Q:
What is an e-mail header and should I pay attention to it at all?

A:
That's an excellent question! When you hear the word header, you may start to think about a subject line. Well, that's not the case when it comes to working with e-mail. A subject line is what you see when your e-mails first arrive in your Inbox. The actual header can be found when you open up the e-mail to read it.

Now, you may not see it right away, because most of us don't have the option selected to see the header all the time. The headers can be quite lengthy, because they contain a lot of information about the sender, the receiver, etc. Here's an example of what an e-mail header looks like:

Return-Path: <g@worldstart.com>
Received: from gary (worldstart-gw.customer.amplex.net [64.246.98.197])
(authenticated)
by worldstart.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id l0TKe6Z26933
for <e@worldstart.com>; Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:40:06 -0500
Message-ID: <008201c743e5$a66754b0$6401a8c0@gary>
From: "C" <g@worldstart.com>
To: "E" <e@worldstart.com>
Subject: Flash drive info
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:40:01 -0500
X-Priority: daily cialis results 3
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3028
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean
X-UIDL: [Hb"!d"S"!T_<!!ZZ[!!
X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.5.432 [268.17.14/657]
Mime-Version: 1.0

See what I mean? It can all be a bit confusing, so allow me to explain everything to you just a bit more! Your headers may look a little different than the one above, but all of the information is similar, so you'll be able to at least get the gist of what I'm talking about today.

Let's begin with the Return-Path line. If an e-mail ever has trouble going through (in the sending process), the Return-Path e-mail address is the one that should be used to try sending the e-mail again. Next is Received. That one shows all of the e-mail servers the e-mail had to go through to get to its destination (your Inbox). They usually include the server location and the IP address information. It also lists the date it was sent. That information is helpful in troubleshooting why an e-mail didn't go through in the first place.

The next line is the Message-ID and it's the assignment that was given to the e-mail from the first e-mail server. Up next, you'll see the From: option. That's simply the e-mail address of who sent the e-mail and the To: line is who the e-mail is being sent to. The Subject: line just states what the original subject line was. Again, that's what you see in your e-mail Inbox before you ever open a message. After that, you'll once again see the date the e-mail was sent.

Now, the sections after that can be a little more complicated. For any lines that start with the letter X, different things can be of importance. Here are some examples:

• X-Priority – This is the priority of the e-mail that's been sent. Whether it was a high priority, low priority and so on, it will be indicated here by a number.
• X-Mailer – This is simply the program that was used to send the e-mail. For example, Outlook Express.
• X-Antivirus-Status – This lets you know if the e-mail was free (clean) or not of any viruses.
• X-UIDL – This is what is used when e-mails are distributed through a POP3 e-mail program.
• X-Antivirus – This just states what the sender's antivirus program is. For example, Norton, AVG, etc.

So, there are a few examples of the X factors you may see in your e-mail headers. The last thing you will see in the header is Mime-Version:. That's just a context used by MIME to help understand and display the e-mail for the recipient. It's generally just recorded by a number. For example, 1.0, as you can see above.

Now, there may be some situations where you'll want to look at an e-mail header, but honestly, most people don't pay too much attention to them. If you do however, want to check something out in a certain e-mail you get, you can do so by activating the header. To do that in Outlook Express, just right click on the message you want to see and choose Properties. Then choose the Details tab and all of the information will come up for you to see.

You can do that in other e-mail programs as well, but they're all a little different. Under the Options menu in your e-mail, just look for something about the headers. For example, Yahoo!'s mail has a whole option for the headers. You can either show a brief or full header in all of your e-mails. That will be a similar option in most other e-mail clients as well.

Like I said, it's not very often the header information will come in handy, but when you do need it, it's nice to know where it can be found!

How much do you depend on certain icons on your desktop? I'm talking about the icons from the likes of My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places and so on. Those are a few of the icons you probably use on a regular basis, so if they're not there, what are you supposed to do? Well, the best answer is, "Get them back!"

Now, there are a couple different ways you may have lost the icons. They could have disappeared when you installed a certain program or even when you upgraded to a new operating system. Either way, you need them, so let's find them again! To enable those icons and more, right click on your desktop and choose Properties. Click on the Desktop tab and hit the Customize Desktop button. Next, under the General tab, check any of the icons you want to appear on your desktop.

Once you do that, they daily cialis dose will all be returned to your desktop in full view. You can choose from the icons of My Documents, My Computer, My Network Places and Internet Explorer. Now, on the other hand, you may want to take some of those icons off your desktop. If that's the case, just uncheck them and they will then be out of your way. Easy enough, don't you think?!

January 30th, 2009

Posted by Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft officials on January 30 reiterated that there will be no public Beta 2 of Windows 7 and the next milestone will be the Release Candidate (RC) test build of the operating system.

On the “Engineering Windows 7″ blog, Windows development chief Steven Sinofsky reiterated what officials stated less plainly at the Professional Developers Conference last year: There will be just one beta of Windows 7.

Sinofsky emphasized in his new post that cialis without prescription color=”#004d99″>Microsoft is not sharing any new ship date targets for Windows 7. As has been known for a while now, Microsoft’s delivery plan for Windows 7 is to deliver a public beta, an RC (it’s not clear at this point if that will be public or private) and then release to manufacturing (RTM). The RC will be”Windows 7 as we intend to ship it,” Sinofsky blogged. More about the RC from his post:

“We will continue to listen to feedback and telemetry with the focus on addressing only the most critical issues that arise. We will be very clear in communicating any changes that have a visible impact on the product. This release allows the whole ecosystem to reach a known state together and make sure that we are all ready together for the Release to Manufacturing. Once we get to RC, the whole ecosystem is in “dress rehearsal” mode for the next steps.”

Microsoft’s “official” response when asked for a ship-date target for Windows 7 remains three years after Vista’s general availability date (which was January 29, 2007). Many customers and partners believe Microsoft is continuing to target Q3 of this year as its RTM date.

For those hoping Microsoft might rush Windows 7 and release it now? Don’t hold your breath.

 Easeus Partition Manager

cialis wiki border=”0″ alt=”Easeus Partition Manager” title=”http://ct.zdnet.com/clicks?t=77170864-fcda8243b2af06197976dd4e0ab0dea0-bf&brand=ZDNET&s=5″ hspace=”7″ vspace=”3″ width=”75″ height=”90″ align=”left” /> Easeus Partition Manager provides a convenient, easy-to-use interface that enables you to configure and manage partitions without destroying data.

January 27th, 2009

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady

In case you missed it, your Mac may be under attack. Especially if you have a taste for downloading Mac software that isn’t exactly, ahem, legal.

Last week I reported that a trojan horse called “iWorkServices” has was found in a pirated version of iWork ‘09 floating around on BitTorrent. Yesterday it came to light that another trojan has been found in a pirated version of Photoshop CS4.

Whether you play fast and loose with your software licenses is on your conscience (I certainly don’t recommend it) but one way to keep tabs on software that likes to call home is with cialis wholesale Objective Development’s Little Snitch 2.0 ($29.95). I hadn’t used it since version 1 and the recent rash of Mac trojans gave me a prefect excuse to try v.2.

Little Snitch informs you whenever a program attempts to establish an outgoing Internet connection. You can then choose to allow or deny this connection, or define a rule how to handle similar, future connection attempts. This reliably prevents private data from being sent out without your knowledge. Little Snitch runs inconspicuously in the background and it can also detect network related activity of viruses, trojans and other malware.

Once installed you’ll be amazed at all the things on your Mac that connect to the Internet in the background. Most of them probably have your approval, like all the apps that you allowed to “check for updates at startup?” and things like Software Update, dotmacsyncclient and Bonjour’s mDNSresponder. Those ones are safe to “allow” but if Little Snitch asks for approval for something unknown, deny the request then Google the name to see if it’s kosher.

Be warned though, the first time you install Little Snitch, you’ll be inundated with allow/deny requests and it can be exhaustive. (Hint: you can confirm an alert with Command-Return, Control-Return and Return-Escape). Clicking the Forever button helps you ignore approved outbound connections and it’s a small price to pay to be able to keep tabs on potentially malicious code.

A new Network Monitor feature (pictured) has been added in version 2 which alone is worth the price of admission. The beautifully designed window displays detailed information about all of the incoming and outgoing network traffic on your Mac. It only pops up when connections are active unless you check the small “stay visible” box at the top of the window. I find myself leaving the Network Monitor window visible and watching in awe as the packets flow by. If you decide to close it a subtle menu bar item will also keep you apprised.

Nice, tight bit of code. Highly recommended.