Leo’s Solutions

Listen to the podcast: Googled Yourself Lately?
Hi everyone, this is Leo Notenboom with news, commentary and answers to some of the many questions I get at askleo.info.
I occasionally get questions from people that boil down to: “how do I remove myself from search engine results?” The answer of course is track down every site that […]

A couple of friends sent me that weird email saying that, starting this summer, if I don’t send that same email to at least 18 people in my contact list, I will have to pay to use messenger and my Hotmail account.
Is that true?
No.
It’s just another email hoax that’s making the rounds.
It’s wrong on so […]

Reports are that law enforcement is asking ISPs to keep records longer. Should we worry?
Listen to the podcast: Is Big Brother Watching You?
Hi everyone, this is Leo Notenboom with news, commentary, and answers to some of the many questions I get at askleo.info.
USA Today reported this morning that various law enforcement officials are planning to […]

I live in an area that’s not served by wired broadband providers such as DSL or cable. Am I really stuck with only dialup? It’s so slow!
Surprisingly I can say this with all honesty:
I feel your pain.
OK, not the exact same pain, but my options are also limited, and it’s frustrating.
Let me throw out the […]

My eyesight is starting to go, yet as a master’s student, I have to read scholarly papers (in PDF format) on a regular basis.
These scholarly papers have small print due to their two-column format, and it’s a pain to read them on the screen. I’d like to be able to print each 8-1/2″x11″ page across […]

Listen to the podcast: So what do we do about spam?
Hi everyone, this is Leo Notenboom with news, commentary, and answers to some of the many questions I get at askleo.info.
Last week I discussed Blue Security’s going out of business. I got several comments in support of their methods, mostly born out of people’s frustration […]

I just bought laptop so I can work downstairs as well as on my desktop. Is there a way I can use Outlook on both machines in such a way that they are synchronized? Right now if I open email on one it doesn’t appear on the other, and vice versa. Any way around this?
This […]

Hi, Leo. My Zone Alarm is constantly blocking “a1255.g.akamai.” I did a Google on it but didn’t find out much. Can you tell me what it is?
I had to make an assumption or two, but a few steps lead me to an answer that I think is correct.
What I can’t explain is why Zone Alarm […]

Leo, if you were to log on to a Google Gmail account from somewhere other than your home computer (say work) and send an email from it… could it be traced to the computer you sent it from, or is it all traced back to Google? I have asked a few “experts”; one says yes… […]

I’ve set up an FTP server. My ISP is giving me an ADSL connection with an speed it says is 768k for uploads and 8M down. And yet I’m seeing my uploads are around 85k and 90k.
I need faster uploads. Can I change something about my system to make that happen?
There’s one big potential point […]

When I run “MSCONFIG” to show everything that is loaded or run automatically on startup, I get a really long list of things I don’t understand. What’s what? How can I fond out which ones are safe to turn off?
Here’s the list of what it shows right now. Maybe you can tell me?
It was a […]

My IE address bar will not respond when you type in, say, “www.yahoo.com.” you have to put http:// in front of the address. This just started happening tonight, 4/15/2006. What’s up?
To put it bluntly… Microsoft messed up.
I’ve gotten a flurry of reports of this behavior… all starting on 4/15. Right after Windows automated update.
Microsoft acknowledges […]

Every time I type http://www.zone.com into my browser’s address field it changes to http://zone.msn.com/en/root/default.htm. I can’t access the http://www.zone.com page. I’ve seen this while trying to access other sites, also. Why can’t I access http://www.zone.com directly?
It’s on purpose. To be absolutely strict about it, there is no http://www.zone.com. Just like there’s no http://www.hotmailtips.com.
But they both […]

Here are a couple of tools I use to manage old technologies while traveling.
Listen to the podcast: Old Technology on the Road.
Hi, everyone, this is Leo Notenboom with news, commentary, and answers to some of the many questions I get at askleo.info.
I just returned from a week away from home on a business trip. With […]

How do you set things up so you are signed in MSN Messenger using two different accounts at the same time? I have an account with my new friends, but I also have an account that I use with others that I want to talk to at the same time.
You’re not alone. I get this […]

I keep a daily journal in Microsoft Works on Windows XP. Is there a way to put a password on it, or lock it up somehow, so only I have access to it?
There are several approaches to keeping your private data private. Some good, some bad, and many in-between.
Let’s look at the list, from least […]

I occasionally get funny videos as attachments to email and I download them and scan them with a virus scan package (Norton) before playing. There has not yet been one with a virus detected. But I notice when I play them with Windows Media Player I see a “connecting” message at the bottom of Media […]

I just moved and was not able to check my email for 3-4 weeks. Will I still receive emails sent in that time period?
Probably, but it depends on a couple of things: the rules that your email provider might impose and just how popular you are.
But it is definitely something worth planning ahead for.
Personally I […]

I want to buy a new laptop. Can I transfer the programs from my Dell desktop to the new laptop - things like Microsoft Office, Windows Media, etc. - or do I need to buy this software again?
As with so many questions here, the answer starts with “it depends.”
It depends on what you mean by […]

When creating individual PST files, I am able to give them unique names, but when you look on the folders through outlook, they all bare the same name… and that’s creates some confusion.
Yes, and once again Outlook makes it non-obvious, but it’s changeable.
You can name your PST files anything you want: “foo.pst,” “bar.pst,” whatever. My […]