Address Book Cleanup Tool

June 7, 2011

Are you tired of duplicate email addresses in your Outlook, smartphone and/or Gmail address books?  Then try Scrubly, the address book cleanup tool I found out about on Lifehacker.

How does it work?  Here is the explanation from their website:

Scrubly processes all of your contact data inside the Scrubly cloud. This approach delivers you the very best duplicate, merging, and conflict resolution operations possible, all within one location. Rather than spreading our power across a multitude of varied platforms, we focus on cleaning your data in one central cloud location, ultimately delivering a streamlined and more effective address book cleaning process.

Processing your contact list is easy.  Just sign up for the service, create a profile and then start processing your contacts.  If you use Outlook or Mac email, you’ll need to download a software client, but that only takes a few moments.  Unfortunately, the Lifehacker post I mentioned previously has brought a ton of traffic to the Scrubly website, and this traffic overload has slowed down the service. You may want to earmark Scrubly and try it out next week when traffic has leveled off.

What You Need to Know About the Recent Epsilon Email Data Breach

April 13, 2011

A couple of weeks ago, a hacker tapped into to the email system of Epsilon, a third-party email marketing company with big-name clients such as Best Buy, Disney, and Capital One (See a full list of affected companies). I’m sure many of you received an email from one of these companies warning you that your information was compromised. If you were affected by the Epsilon data breach, or you want to know how to play it safe with your email, keep reading.

The good news is that your email address and/or name are the only things the hackers were able to access. I know that doesn’t sound like good news, but at least they didn’t have access to your address, phone number or your social security number. There’s no need to worry about identity theft…yet.

You do need to be on the lookout for phishing scams. Phishing scams are cyber attacks in which hackers try to solicit personal information from you under the guise of a trusted source. For example, in the next few weeks you might get an email from “Best Buy” asking you to update your account.  This email might ask you to submit your address and other personal information. Of course, this email won’t really be from Best Buy but it will look like it is.

Keep in Mind:

• Don’t open strange links or attachments in emails purporting to be from your bank (or other trusted service provider). If you’re not sure if the attachment/link is legitimate, call your bank and ask.
• Your trusted service providers and retailers will never email you soliciting personal information. Messages like “Email Alert” and “Update Your Password” should be a red flag. Your service providers will never ask for your account  password or other personal information via email.
• Go green (with your browser). When making payments or entering secure information online, look for a green bar on your internet browser. Most new browsers display these green bars for secure sites.

• Use a good spam filter. Gmail and most other large web-based email providers have solid spam filters. For an extra level of protection with your business email accounts, we recommend our N-Care spam filtering solution, which blocks spam outside in the cloud before it even enters your network. Contact us about spam filtering.

How to Display Images by Default in Microsoft Outlook 2010, 2007 and 2003

March 16, 2011

If you have a trusted spam solution in place, and you are tired of telling Outlook to view images from an email each time you open it, try the following:

Outlook 2010

1. Click on the “File” tab
2. Click on “Options”
3. Click on “Trust Center”
4. Click on “Trust Center Settings
5. Uncheck the “Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages or RSS items” check box
6. Click OK.

Here’s a video demonstration (click on Full Screen–bottom right corner–to enlarge the video):

Outlook 2007

1. Click Tools
2. Select Trust Center
3. In the left pane, select Automatic Download
4. In the right pane, uncheck the Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail messages or RSS items checkbox.
5. Click OK.

Outlook 2003

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click the Security tab, and then click Change Automatic Download Settings.
3. In the Automatic Picture Download Settings dialog box, click to clear the Don’t download pictures or other content automatically in HTML e-mail check box.
4. Click OK two times.

Email Signatures: What Does Yours Say About You and Your Business?

August 4, 2010

I recently changed my email signature.  I found that after a year of using my Nexxtep email account, my signature was getting out of control, with several logos, four different ways to contact me and two advertisements.  I had to tame the beast.

I looked online to see what people had to say about “email signature etiquette” and to be honest, there are no “rules” about what your signature should look like.  Why?  No one can agree!  Some think a simple name, title and company is enough.  Others think email signatures are a form of expression, and you should take advantage of them by adding logos, graphics and inspirational quotes.

Here is what I ended up with.  I chose to take out the logos, because, although I like them, they don’t always display correctly in the recipient’s inbox.  I also removed most forms of contact, because most people don’t need to know my fax number.  And of course, they already have my email address if they are receiving an email from me.

What do you think?  Is it best to keep it simple or add pizazz to an email signature?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.  If you’re one of the first to comment, we might even send some goodies your way