February 24, 2008

AMP Font Viewer

The other day, I received an e-mail from a reader, asking if there was a program that would allow for a quick look at buy viagra online canada all of the fonts on their system, without having to open a big program such as MS Word. I started looking around and I happened upon a great free download that does just that! It's called AMP Font Viewer and it's very simple to install and use. Just install the program, open it and you'll be good to go!

Here's what it looks like:

As you can see from the image above, all you need to do is click on the name of the font and it will show you what the font looks like. This little program now saves me a ton of time when I'm searching for new fonts!

You can download the AMP Font Viewer right here. Simply click on the Download button at the top of the page and then click on the Installer button. Enjoy!

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E-mail Spoofing

I have received a number of questions lately about e-mail spoofing, so today, I will discuss the topic and let you know what you can do to fight against this type of e-mail identity theft. Let's get started!

For those of you who have never heard of this, here is a little information about e-mail spoofing.

Email spoofing is a common e-mail trick used by spammers and phishers. It involves changing special information on an e-mail header. The header of an e-mail is not usually seen by the reader, but it contains important information about how the e-mail is displayed. When an e-mail is spoofed, the header information is changed so that the e-mail appears to come from someone who did not actually send it. Have you ever received an e-mail that says it's from your buy viagra on line own e-mail address, but you know you didn't send it? That's a spoofed e-mail.

Now that we all know what e-mail spoofing is, it's important we understand what causes it. There are a couple main reasons why e-mails are spoofed. One way is by spammers and phishers and the other is from a virus.

If an e-mail address is spoofed by a spammer, it's likely that the spammer is actually a computer and not a real person sending out one e-mail at a time. Spam bots can send out millions of e-mails a day and they use spoofing to get around the filters that try to block the messages they send. A spam bot will usually do one of two things when spoofing e-mail addresses:

1.) The spam bot will send e-mails with random spoofed e-mail addresses. This means that every e-mail they send will appear to come from a totally different person.

2.) The spam bot will send e-mails to your address that appear to be coming from your address. This means you will get e-mails that appear to be from yourself, but you did not send them.

If an e-mail is spoofed by a virus, you will see similar results. The main difference is the spoofed e-mails will look like they're coming from people you know. In order for the virus to spread, it will spoof the addresses that are located in the Contacts folder of the infected computer. That way, the recipients may be fooled into opening the e-mail, thinking it's coming from someone they know.

Right now, there is a huge debate going on in the tech world about how to stop e-mail spoofing. With the current protocol used to send e-mail (called SMTP), anyone can change the header information and send out a spoofed e-mail. There are no restrictions on the technology to stop spoofed e-mail from being sent. Hopefully, within a couple years, we will see a new protocol for sending e-mails that will not allow a spoofed e-mail to be sent out.

Until then, here are a few things you can do to try and fight against e-mail spoofing.

If you feel like you have received a spoofed e-mail, you can do some digging and report it. The first thing to do is look at the header of the e-mail. Finding the header is a little different for each e-mail program. In Outlook Express, right click on the e-mail's subject line and choose Properties. Next, go to the Details tab and you will see the header. If you don't use OE, look for a View Header option in your e-mail program.

Here's what a normal header looks like:

As you can see, it's pretty complicated, but the good news is you only need a little bit of information from the header. If you look at the header, you can see the e-mail is from gary@worldstart.com. This is a non-spoofed e-mail.

Here's an example of a spoofed e-mail:

In this header, you can see the message says it's from smtp007.bizmail.sc5.yahoo.com, but the Reply To message at the bottom shows aw-confirm@ebay.com. This is a spoofed e-mail.

When you have a spoofed e-mail, you should contact the domain of both e-mail addresses, as well as, the FTC's spam fighting division. To do that, copy the header information and paste it into a new e-mail. Address the e-mail to the company that is being spoofed. If they are a larger company, they will have an address to contact for abuse (which is usually abuse@theirdomain.com). In this case, it would be abuse@ebay.com. Also, address the e-mail to spam@uce.gov and lastly, Cc the message to the sender's domain (in this case, abuse@yahoo.com).

I know this is a lot to take in, but hopefully, it will help you defend your own e-mail address from spammers, as well as, help others who are being spoofed. Until next time, stay safe out there, my friends!

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Create your own special characters in Windows XP

Date: February 20th, 2008

Author: Greg Shultz

If you’ve ever wanted to create your own font or maybe just a special character — for example, a character showing your initials for when you wish to approve documents with your “signature” — you can easily create your own special characters using a hidden Windows XP tool called the Private Character Editor. Here’s how:

  1. Press [Windows]R to open the Run dialog box.
  2. buy viagra now

  3. Type eudcedit in the Open text box and click OK.
  4. When the Private Character Editor launches, you’ll see the Select Code dialog box. Click OK.
  5. A user interface that looks and works very much like Paint will appear. From this, you may use standard tools to create your characters.
  6. When you finish, select the Save Character command on the Edit menu.

Once you save your new character, you can access it using the Character Map tool. Here’s how:

  1. Press [Windows]R to open the Run dialog box.
  2. Type charmap in the Open text box and click OK.
  3. When the Character Map appears, select the Font drop-down list and select All Fonts (Private Characters).
  4. Select your character, click the Select button, and then click the Copy button.

You can now paste your font character in any document that you want.

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February 20, 2008

Word — Keep your stinking hands off my styles!

Date: February 12th, 2008

Author: Susan Harkins

The number one complaint I have about Word is its dogmatic need to control everything I do. Now, I realize that Microsoft professionals put a lot of thought into Word’s default settings, and I don’t fault them for their choices — well, not too much. On the other hand, some settings annoy me.  I could list them all — there are several. Instead, I’m just going to tell you about the one that truly makes me want to stick pins in someone’s effigy.

Ever buy viagra in london been typing along, applied a style, and found it wasn’t the style you defined? A style is a set of formatting attributes you apply. You define the style to save time. Instead of applying several formats, you apply the style. Word, by default, knows when you’ve altered the formatting for an applied style and automatically updates the style — whether you want it to or not.

There are two ways you can stop Word in its tracks:

  • Disable the feature by choosing AutoCorrect Options from the Tools menu, clicking the AutoFormat As You Type option, and then unchecking the Define Styles Based On Your Formatting option in the Automatically As You Type section.
  • Force Word to ask you by choosing Options from the Tools menu, clicking the Edit tab, and checking the Prompt To Update Style option.

Don’t select both options, of course — they don’t work together. Choose one method or the other.

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Get quick help with your Access forms with ToolTips

Date: February 19th, 2008

Author: Mary Ann Richardson

When designing an Access application, don’t neglect to plan for the ToolTips! ToolTips let you provide context-sensitive help wherever and whenever needed. To access your ToolTip help, simply move your mouse pointer over a control on the form and the Tooltip will appear with help on that control. Not only can ToolTips cut down on training time, they can also reduce the number of calls to the help desk. To add a ToolTip to a form control, follow these steps:

  1. Open the form in design view.
  2. Right-click the control and then select Properties.
  3. On the control’s property sheet, click the Other tab.
  4. Click in the ControlTip Text box.
  5. Enter the appropriate help text for the control.

For longer help text entries, you can wrap the text by pressing [Ctrl][Enter] wherever you want a line break to appear.

Miss an Access tip?

Check out the buy viagra cheap target=”_blank”>Microsoft Access archive, and catch up on other Access tips.

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