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Email Safety and Etiquette

In today's spam ridden internet, it's very hard to know whether or not you should open up an email or not.  You hate to miss an email that might be important, but don't want to get hit with that nasty virus or adware that can be imbedded in an email message.

To combat this, we'd like to recommend that you take some very simple precautions when sending and receiving emails.  If you and all of your acquaintances follow these steps, it'll get easier and easier to distinguish real email from spam.
When Sending Email:
~ Make sure your Email Account Preferences say who you are.  If the "from" part of the email is your name and email address, then people will know it's from you.
~ Make sure the Subject line of your email is clear.  We tell all of our clients to actually put their "Company Name" in the Subject.  The more it makes sense the more apt people will be to open it.  Things like "hello" or "howdy" are not enough and are often a sure sign of spam messages.
~ If you are putting a picture or file as an attachment, make sure to label the name of that picture with something that makes sense.  If the file says something like, "PictureOfTheKids.jpg" - then you might open it.  Whereas, if it says, "pk.jpg" - you have no idea what it is.
When Receiving Email:
~ Make sure that the Subject and From line of the email is something you recognize or is from someone you know.  If you don't know or aren't sure, dump it.
~ Don't open up files with the extension of "zip" or "exe" unless you are completely sure what it is.  These files are most often filled with viruses.  The files with "exe" will begin loading a program onto your computer that you probably don't want.
~ Don't have your email window split.  This means that the top shows your incoming messages, and the bottom shows the actual message.  When it's like this, you click on the incoming message and it "automatically opens it up below".  If you have your screen set to just show the incoming messages, you literally have to double-click on it to actually open it.  This is much safer.
 
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Flagstaff Central is not liable for any damages or repairs due to our tech tip.  Things do happen whenever you work on a computer.  We recommend you be as careful as possible.  If you prefer to not handle repairs or clean up, we recommend you contact a professional.  Click here for a list of local computer repair companies.