Gayle wants to know if she can reduce spam by changing her password
I have Hotmail as my email account for many years. I’ve heard before that if you are getting too much junk e-mail, to change your password. Is that correct? I just did that a few days ago, but still get a lot of junk mail.

Second question, in the mail that automatically already goes to the junk box (along with some mail that shouldn’t because it is not junk), does the changing of my Hotmail email password not slow the junk box email? I get over 150 junk emails landing in my junk email box almost every day. Then I have to sift through the 150 emails in my junk box to make sure good emails aren’t in there by mistake. I am wondering about solutions, if any, without getting a new email address. Thanks so much... Gayle F.

Spammers don't need your password, all they need is your email address and if you haven't been careful and you've clicked links in emails you shouldn't have, posted your email address online or on social media, signed up for a lot of things online using your email address, it's quite likely that your email address has made it onto various spam lists which are sold on the dark web to spammers.  Spammers buy these lists because most of the email addresses on the list have been verified to be email addresses that are actually being used. These lists contain tens of thousands of emails.

Here are some of the ways your email address can end up on spam lists and in the hands of spammers.

 

Publicly posting your email address. If you post your email address on a website, forum, or social media platform, spammers will likely find it. They use automated tools to crawl the web and harvest email addresses from any public source.

 

Signing up for mailing lists. When you sign up for a mailing list, you're giving the sender permission to send you an email. However, some mailing lists are not legitimate, and they may sell your email address to spammers.

 

Making purchases online. When you make a purchase online, you may be asked to enter your email address. This information is often sold to third-party companies, who may use it to send you spam.

 

Data breaches. When a company's data is breached, your email address may be one of the pieces of information that are stolen. Spammers can then use this information to send you spam.

 

Phishing attacks. In a phishing attack, a spammer will send you an email that looks like it's from a legitimate source. The email will often ask you to click on a link or enter your personal information, such as your email address. If you click on the link or enter your information, the spammer will have access to your email address.

 

Changing your password does not remove your email address from spam lists or change how much spam you get.

 

Here are two things you can do to cut down on the spam you receive.

 

Create a new Gmail, Outlook.com, or Hotmail.com email address and notify only the people you want to have your new email address that you are changing your email address. Gmail does a better job of putting spam in the spam folder and good email in your inbox than Outlook.com or Hotmail.com. Still, you should check your junk or spam folder weekly to be sure there are no good emails there.

 

Don't delete your old email address until you are sure everyone who should have your new email address has it  And another hint... never use your name in your email address. If you create an email address like gayle1234@ then when you receive a hoax or scam email it may start with Dear Gayle... but if you use something like 17lakeloons@ and you get an email it will say Dear 17lakeloons and you're gonna know that's spam, right?

 

When you sign up for something online that you're not familiar with, use a disposable email address. Read our article about disposable email addresses here:

 

Changing passwords is a great idea if you want to protect your account from being hacked, but changing passwords doesn't do a thing to get your email address off spam lists.

 

We hope this helps you. Gayle.
---------

Thanks to your question and many others like it, we've written an article about spam and why some people seem to receive more than others and sometimes so much even Gmail can't filter them all out.

 

Please take a look at this article and let me know if that helps you understand what is going on and how to prevent it from happening again with your new email address. 

You can transfer pictures from your iPhone to an external drive attached to your Windows computer this way:

An external drive is not a flash drive, it's like the hard drive in your computer only it plugs into your computer via a USB port. Here's an example of an external hard drive (1 terabyte) from Amazon.

Three Quick and Easy Windows Tips
Windows 10 & Windows 11

I don't think anyone appreciates the quick and easy tips more than we do. We spend endless hours on the web when the Internet was new and everyone connected to the 'net with a loud, squealing telephone modem. How many of you remember that awful, yet comforting sound?  Here are 3 tips we think you'll find easy and very useful.

Use the mouse and Shift key to select text

Most of you know that you can select files and folders by holding the Shift key and clicking on the first and then the last file/folder. But this also applies to selecting text in documents like MS Word docs, text files, and Web pages.

All you have to do is click on the first character in the text you want to copy, then point to the last character, click, and release the shift key. All the text between the first click and the last click is selected. Now press CTRL + C to copy the selected text and CTRL+V to paste it wherever you want…like a Word doc or an email or a text file.

Maximize any program with a double-click

Instead of fumbling around looking for the maximize button between the – and the X in the top-right corner of program and file windows, just double-click anywhere on the title bar to maximize the window. The title bar is the topmost part of the program window and usually contains the program name.

Quickly find recent downloads 

While using your favorite browser, use the CTRL + J keyboard shortcut to view your recent downloads. We can't tell you how many times we've used this simple trick to open the downloads folder when looking for a recent download. 

Defeat Spammers with Disposable Email Addresses
A tip for everyone who uses email

Here are Three Good Places to Get Disposable Email Addresses

The world is full of disposable things – disposable diapers, disposable razors, disposable lighters, and so on. Disposable email addresses are desirable if you don’t want to give someone, something, or some company your real email address – mainly because you don’t want to be flooded with spam – or maybe you just want to skulk around the Internet furtively like EB.

For every one of you who’ve ever wished for a fake email address that you could use when ordering online, joining something, or flaming EB, there is probably a fake email site. There are dozens of them. If you’re favorite is not listed here, don’t blame me – three means three.

1 > MailDrop

Number one on our list of three – zowie! what an honor! MailDrop is number one because we just put it number one. It could have been #3. But something has to be #1, right?  

Well, I’m not going to spend my time being redundant (yes, I’ve turned over a new leaf)… so I will let the MailDrop folks tell you all about it.

MailDrop is a free throwaway e-mail address. It’s temporary. It’s transient. It’s disposable. It’s meant for those times when you don’t want to give out your real address. Just give someone any e-mail address in the maildrop.cc domain, come back here, put in the e-mail address, and you can see that inbox.

MailDrop has no signups.

MailDrop has no passwords.

MailDrop is designed for no security.

MailDrop is designed for little to no privacy.

MailDrop offers the ability to give out a quick e-mail address to any site or app, then after you’ve established more trust with that site, you can give them your real e-mail address.

MailDrop helps to stop your inbox from getting flooded with spam from that one time you registered on a site that got hacked.

MailDrop can be used to get your receipt for your e-commerce purchase, without signing up to be spammed regularly with “latest offers”.

In short, MailDrop can help you cut out the amount of junk in your inbox.

Get your own fake email address at MailDrop and send the spammers scramming.

2 > ThrowAwayMail

Love the name, don’t you? You know all about tearaway clothing right? It’s big in football and funeral homes. Well, this has nothing to do with tearaway or caraway, but it has a lot to do with ThrowAway…mail that is.

With ThrowAwayMail you cannot make up spiffy email addresses like eb-hates-me or eb-eats-dead-flies, you have to take what is generated for you. However…look at it this way, it’s completely random. Just make sure you don’t forget your own fake email address or you will be gnashing your teeth.

ThrowAwayMail.com is a disposable e-mail address service. Every time you visit ThrowAwayMail.com a new e-mail address is generated just for you. The generated e-mail address can immediately receive an e-mail, and any e-mail that is received will show up on the main page. No one other than you will see the e-mail that is received.

When should you use ThrowAway Mail?

You want to sign up for a website but you’re concerned that they might share your address with advertisers.

You don’t want to publish your email address in a place that could be picked up by address-harvesting bots.

You are required to provide an email address to a mobile app that shouldn’t be sending you email messages anyway.

When you have to give your address to companies that have a track record of less-than-stellar security.

When you are making a one-time purchase from an e-commerce site where you don’t want follow-up spam about their “latest deals” in your inbox.

You need to receive exactly one email from a sender and then you can completely ignore every other email afterwards.

You are just trying out an internet service that requires you to verify your email address before proceeding.

Go forth now, if you dare, and get your own disposable email address at ThrowAwayMail

3> Guerilla Mail

Love this one. I created an email address doctordolittle@spacelasers.com. See, and I can paste that because you can spam that address all you want. If I’m signing up for something I am not quite sure of, I can just use doctordolittle@spacelasers.com.  Spam me if you dare! The email address is good for one hour- I can check that email and reply to it – but only for one hour. After that poof, no email address, no spam.

Here’s what Guerilla Mail has to say:

This is your Inbox ID, there’s no signup or passwords. You may change your Inbox ID to whatever you like. You may choose alternative domains too, all email will arrive to the same inbox below. All addresses last forever, and anyone can access it if they know this Inbox ID. Email messages are held for one hour before they are deleted, if you check them or not.

I can even scramble my doctordolittle@spacelasers.com address and use the scrambled address to give to someone or when I sign up for something. The scrambled address looks like this…

sr3fgx+7btw1w6vpc4ydd35dnkhq8@spam4.me

But it still comes to me at doctordolittle@spacelasers.com. Or it was me. That address was only good for one hour. Just long enough for me to give someone I don’t know an email address that I can actually check and verify. And after an hour they can’t bother me again.

There’s also a password manager on Guerilla Mail too. You might want to check that out – it looks interesting but we didn’t try it out this article is about disposable email addresses, ya know?

Visit Guerilla Mail now ,,, and get as many disposable email addresses as your little heart desires. Each email address is disposable – it will be flushed down the internet drain after sixty minutes.

Are you looking for #4?

There is no number 4! There are a lot more disposable email places besides these three. You can pick your own #4 and #5 and so on. There are many, many more disposable email sites. We might feature a couple more, but not today. I’m too tired. EB made me do laundry today as well as fix computers and polish her Crocs.

If you have a favorite fake email place, comment on this article and share your favorite disposable email sites with us all – and save me a lot of writing. I have laundry to do, crocs to polish, and computers to fix! 

Want more tips, tricks, and information?

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Reg Organizer - A Swiss Army Knife of Windows Tools - Works Great on Windows 10 and Windows 11!

   

Microsoft’s New PC Manager – Will It Make Managing Your PC Easier?

Microsoft PC Manager is a new free app from Microsoft that helps you manage your PC’s health, performance, and security. It gives you an overview of your PC’s health, performance, and security, and provides recommendations on how to improve them. It also features a one-click performance boost which may help make your computer a little faster.

Microsoft’s new PC Manager has several features, including:

System health: This section provides an overview of your PC’s health, including its hardware, software, and drivers.

Performance: This section provides recommendations on how to improve your PC’s performance, such as defragmenting your hard drive and closing unused programs.

Security: This section provides recommendations on improving your PC’s security, such as running Microsoft Defender and installing security updates.

Tools: This section includes several tools that can help you manage your PC, such as a disk cleanup tool and a virus scanner.

Most of what PC Manager offers is already available via the Windows Settings app or Task Manager

PC Manager is in beta, meaning it’s new and it’s been released to the public for testing. And it means it is still under development. And to be honest, there’s not much in PC Manager you can’t find in the Task Manager and/or the Windows Settings app. However, it does make things easier to find it could be a useful tool for managing your PC.

Here’s what Microsoft claims PC Manager can do for you:

Boost your PC
Clean up your system and free up spaces.
Boost your PC’s performance.

Manage your storage
Give your PC a spring cleaning and manage large files.
Use storage sense to let Windows free up storage for you.

Health checkup
Find and fix issues fast.
Scan and clear threats with one click.

Let’s take a look at some screenshots…

Above… One button performance boost?  It may give your PC a little boost. You might see your RAM and CPU usage go down a bit as PC Manager cleans up your computer. Give it a try.

Above… PC Manager’s Storage Control —  An easy way to keep junk and temp files under control

Above… Process Management. Manage running processes easily.

Beware PC Manager’s Startup recommendations!

The startup manager can also be found in the Settings app. But beware. PC Manager’s recommendations for startups to disable should not be blindly applied. As you can see below, it wants to disable the startup of OneDrive – which is my backup. It also wants to disable the startup of Emsisoft – which is my antimalware/antivirus. Do not blindly follow the recommendations that the PC Manager gives you. I’m pretty sure Microsoft will get plenty of negative feedback on this “feature” and correct it while the app is still in beta testing.

You can scan your computer for threats using the Microsoft Defender scanner. You can also set your default browser in the Browser Management section… a real plus for Windows 11 users.

Above: PC Manager’s Security Scanner

Above – PC Manager’s Settings Dialog 

PC Manager is beta software – meaning it’s under development and in the testing phase

PC Manager is in beta testing – which means it’s not quite ready for prime time. And as we’ve already said, most of PC Manager’s features can already be found in the Settings app But if you understand that you’re using new software, that is under development, and still in its testing phase, you might want to give Microsoft’s new PC Manager a try.

You can download PC Manager from Microsoft here. 

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Everything is Relative

Last night, I walked outside briefly to see if it was still raining. It had been raining most of the day and, because for that instant it seemed important to me to know if it was still raining or not, I went outside. I was surprised when I looked up and saw a dark, transparent sky filled with stars. The rain had moved on and there was not a cloud in the night sky.

As I looked up at that dazzling array – an array I’ve seen thousands of times in my life – it occurred to me how insignificant everything in life really is.

If we’re lucky we might live 85 years. If we’re skilled or talented we may leave behind something of value – books we’ve written, songs we’ve composed, a vast empire of wealth, a string of stores or factories. We may leave behind something by which the world will remember us. B

ut most of us are not particularly skilled or talented or lucky or wealthy and what we leave behind will be starkly insignificant. Most of us will leave behind a few fading memories stored in the minds of the people we knew and who knew us. Mostly family and friends.

There may be photographs or videos of us as we appeared in life...

Read the rest of this essay here.

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Get your SeniorPass today for just $99.  It's just like having insurance for your computer - only better!

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What does "cache" mean?

Show me the cache buddy. This is cache and carry. Most places accept cache or credit cards. If you win big at the casino, you can cache out. Women love men with lots of cache to spend. Most companies, including ours, don't have much cache on hand these days. Oh, we're sorry. We're misspelling cache. No, not really. You know what we're doing. We're talking about cash. Making a funny. Ha ha!

Really, "cache" pronounced 'cash'... is a special high-speed storage mechanism. It can be either a reserved section of main memory or an independent high-speed storage device. Two types of caching are commonly used in personal computers: memory caching and disk caching. Everything you view on the Web is not really being seen from the Web, it's being seen from your browser's cache. That's right. All those pictures and other things on that Web page you're looking at, are coming from your browser's cache - where that page's content was downloaded when you opened the Web page. Hence it's called "Loading a page" See? OK, you go us! Technically there are exceptions to this, but please quit being picky!

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Have a great weekend... be safe!

Darcy and TC
Cloudeight InfoAve Weekly - Issue #1032
Volume 20 Number 38
July 21, 2023 

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