, just as it did before, but with a different icon to show that it is stored in the vault and a link to open the full message in case it was long enough that the full message is not displayed.

If you want to take the message out of the vault, so that you can view the attachment on a Blackberry, export the message, or for any other reason you will just select the message and click on the Restore from Vault button.

As before, a window will pop up to ask you if you are sure you want to unvault the message. If you do not want these messages to appear every time, click the checkbox next to “Do not show this message again”.

Now the message will have been restored in full to your mailbox. It will be fully accessible and will count against your mailbox storage limits. You are free to organize and keep your email in any way you want, but the EEM system will be the easiest and least time-consuming method.

Creating and Modifying Accounts

The method for creating and changing user accounts in Exchange 2007 is done through a different server and has a very different set of instructions. The CAO offers training on this new system. All HouseCall Systems Admistrators have been through this training and can take care of all needed changes to accounts for you. If you are used to creating and unlocking accounts yourself, you should take the training before doing so on Exchange 2007. You can sign up for the training on the House Learning Center website.

Outlook Web Access (OWA)

After your office has migrated to Exchange 2007, you will automatically see a very different screen when you log in to https://owa.house.gov. The new OWA website provides an experience that is much closer to using Outlook on your computer, and is much faster to use. It is important to note that many of the features of the new OWA are only available through Internet Explorer.

Apple Mail

If you use an Apple computer, you may be excited to learn that you can now use Apple Mail instead of Entourage to access your House email. Apple’s latest operating system, OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, provides support for Exchange 2007 email accounts. Previous versions of Mac OS, do not work. If you are unsure of which OS you have or if you have questions about setting up your House email with Apple Mail, your HouseCall Systems Administrator can help you.

The Migration Process

Your HouseCall Systems Administrator can help you through the migration process*. Your office will be scheduled for migration on a certain day. That night your email will be unavailable by all methods (Outlook, Blackberry, OWA, etc) for approximately 1 hour between 10pm and 6am. The next day, all mail systems should have automatically moved over to the new servers, and you should not have to do anything but enjoy the new features. The Symantec Outlook Add-in toolbar for EEM should automatically appear in your Outlook within 2 days of your migration. As always, if you encounter any problems or need assistance, contact your HouseCall Systems Administrator.

*Many of our clients have already been migrated.  Simply ask your HouseCall Systems Administrator if you have and when you can begin using all of this added functionality.

Our Blackberry’s have become an integral part of our lives, whether we like it or not. Many, if not all of us at one time or another, have experienced the frustration that comes with a Blackberry running slow, or worse, locking up completely. Below, we’ll touch on some of the most effective and easy ways to keep your Blackberry running at its full potential.

If you use your Blackberry to do a lot of internet browsing while at home or on the road, then it is a good idea to clear out the browsing cache from time to time. On your Blackberry open your browser just as you normally would. With the standard browser screen showing, press the Blackberry menu button. Then select the Options tab, followed by Cache Operations. Once your Cache Operations window is open simple press the clear button under each category you wish to clear. Please note that clearing the history and passwords will erase previously browsed websites and saved passwords from the device. This procedure will still be beneficial to your device if you wish to not clear your passwords and history.

For an even more extensive cleaning of your Blackberry, you can use the memory cleaning tool on your device. Simply start by going to your options window, and then scroll down and select Security Options, and then select Advanced Security Options. Make your way to the Memory Cleaning window and with this window open press the blackberry button once. Then click the Clean Now option. This need not be done regularly, but can help when the device is running unusually slow.

The third thing you can do is simple called a “Battery Pull”. It is as simple as it sounds; remove the battery and then place it back in the device. This will free up any locked memory in process and resets your blackberry to reboot clean and refreshed. This will solve many problems of performance and is generally a good idea to do this every once in a while as a preventative maintenance measure

These are some quick and easy steps you can take to keep your Blackberry running smooth and quickly. Of course, sometimes these steps will not resolve problems you are experiencing with your device, in the event that this happens to you, don’t panic, just call or email your HouseCall Systems Administrator and we’ll be right there to help you out!

Seven years of music, family photos, work documents and contacts all gone in the blink of an eye. They were there just a day ago on your computer, but now all you hear is a clicking noise and a black screen staring you in the face. The first question the tech asks you is “Sooo, do you have a backup of all your data?” This question can either be your saving grace or a swift kick in the butt. It’s something as simple as plugging in a USB drive and setting up a backup schedule that can be the difference between losing years of precious data or restoring your computer back to life after a critical hardware failure. Luckily there are many solutions available to backup your personal data fast and efficiently, regardless of what operating system you use, without having to worry about hardware malfunctions.

One of the easiest solutions I have seen comes standard in Mac OS X called Time Machine. With this program you select a drive you would like to back up to and then Time Machine does the rest. It backs up your data every hour and will keep daily, weekly, and monthly backups until the drive is full, then it overwrites your oldest backups.  The only thing you need to buy is an external hard drive. These are available from any store that sells computer equipment such as Best Buy, Target, Microcenter, or online. A decent 500 GB to 1 TB hard drive is less than $100 these days.

If you’re a PC user running Windows XP/Vista/7 then there are many reliable third party backup vendors out there. One of my favorite is Cobian available at http://www.cobian.se/ or www.download.com.  This free software gives you the ability to select virtually any backup source and destination, schedule backups whenever you want, create logs of what’s backed up, and also email you when it is done. All you need for this is an external hard drive or network destination where you want to store the backup files. There are other online data backup providers such as Mozy – www.mozy.com, iDrive – www.idrive.com, and Carbonite – www.carbonite.com. These companies offer a unique remote backup service that securely backs up your documents to their servers without the need to purchase external hardware. However, there is usually a low monthly or yearly fee. Regardless of which service you choose, your files will be protected from disaster.

There are other software packages such as Norton Ghost that will take a complete snapshot, or image, of your entire hard drive. This includes not just important documents, but the operating system, installed programs, and other system related files. You can use this image to restore your system back to the time that the snapshot was taken. This form of backing up isn’t as fast or easy to do as the other software packages mentioned. However, if your computer were to fail you could restore the image without having to reinstall the operating system or programs. This form of backing up isn’t necessarily done at normal intervals where you would have the most recent copy of documents, but is used instead to restore computers back to a functioning state with all software already installed.  Its also a great method for restoring your computer after getting infected with viruses.

For those of you who primarily use your blackberry instead of a laptop or a desktop, there is a backup solution for  that as well. The program is called Blackberry Desktop Manager. This software allows you to backup and restore all the contents of your blackberry to a file which can be restored just in case you lose or damage your blackberry. It’s available from your service provider for free or http://vzw.smithmicro.com/blackberry.

For whatever system you use there is always a need to backup your data so it’s available in case of hardware failure, loss, or disaster. The time it takes to put these procedures in place will absolutely pay of someday. Don’t assume that your hardware will last forever. It isn’t a matter of “if” it will fail; it’s a matter of “when”. Ask yourself this question: “Are my photos, documents, and music worth 30 minutes?” I would bet the answer in almost all cases is a resounding YES!

We all have information that we wouldn’t want shared with strangers. Keeping your personal information and passwords private is essential to avoid identity theft, protecting bank accounts – basically maintaining your personal privacy. You wouldn’t leave your bank statements lying in public view, so how can you prevent people from seeing your personal data stored on the Web, your personal computers and computers at work?  The best way to prevent unwanted eyes from seeing your sensitive data is to know where and when it is safe to digitally store your personal information.

Social Networking

First off, social networks are inherently insecure.  Posting to Facebook and other social networks is not necessarily private – even if you keep your account private, people can still view comments you made on your friend’s pages (if their pages are not private). It is not hard to get around the flimsy protections put in place on these sites. Many employers use social networks to gather information about potential employees or partners. Youtube videos are not always private even though you set them as such. Although anonymous account are allowed on many websites, you are not anonymous to the web server hosting your data. Each time you visit a website, your computer’s connection information is stored in the server which can then be traced back to you. Even if you are aware of how to change privacy settings, it is best to err on the side of caution and not post personal information. Overall, the internet, and social networking in particular, is not private. Do not post private information, pictures, or any other type of data that is not meant to be seen by all.

Email Safety

Recently, there have been increased attempts by malicious companies and individuals to get through spam filters.  You may have seen emails from friends or family that contain advertisements. In the past few weeks, Yahoo, Hotmail, and Gmail account credentials have been stolen and then used to send spam emails to the contact lists of those accounts. This is a innovative way to get you to open spam mail, as you will see the message as coming from a trusted source.

If your email account is compromised you will need to take swift measures to protect yourself.  First and most importantly, change the password to your email account and make sure you use a secure password (we recommend a minimum of 8 characters containing letters, numbers, symbols, and capitals).  Next run a malware scan program (like Malwarebytes) on the computers you use to access the compromised account. Malware is often designed to harvest passwords and personal information from your computer, so if you don’t get rid of it the attackers will be able to compromise you again.  While there is certainly cause for alarm, there is no need to panic; most often passwords are compromised by hackers stealing them main authentication database of your email provider.

Do not open attachments in emails unless you know the source and know that it is not malicious. It never hurts to email the sender back and confirm that the attachment is legitimate. Also be careful of links that you receive in emails. If you hover the mouse over a link such as this http://google.com you will notice that the link may not be what it seems. The true link is the one displayed when you hover your mouse over the blue text.

What Can Be Done to Protect your Information?
Be careful supplying personal information to anyone on line. Unless you trust a site, don’t give your address, password, or credit card information. Look for indications that the site uses SSL to encrypt your information (if they do the URL will start with https:// – notice the s). Although some sites require you to supply your social security number (such as those associated with financial transactions for loans or credit cards), be especially wary of providing this information online. A final method of attack is through browser cookies which temporarily store data so that you don’t have to keep typing in your info over and over. If an attacker can access your computer, he or she may be able to find personal data stored in cookies. However, you can limit the use of cookies with just a few simple changes to your browser settings. Be careful which websites you visit; if it seems suspicious, leave!  The longer you linger the more time malicious individuals have to compromise your computer.   Finally be diligent about keeping your virus definitions up to date, scanning your computer for spyware regularly, and make sure you have the latest security patches from the manufacturer.

You know a lot of people. What can you say? You’re well loved and important. That means you are also supposed to know a lot of phone numbers, email addresses, Blackberry PINs, mailing addresses, job titles, birthdays, and many other bits of information. It can be understandably difficult to remember all of this, which is why most of us don’t. Fortunately, this is one area in which computers and smart phones really make our lives easier. This article will explore some ways you can maximize Outlook and your Blackberry to keep track of all that information about all those people. We will look at what kinds of information you can store in your Contacts and the fastest, most efficient ways to get that information there.

If you want to put all that information together in one place, Outlook Contacts is ready to help. Outlook provides places for over 80 different pieces of contact information, and allows you to define your own categories of information to organize as well. The main Outlook Contact screen may look familiar, but take notice of your ability to use the drop-down menu near many of the categories to store multiple pieces of contact information in a single category. Additional email addresses and home and business addresses, for example. When entering a new Contact, always try to include a last name or a company name. Contacts with only a first name will sometimes have problems syncing properly with your Blackberry.

Outlook also gives you a place to keep many less standard pieces of contact information. The Details tab gives you access to places for potentially useful information such as nicknames, birthday, and assistant’s name. Take a look at the information Outlook is able to help you organize and decide what will be useful to you. Outlook even lets you attach a picture to each of your Contacts to help you remember who is who!

Now, you can sit down and fill out a Contact for everyone you know, but you are a busy person and you don’t have time for all that typing, right? Though manually entering all the information you want to organize is the most comprehensive way to put it all together, there are many fast and convenient shortcuts to save the info you need while on the fly.

Let’s start with what NOT to do. You may have noticed that, after you have emailed someone a few times, their email address will start to automatically pop up every time you start to type their name. What was Mr. Smith’s email address? You start to type Smith, and it pops up. It’s like magic!

Outlook’s auto-fill feature is very useful and convenient, but it is not a good way to store information. Email addresses that are only in the auto-fill will not be available on your Blackberry, or from any other computer. Also, if you have problems with your computer or get a new one, this information can be very easily lost. If you never save the email address anywhere else, what will you do when you need to email Mr. Smith from your new computer? It is for this reason that you should add every person or email address that you need to keep track of to your Outlook Contacts. Luckily, there are several very quick and easy ways to do this.

When you are addressing an e-mail, any time after Outlook has recognized it as an email address and it shows up with an underline, you can simply right-click on the address and choose Add to Outlook Contacts. It will automatically pull up a new Contact card. Enter as much or as little additional information as you want (Even a Contact with only an email address is better than not having any information saved at all.) and hit the Save and Close button. It’s that easy!

You can also do the same thing by right-clicking on the name of the sender on any email sent to you.

You can also click on an email that has been sent to you and drag it to the Contacts button on the left side of the Outlook window to create a new Contact.

If you aren’t at your desk, you also have several options on your Blackberry for accomplishing the same task. If you work for a large organization with Blackberry Enterprise Servers (such as the House of Representatives) you may notice that, when you compose a new email, as you start to type a name or an email address, the second line that pops up below what you are typing says “Lookup:”.  If you type the name of someone in your organization and choose this Lookup option, it will find the addresses of any person in your organization with that name and let you choose the one you want.  This is great for those times when you haven’t already added people to your contacts, but need to find them while on the run. It is less usefull when you are looking for someone with a fairly common name. Using Lookup for Smith or Kim tends to come back with too many results to be useful. It can also be a little slow to wait for the Blackberry to search the whole email system.

So that you don’t have to wait on the Lookup feature and then search through the list of options for people you email often, it is faster in the long run to add these people to your Contacts. The Blackberry makes this easy. Simply select the name of anyone that has sent you an email or the name of a person you have found using the Lookup feature, click the menu button, and there will be an option to Add to Contacts. This will add the person to your Blackberry Contacts. The next time you sync your Blackberry with Outlook it will be added to your Outlook Contacts as well. (NOTE: Ask your Systems Administrator about instant wireless syncing if you don’t have it enabled).

Now that you know several new ways to save all that valuable contact information, you can worry a little less and have more information available when you need it. Happy contacting!

You built a website. You gave it a smart design and included informative content. You uploaded it to the internet. Now what? You built a website because you had something to share with the world: information about your company, a politician, your favorite hobby, or your resume. You built a website with the intention that people would visit it. How do you know if anyone has stopped by?

The answer is web statistics. Web statistics tell you detailed information about how many people are visiting your website, what they are viewing, and for how long. Web statistics contain data and graphs that might seem confusing. How do you know what data is important? What does the data mean?

This article covers how to interpret some important statistics from Urchin, Google’s web statistics software that you install on your own server. It is possible that your web host already has Urchin installed. The House of Representatives uses Urchin for statistics on many of their websites. While this article only covers Urchin,many of the terms are similar to those used with other web statistics monitors, such as Google’s Analytics, and AWstats.

The table below is the most basic summary of your web statistics. In Urchin, you can specify what dates you want to view statistics from. In this example, we have chosen a date range to display statistics for 2009.

Terms and Definitions:

Hit – Any time anyone loads one item up from your webpage it counts as a hit. The main page of a website has a items on it that when viewed as part of the whole page count as a hit. For instance, each image counts as 1 hit when loaded, so if you have 20 images on one page that will add 20 hits to your total when someone views that page. Hits do not provide much information as far as how many people are viewing a website. Focus should be more on pageviews and sessions. In the sample table below, the website had 8,000,000 total hits in 2009.

Pageview – A pageview is counted any time anyone views an individual page. For example, if John Doe went to a website and looked at the main page, the about page, and the contact page that would count as 3 pageviews. In 2009 the website in the sample table below had 1,500,000 total pageviews.

Session – Sessions shows how many individual visits you get to your webpage as a whole. For example, if John Doe went to a website and looked at the main page, the about page, and the contact page that would count as 1 session. If Jane Smith went to a website and only looked at the main page, that would still count as 1 session, and the website would have a total of 2 sessions. The website in the sample table below had 400,000 total individual visits in 2009.

The next section tells you how many hits, pageviews, and sessions you had per day. The sessions per day is the most important one to look at here because it tells you how many people per average day visit your website. In 2009 the website in the sample table below had 1096 people visit your website per day.

Average pageviews per session is also an important statistic. It tells you that in 2009 when a person visited the webpage in the sample table below, they usually looked at about 4 different pages. If the number is too high, that might mean that your webpage was hard to navigate and people were having difficulty finding the pages they wanted.

Average length per session tells you how long the average person spent looking at your webpage. In 2009, the average person spent about 20 minutes looking at the sample website.

The Requested Pages graph shows what the most popular pages are on a website. The main page is usually popular page on your website, and is usually identified as index.html or index.shtml. It may also be identified by a containing folder separated by slashes. For example if your blog was the most popular page on your website and it was in a folder called “blog” it would appear as “/blog”.

The RSS feed is commonly a popular page as well. This means that many people subscribed to your RSS feed in 2009. (If you aren’t familiar with RSS feeds, this is an entirely different subject. If you are curious, we have a blog entry about it here)

Remember that this list only shows the top 10 pages viewed. It does not mean that other pages were not viewed in 2009.

The Downloads graph is similar to the Requested Pages graph, but instead of showing pages it is showing downloads. In other words, this graph tells you what PDFs and Word DOCs people are downloading the most. The “hit” for each download shows you how many times that file was downloaded.

Another interesting piece of information that Urchin provides is where your visitors are located, which Urchin displays visually in the map below:

The darker shades of green represent areas of the globe where more people have visited the sample website. The circles point out areas were large amounts of visitors are coming from. Notice in the sample that many visitors have come from the DC area.

For more detailed information on generating Urchin reports and interpreting more data, read the article from NewFangled.com, Analyzing Web Traffic.

There are other graphs and statistics on Urchin, but the ones we discussed are the most informative and easy to understand.

Most companies and organizations have a set limit on how much space you are allotted for email. Combine that with many people wanting to save every email they ever send or receive (you never know when you’re going to need to dig it back up) and the stacks of email that a person usually gets in the average business day and mailboxes can fill up very quickly. This article is going to focus on checking your inbox size, archiving and sorting your email in Outlook and Entourage. If you’re looking to clear out your gmail inbox, here are two great articles, one from lifehacker and one from web worker daily, on giving your gmail a fresh start.

Outlook

Outlook allows you to archive and sort emails by using personal folders, which are also known as archive folders and PSTs. The terms personal folders, archive folders and PSTs are terms that can be used interchangeably, so for simplicity we will refer to them as personal folders.

To create a set of personal folders in Outlook, go to the File menu, select New, and click Outlook Data File. You will be given a choice between two types of files. Chose Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst). Click OK. You are then given an option of where you would like your personal folders to live. If you have space on a server, it’s a good idea to put your personal folders file there. Click on My Computer to see a list of drives available. When you’ve chosen, click OK.

Next you will be asked to name your personal folders. You can pick any name for them you’d like and you can always change the name later. Here you can add a password if you’d like, but it’s not recommended. If you lose your personal folder’s password it is difficult to recover. When you’re finished click OK.

Your personal folders will appear on the left of Outlook under your mailbox folders with the name you chose. Click the + sign to expand the folders. Here you can add more folders to organize your email. Right click and select New Folder.

Name your folder. Under “select where to put this folder” you can choose which folder you’d like to contain your new folder. The folder you right clicked to create a new folder will be the default.

Now you can archive your emails. There are two ways to do this. One option is to manually chose what emails you want to archive. In this method you drag and drop your emails directly into your personal folders. Doing one email at a time would take forever, but you can select multiple emails at once with the control (ctrl) and shift keys.

The ctrl key lets you select emails individually. Just hold down the ctrl key and select emails, then drag them into your personal folders.

The shift key selects a set of emails in a row. Select the first email you want to move, then hold down the shift key and select the last email. All the emails in-between will be selected and you can move them into your personal folders.

Your second option is AutoArchiving. To setup your AutoArchive settings, to go the tools menu, click options, and click the other tab. Click AutoArchive.

Here you can edit the auto archive settings. Choose how often you want the auto-archive to run. We recommend checking the box next to Prompt Before AutoArchive Runs so that you will know when AutoArchive is running and you can cancel it before it begins. Make sure the following boxes are checked: Archive or Delete Old Items, Show Archive Folder in Folder List, and Move Old Items to. Click the Browse button to navigate to the personal folders file you created earlier. Note that when you AutoArchive items it will create folders in your personal folders that are identical to the folders you are archiving from. So if you just have an Inbox and a Sent Items folder it will create a folder called Inbox and a folder called Sent Items in your personal folders. You can click the Run AutoArchive Now button to auto archive your files immediately.

You can also use rules to automatically archive emails when they come into your inbox. This is helpful if you belong to a mailing list or subscribe to a newsletter. See our blog entry on Outlook rules for more information.

Entourage

Archiving emails in Entourage is incredibly simple. First, expand the section under your inbox called On My Computer by clicking the triangle next to it. You can drag emails into the inbox or sent items folders here, or you can create your own folders. Create your own folders by right clicking or holding down the control key and clicking On My Computer and selecting New Subfolder.

You can create as many subfolders within subfolders as you would like.

There is no AutoArchive option for Entourage but you can move emails over manually. The command and shift keys help you select multiple emails at once:

The command key lets you select emails individually. Just hold down the command key and select emails, then drag them into your personal folders.

The shift key selects a set of emails in a row. Select the first email you want to move, then hold down the shift key and select the last email. All the emails in-between will be selected and you can move them into your personal folders.

There are many different methods for organizing your email once your folders are created. You can choose to have a different personal folder for each year, or you can have different folders for projects you are working on. Another option is the trusted trio method from LifeHacker. How you sort your email is up to you.

Have you ever seen someone open up a computer? HouseCall System Administrators are known to do this from time to time in order to replace a part, clean out the dust, or just make sure everything is where it belongs. Perhaps you’ve wondered what those pieces of metal and wires are for. Here is a basic explanation of a few of the pieces inside most personal computers. Together they run the programs you use to work every day.

Motherboard

The motherboard ties all the components of the computer together. It looks like a large flat piece of metal that is usually green and has lots of circuits, wires, and other components sticking out. Everything is connected to the motherboard in one way or another, and the motherboard makes sure that all the parts of your PC receive power and can communicate with one another. In this way the motherboard acts like a mother, bringing all the members of the family together. The motherboard also determines what upgrades are available for a machine. If an upgrade is not compatible with the motherboard, you will not be able to use it to upgrade your PC.

CPU

CPU stands for Central Processing Unit and is often simply called a “processor”. CPUs are usually very small and square and fit right into the motherboard. The CPU is the “brain” of the computer. It is constantly receiving information, deciding what to do with it, and relaying it to other parts of the computer. Recently many computers have dual or multi-core processors. These allow PCs to do more things at once. If you’re the type of person who likes to have Outlook, Word, and 12 tabs in Firefox open while listening to music in iTunes all at the same time a dual-core processor would be a smart choice.

Memory

There are two main types of memory on your computer. The first is Random Access Memory (pictured above in green), which is abbreviated as RAM. It’s “random” because you can access the memory in any order. It is used to run programs on your PC. While new data is being continually stored in the RAM, the computer’s Read-Only Memory (ROM) remains unchanged. It is used for running processes on your machine that you don’t usually think about but are essential: such as the software that makes the hardware on your computer work.

Power Supply

All the components in your computer need electricity to run. You plug the computer into the outlet, and the power from the outlet travels into the power supply. The power supply ensures that the correct amount of electricity is provided to each part of your computer.

CD and DVD ROM Drive

Most computers today have DVD ROM drives (shown above) that play both DVDs and CDs, although there are still a few with CD-only drives. The drive is where you insert the CD or DVD. The drive reads the CD or DVD gathers the data so you can access it on your computer.

Graphics Card

When you look at what’s on your computer screen it usually makes sense, or at the very least, you can recognize images and text. The graphics card (also known as a video card) is responsible for taking all the data from your computer and displaying it on the screen in a way that you can understand. Some graphics cards are separate components and some are built right into the motherboard.

Cooling System

All the electricity running inside your computer can get hot very quickly. If your computer has no way of cooling itself down it can easily become overheated and stop working properly. The heat sync is made of a type of metal with high thermal conductivity and works to draw heat away from other parts of the PC that could otherwise become damaged. The fan (shown above) is a smaller version of one you might use inside your house. It draws cool air from outside the PC and moves hot air to a heat sink to keep the computer cool. Fans get dusty easily and can slow down your computer, so they should be cleaned with compressed air on a regular basis.

Hard Drive

The hard drive is like the long term memory of your computer. When you save a file to your computer’s desktop or in your my documents folder you are saving the file to your hard drive. The design of the hard drive allows a lot of information to be stored and accessed quickly. It also saves information in such a way that when you shut down your PC, everything is still stored on the hard drive and you can access it next time you start up your machine.

Like a human body, a computer needs all of its components to run smoothly and efficiently. For more information on what’s inside your computer, visit the Computer section of HowStuffWorks.com.