E-Musings Mon Immorata

Upgrades, Upgrades and POPping Yahoo Mail Lots of upgrades for Thunderbird, Opera 8, FileZilla 2.2.12a plus new Spyware Blaster, plus all about downloading and sending mail from your Yahoo account Another week of important updates gone by. Opera 8.0 Technical Preview 5.1 (Build 7498) Without Java resolves two IMAP (mail) account-related issues that prevented mailboxes from updating locally when they changed on the server and subscribing to shared name space mailboxes. For those still not up to speed, Opera 8 Preview 5.x (Opera for Windows with Java, Opera for FreeBSD, Opera for Linux, Opera for Mac OS X) features a completely recast IMAP support for the M2 mail and news client. As for shared name spaces, these allows an IMAP account owner to share folders with other users on the same email system. For example MyRealBox, Novell's NetMail free public demo service, lets me share one accounts' Inbox with another account so I can view messages received to my secondary account in my primary account. Thunderbird 1.0.1 (for Windows, Linux and MacOS X) too has been released. While theoretically a nightly Aviary build, it was considered ready for public release. While inline spell-checking's still missing (its being developed, for now, within the 0.9 trunk), you can enable this feature using an extension. Thunderbird In-Line SpellChecker v0.4.75 uses a custom word list (sample available from the developer). However the spell check-enabled Thunderbird build uses OpenOffice.org's spell checking module and dictionaries. There are some upgrade caveats. Make sure to install version 1.0.1 over an existing version 1.0 without first uninstalling the latter. If you (like me) used build like 1.0RC, it's better to first upgrade to v1.0 followed by v1.0.1. And the simplest way to do so is to download the zipped builds for each version. Then using Total Commander (or a similar two-pane file manager), extract the zipped version and synchronize folders. That way you can ensure that only the new or changed files are updated. I notices this is more hassle-free than downloading the installable version and installing first one copy and then the other!

Also new this week is Spyware Blaster 3.3. This excellent free utility blocks ActiveX-based spyware and adware, as well as browser hijackers, dialers and other pests including cookies for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox. You can also use the software to restrict changes to Internet Explorer's default settings. As this is a new build, the developer recommends disabling all protection before uninstalling the older version 3.2. Then install v3.3 and re-enable all protection. FileZilla 2.2.12a resolves several bugs bugs including auto local file list refresh on file change and adds UTF8 support while updating the SSL/TLS handling class. If you are still looking for an excellent (and free) FTP client look no further. If you're a corporate administrator considering Firefox for the enterprise. But worry you'll need to individually configure each copy do consider FFDeploy. This allows you to define the installed extensions, themes, bookmarks and even if the user is allowed to have a separate profile. Begin by installing a staging copy of Firefox followed by installing extensions and themes. You can configure security, proxy settings, home/start page, search engines, browsing history and browser cache. Finally run FFDeploy.vbs (requires Windows Scripting Host installed and enabled) to define a custom configuration. Don't delay, get a copy and Spread Firefox today. In an era of shared computers at both work and at home, it's important that you can restrict access to specific files and setting. Windows 2000 onwards you can map a folder as a user's home directory. But you need to configure this while setting up a new user. It doesn't work so well (and can even block access) when added later. Or you can take an easier path to data security using a free utility like Cryptainer LE. This disk encryption software can create multiple 20 MB password-protected containers; each as a separate folder. Once you load your encrypted drive from within the utility, drag and drop is all it takes to secure your data. You can also install specific programs within the container. And even extend the software to email encrypted file attachments. Recipients require the free DecypherIT utility to view the files. Don't forget to send the recipient the unlock password but not in the same mail if possible. Microsoft's also released Images of Ireland Desktop Theme for Windows XP to coincide with St Patrick's Day. The theme includes both wallpaper and a screen saver featuring images from Fáilte Ireland and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. For some reason access to Yahoo web mail accounts remains a popular topic! And there's no better software than the open-source YPOPs! (ex-YahooPOPs!). This runs as a local POP3 proxy to bridge the gap between your free Yahoo (web-mail only) account and desktop email client. Even if you have an older version, I recommend upgrading to YPOPs! 0.7.3 that resolves problems relating to saving messages to Yahoo's Sent Items folder. However, because of the multiple authentication layers, this software can crawl. Or worse time-out on slower connections and I recommend the minimum be at least 64 kbps ADSL. But if you can't wait. Yet don't mind using a rather basic, text-only reader, consider the free ePrompter instead that supports AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, POP3, Earthlink, Excite, iName, Juno, Lycos, Mail.com, Mindspring, MSN, MyWay, Netscape, OneBox, Rediffmail, SBC Yahoo, Switchboard, USA.net and more. That's it for this week. Stay Safe and we'll meet again. Click Here to Email Me