It’s kind of hard to believe, but a LOT of people are still falling victim to scam emails, also known as phishing emails.  When “phishing” is spelled that way, it just means that there is a scammer looking to grab some personal information in order to steal your identity and your money.

There are often some telltale signs that an email is nothing more than a scam.  Here are a few:

Misspelled words – since a lot of scams originate outside the US (commonly in Nigeria or Russia), the creator might not know English very well.  So misspellings and bad grammar are often seen.  Not something you normally see in an email that’s actually from your bank.

Wrong web addresses – this one can be very tricky, because the scammers have gotten very clever about it.  When an email directs you to a website, it’s easy to disguise the actual address of that site.  For example, you might think you are looking at “bankofamerica.com” but it’s really not the bank’s site at all.  Look at this address:

http://BankofAmerica.com.fjkdjfkadsjlaruiewy.483948324.scott.com

At first glance, it looks like the Bank of America website.  But the only name that really counts is the last one just before the last “dot com”.  Everything prior to that is meant to be a distraction.  So that website is actually scott.com and has nothing to do with any bank.

Requests for information – if an email, or a website that came from an email, asks you for your credit card number, checking account number, PIN, Social Security number, or any other personal identity information, it’s a scam.  Your bank or Paypal would never ask for that information.  But a scammer sure would!

Attachments in .ZIP format – if an email attachment comes in .zip format, your antivirus program probably won’t spot it.  You shouldn’t open email attachments anyway, but again, this one tricks a lot of people.

What happens is this:  you get an email from UPS or Fedex (not really from them of course) and it says something to this effect: “We tried delivering your package today but were unable to deliver it.  Please see the attached report for information on how to pick up your package.”  This is so clever!  It works a lot of the time, because the recipient just happens to actually be expecting a package, so the email seems completely natural.  They open the attachment, and suddenly their computer is infected with a virus or spyware.

To help illustrate this, I made a short video pointing out some of the “red flags” in a phishing email I received recently.  For best viewing, click on the “Full Screen” icon in the lower right corner of the video.

Have you received any clever or tricky phishing emails?  Tell us your experience in the comments below:

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As you probably know, I have been recommending Gmail as an email service for a long time – for a variety of reasons (please don’t use the email address that comes with your internet provider!).  Recently, Google has enabled Gmail email to be viewed with a preview pane.  Finally!

What’s a preview pane, you’re wondering?  Glad you asked!

If you go to your Gmail account at www.gmail.com, your inbox will look like this:

It’s been like this for years.  Just one list of the emails that have come in, and in order to read one you need to click on it.  When you click it, the list of emails disappears and all you see is the text of that one email.

When you enable the preview pane, your inbox will look more like this:

All of the emails are still in a list on the left side, but when you click to select one, the content of that email is displayed in the preview pane on the right side.  You can also select to have them divided horizontally instead of vertically if you prefer.

To enable the Preview Pane feature in your Gmail:

1. Go to the top right corner of the Gmail screen and click the little icon that looks like a sprocket, and in the drop down menu from there, click on Mail Settings

2. In the Mail Settings window, click on the “Labs” tab

3. In the list, find “Preview Pane” and click to Enable it

4. Click “Save Changes” either at the top or bottom of the list

So that’s all you need to do!  Now, while you are looking around in the “Labs” section, you might find some other interesting things that you can do with your Gmail account.  Labs is where Google tries out some experimental things to see how they work with the users.  You will probably see some fun stuff to try in there, so give it a shot.  You can always go back in and turn it off if you don’t like the changes.

One of my customers contacted me this week with a problem – she couldn’t log in to her Gmail account.  She knew she was typing the right password, because she has used it for a long time.  She went through the procedure of asking Google for help, but wasn’t sure that would work either.

In the end, Google ended up resetting her password so that she was able to get back into her email account.  That’s only because she was able to remember a few details, such as when she originally opened the account, etc.  If you aren’t able to answer enough questions to satisfy Google that you are the account owner, they won’t allow you in.

What’s the best way to recover a Gmail account?

The best way to recover your Gmail account is to plan in advance.  Seriously, we are talking about 1-2 minutes of work that could save you from a big hassle at some point in the future.  Here’s what you need to do:

1. Log into your Gmail account at www.gmail.com, then click on the “Settings” link in the upper right corner:

2. Click on “Accounts and Import”:

3. Click on the option “Google account settings”:

4. Click on “Recovering your password”:

(At this point, Google might ask you to enter your password again – they just want to be 100% sure that the actual account owner is making these changes.)

5. You now have 3 settings to change – Email, SMS (cell phone texting), and security question:

You can do any one of these, or you can do all three.  I recommend doing all of them.

Email: Enter an alternative email address where Google can send your password.  This can be the email of your spouse, a trusted friend, or just an alternative email account that you have access to.

SMS: By entering your cell phone number here, it allows Google to send you a code by text message to reset your password if necessary.

Security question: Pick a question that would be difficult for a stranger to guess, but one that you will always know.  I recommend NOT using a question like “what is your pet’s name?” because that is an answer that will change over time.  Pick something that is always the same, such as your favorite high school teacher’s name, or something similar.  You can even write your own question if you want, which can be as random as “What is your favorite number?” – then make the answer some 14 digit number that no one would ever guess.  Obviously, you need to know what that number is should you ever need to provide it!

Have you ever had trouble logging into your Gmail account?  How did you resolve it?  Post your comments below.

If you use Gmail, you know that Google gives you a LOT of storage space for your email account.  Currently each account gets 7.5 gb of space.  However, if you have “friends” that like to send huge photo or video attachments, you might find yourself getting tight on space in your account.

If you want, you can go through your whole Gmail account manually and look for the email messages that take up a chunk of space, and delete them.  But that’s rather tedious, and it could take a lot of time – especially if you’ve been using Gmail for several years like I have.

There’s an online service available that will perform that chore for you.  It’s called Find BIG email – you can check it out here.

Using the service is pretty easy.  Right on the front screen of the site is a place for you to enter your email address and press the “Click Here” button.  You will be taken to the Google site, where they will ask you to verify that you are giving your permission for Find BIG email to access your account.  Click “Grant Access”.

The next screen you might see for a while – a few minutes, or maybe an hour or longer:

Partway through they will show you a graphic representation of your email account, broken down by size of emails: greater than 2 mb, greater than 500 kb, and greater than 100 kb.  There’s even a refresh button so you can check the status of the scan.  When finished, you will see a full report:

I was surprised to find that I had 319 emails that were each over 2 mb in size!

Next step is to log into your Gmail account at www.gmail.com.  You will see on the left side there are some new labels, according to size of email.  You can now view those mails, and delete them if they are no longer needed.

You will also get an email notification of the results.  If you find this service helpful, you will see several buttons giving you multiple opportunities to throw them a few dollars as a donation.

I have lots of different Google accounts.  I have created different accounts because I use them for different purposes.  There is no limit to the number of Google accounts you are allowed to have.  The most common use is to have a separate email account for online purchases, since that account will probably get a lot of spam.

Ever since Google started offering their free accounts, there has always been a limitation that you could only log into one account at a time.  I don’t know if it was a security precaution or what the reason was, but it has always been a pain having to log out and log in when you’re using multiple accounts.

Now, that has changed.  Google recently added an option in account settings to allow multiple simultaneous account logins.

Here’s how:

1. Go to your Google account (or your Gmail account, same thing) and log in

2. Look for the Settings link in the upper right corner:

3. Find the “Accounts and Import” link at the top and click it, then click on “Google Account settings”

4. Next to “Multiple sign-in”, click the Edit link:

5. In the next window, check the button designated as “On”.  You will also need to check the 4 boxes below that, which explain some of the functions/caveats that go along with having the feature turned on.  Then, click Save.

In order to actually start using this new feature, you may need to log out of your Google account and log back in.

Okay, it’s not exactly “breaking news” that the Gmail email service is the best free email service you will find anywhere.  I got my first Gmail account back in 2004 and have been very happy with Gmail ever since.

If you are new to Gmail, or if you want to switch from the email account that comes with your internet provider (this is a switch you should make), today’s site might be of help to you.

Actually it’s not a website – it’s a PDF file:
http://manuals.makeuseof.com.s3.amazonaws.com/gmail-guide.pdf

The good folks over at MakeUseOf put together this comprehensive guide to the Gmail email service, and I think it’s a great resource.  Check it out.

I have written multiple times about my recommendations for email (don’t use the email address that comes with your internet provider – use Gmail instead – for all the reasons why, read this).  Anyway, sometimes I get an email from a reader or client who has just changed their email address.

The email message that I get looks something like this:

From the sender’s standpoint, this is perfectly clear – it’s his new email account, and he is letting me know about it.  The problem is, I have no idea who this person is.  He is sending the message from his new account, so I have never seen this address before.

The message also does not reveal the name of the sender.  The best I can determine is that his first name might be Rob, Robert, Bob or some other variation.  Even that is not certain though.  This could be my best friend sending this email, and I really wouldn’t know.

There is a much better way.  Here’s how to send an email to notify your friends or anyone else about your new email account:

Hi – Scott Johnson here.  I have a new email address and wanted to let you know about it.

My old email address was: myoldaccount@roadrunner.com

My new email address is: mynewaccount@gmail.com

Please only use my new email account from now on.  Thanks!

Even after you change, you probably will still want to keep your old account active for a little while.  There is always a small percentage of people who will keep sending email to your old account, for whatever reason.  At least they won’t be able to blame you for not telling them about your new address!

Have you ever tried to attach a .exe file to an email and send it to someone?  If so, you were probably a little disappointed – most email programs won’t allow you to attach a .exe file to an email.  While it may seem a little inconvenient, there’s good reason for this.

When a file has the 3-letter extension “.exe” it means that file is an actual program.  It’s not a picture, or a document.  When you double click it, it will actually execute code to perform some action (or series of actions).  From that standpoint, that is exactly what a virus would do (the only difference is that a virus performs a function that is malicious).

Virtually every program that runs on your computer uses a .exe file, so they are not necessarily “bad” just because of that file extension.  However – your email program is set up to protect you (as well as those that receive your email).  So, if you find a great little program and you want to email it to your friend, here’s what happens when you try to attach it:

That’s the message from Outlook 2007.  I believe if you tried to send it from Outlook Express or Windows Mail, it won’t even let you try.

(As a side note, should you ever receive an email with a .exe attachment, don’t open it unless you know exactly what it is and you were expecting it.)

So, if you have a legitimate .exe file that you need to email, how do you do it?

You just need to “trick” the email program into not knowing it’s an .exe file.  To do this, go to the folder that contains the particular file, so that you can see the file name and the extension right there on your screen.

Click one time on the file name.  That highlights it.

Wait a second or two, and click once again.  That puts the cursor in there and makes the name editable.

Put the flashing cursor at the end – right after the “exe”.  Now type this:

.remove

So, if the file name was originally “program.exe”, it should now be displayed as “program.exe.remove”.

You will get an error message that comes up, warning that if you change the file’s extension the file may become unusable.  That’s okay, do it anyway.

Now you can attach that file to an email, and the email program will think the extension is “.remove”, which it has never heard of, so no alarm bells go off.

When you send this file, you need to instruct the recipient to first save the attachment to their computer, and then remove the “.remove” in order to run it.

One part of internet usage that is booming in popularity is the use of online videos.  It doesn’t matter if the video is funny, information, educational or just plain weird – people love to show video clips to their friends.

This means that a lot of video clips get sent by email.  All it takes is one person to start, and before long it snowballs and the video clip is being forwarded to email groups all over the internet.

Don’t do it! Here are 4 reasons why you shouldn’t email a video as an attachment:

1. It means you have a huge email in your outbox.
I have written about this before – if you use Outlook (or any email software, really), an email can get “stuck” in your outbox.  If this is a particularly large email, it can cause a problem.  There is a fix for the problem, but why put yourself in that predicament in the first place?

2. It ties up your friend’s email while it downloads to their inbox.
I know, everyone is on high speed these days so it’s okay.  But wait a minute.  First, everyone is not on a high speed connection.  Believe it or not, some people still use dialup.  And some use DSL, which can be only a little better than dialup sometimes.  Second, what if everyone sent emails by video?  No matter how fast your connection is, if you have multiple videos to download, you will be waiting for a while.

3. It takes up space on your computer and your friend’s computer.
Yes, hard drives these days are huge so there is a lot of space available.  That may be true.  Do you know how much space you have available on your hard drive right now?  Most people don’t.  I have seen a lot of inboxes, and some people get a lot of email forwards.  If you get multiple videos by email each day, that hard drive is going to fill up more quickly than it should.

4. You shouldn’t open a video attachment in an email anyway.
This may be the most important reason.  If you are thinking about sending a video out to your group of friends, how did you get that email to start with?  You had to open an attachment to see it yourself first.  Bad idea.  That’s an easy way to download a virus or spyware.

So how do you share videos with your friends safely and efficiently?  Use YouTube (www.YouTube.com).

It doesn’t matter what video you want to send – it’s on YouTube.  Even if it’s the funniest or strangest thing you have ever seen, it’s on YouTube already and it’s been seen by a lot of people before you saw it.  The only exception is if you or your friend actually shot the video.

So let’s say you have a video that you want to share.  It’s about a guy that comes out singing, but he is not singing any actual lyrics, just “la la la” or “trololololo”.  You know your email friends would just be dying to see it (who wouldn’t?).  Here’s  what you do.

Go to YouTube and type in a search to find the video.  I’ll say it again, the video is somewhere on YouTube.  It might take you a search or two, but it’s there.

When you click search, you will see a bunch of videos come up that match that search:

So you click on one to watch the video, to make sure it is the right one (the one that I am using as an example is a video that is going viral right now).  Once you have determined that it’s the one you want, look over on the right side somewhere and you will see a couple of lines of code.  One of them will be labeled “URL” and the other one is “Embed”:

Click once in the URL field and the whole line will be highlighted.  Then, do a right click on that line and choose “Copy”.

Now, go to your email program and create a new email to the person you want to show the video to.  Somewhere in the body of the email, do a right-click and choose “Paste”.  The address of the video shows up right there in your email!

• No files to save on your computer
• No big emails to send
• All your recipient has to do is click on the URL to view the video

Now, on to this week’s video – when we lived up north, one of the things that made the long winters more bearable was riding our snowmobiles.  Here’s a guy that’s not having a good day with his:

One of the most common scams on the internet now is phishing. Phishing is the act of trying to obtain private information (such a password, credit card number, date of birth, social security number) while pretending to be a reputable entity.

This is often seen now in spam emails that come in, supposedly from your bank. The email looks official, and explains that something has changed on your bank account that needs your authorization. Perhaps it says you have changed your password, and now you just have to confirm it.

For a certain percentage of people the first reaction is, “Hey, I didn’t change anything…what’s going on here?” So they click the link that supposedly goes to the bank’s login page. Click the image below to see it full size.

If you have an online banking account at Bank of America, you will agree that this looks virtually identical to the genuine BOA website. The only thing is, when you click on that link in the middle of the page to sign on to your account, you will actually be entering your user name and password on the web page of the scammer. As soon as you do that, he has access to your bank account(s). It can happen very quickly; what’s worse, you may not even realize you have been duped for a while. This gives the thief time to clean out your account before you even know what is going on.

This same scam is done by using fraudulent websites that look like Paypal, or your eBay account, or any other popular finance-related site.

How do you avoid this? Remember this one thing: your bank, or any other reputable institution, will not send you an email asking you for your personally identifiable information. If you think you have actually received an email from your bank, don’t click on any links in the email. Just open up Firefox or IE and manually type in the bank’s web address. From there, you can safely log in to your account and see if there are any notifications that require action on your part.

The bad guys are working 24/7 to figure out new ways to deceive you and separate you from your money. Always be aware and verify everything.