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How to Disable Browser Plugins, Extensions and Add-Ons

Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox call them "Add-Ons." Google Chrome calls them "Extensions." By any name, third-party files extend the abilities of your browser far beyond mere Web surfing. Every major browser manufacturer offers a gallery with thousands of extensions that enable enhanced browsing, add functionality to Facebook or Twitter, or add games to your browser. In addition, utilities such as Adobe Flash install a second category of third-party files known as plugins. These work in the background and usually connect with external software, enabling your browser to play videos, use Web applications and more.

Although extensions, add-ons and plugins should normally assist you in using the Web, too many extensions or plugins may slow your browser down or create conflicts. If problems occur, or you're simply ready to remove a specific feature you no longer need, you'll want to be able to disable plugins and extensions quickly.

Instructions

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 and Later

• Locate the New Tab button near the top of the browser window to the right of the address field and any other open tabs. Right-click the empty space between the New Tab button and the Home house-shaped icon. Select "Command Bar" from the context menu that appears. Choose "Manage Add-ons" from the Tools drop-down menu to open the Manage Add-ons dialog box. IE9 hides the Command Bar by default, but IE8 does not. In IE8, the Tools menu is already visible.

Choose the add-on type you want to disable. By default, the Manage Add-Ons window lists the currently loaded add-ons.

Choose the add-on you want to disable and click "Disable." IE will also disable any add-ons dependent on the add-on you're disabling. If other related add-ons are installed, IE will display them and allow you to disable them as well.

Mozilla Firefox

• Click the orange "Firefox" button in the top left-hand corner of the browser window and choose "Add-ons" from the right column of the menu to open an Add-ons Manager tab in the active browser window. If you are using Windows XP, click on "Tools" from the menu bar near the top of the browser window and choose "Add-ons."
• Click "Extensions" to view the installed extensions that add features to Firefox, or click "Plugins" to view plugins that add compatibility and functionality, such as Apple QuickTime or Adobe Acrobat.
• Find the add-on you want to disable and click its "Disable" button. If you want to delete an extension entirely, click "Remove." Restart Firefox to complete the process.

Google Chrome

• Click the wrench icon at the top right of the browser window, choose "Tools" and choose "Extensions" to open a new "Options" tab.
• Uncheck "Enabled" to disable an extension, or click "Remove" to delete it completely.
• Enter "chrome://plugins/" in Chrome's address bar to view plugins that add compatibility and functionality, such as Apple QuickTime or Adobe Flash, and click the "Disable" link under the plugin you want to disable.

  Tips & Warnings

  • Internet Explorer 9 may display a dialog box to inform you when a new add-on version is installed, or when add-ons are loading slowly. You may prevent the latter dialog from appearing by clicking "Disable Add-Ons" or choosing a longer delay setting from the "Tell me when the total add-on time is greater than" pop-up menu.
  • Some plugins, such as McAfee Virtual Technician, Adobe Flash and Java, provide functionality that will be unavailable if you disable them. For this reason, most applications don't allow you to delete plugins as you can extensions.

  
  

 

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How to Update Microsoft Internet Explorer

Microsoft Internet Explorer is the most widely used of all Internet browsers. The options you have available when you use it are very helpful and convenient. Using Microsoft Internet Explorer is one of the best ways to surf the Internet, but make sure you are getting all of the latest features possible. The best way to do this is to keep Microsoft Internet Explore updated. You can easily accomplish this by following the steps provided explaining how to Update Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Instructions

• Connect to the Internet. Make sure you have an Internet connection available to update Internet Explorer.

Click on the “Start” button located on the bottom left of your computer screen.

Click on “All Programs” or you can hold the mouse pointer over it to open it, if you have Microsoft Windows XP.

Select “Windows Update”, which will be in the first (left side) pane of listed installed programs. You may have to then select “Check for Updates”. This opens the Microsoft Update page.

You will have the option to select either “Express” or “Custom” updates. It is recommended that you choose "Express" to get all of the high-priority updates available. Your computer will be scanned checking for all of the latest updates that are available.

Once the scan is complete, you will see a list with all of the possible (and recommended) Microsoft Windows updates. Make sure all of the Microsoft Internet Explorer updates are selected.

Click on “Install Updates” to download. You may have to select “Run” (or “Save” if you want to save a copy of them) to begin the process.

Once the Microsoft Windows updates have downloaded, follow the directions given to install them. You may have to restart your computer to complete the updates.

Tips & Warnings

• You can update Microsoft Internet Explorer through the Control Panel. Select “Start,” “Control Panel” and then select “Windows Update” that is listed on the left side. You could also do an update for Microsoft Internet Explorer by going directly to the Microsoft Windows Update page listed in the resources.
• If this is your first time doing any Microsoft Windows updates (Internet Explorer or other Microsoft programs on your computer) you will have to verify your copy of Microsoft Windows when you first open the Microsoft Windows Update page. This is a very fast and easy process to complete. Simply follow the directions given. Once you have verified your copy of Microsoft Windows, you can proceed with updating Internet Explorer.

 

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Email Safety & Attachments

Electronic mail is used every day by millions of people for personal and business communication. Understanding email security risks and how to avoid them is key to helping safeguard your email usage.

Sensitive Information

• When sending personal information such as an address or telephone number, verify that the email address you are sending it to belongs to the person you intend to receive it. Sensitive information such as passwords, bank account numbers and Social Security numbers should never be sent via email.
  

Phishing

• Scams called "phishing" attempt to dupe consumers into revealing account login information by pretending to be a legitimate company and sending an email claiming that there is a problem with their account. Always check with the company that a suspect email is claiming to be.
  

Junk Mail

• Unsolicited or "junk" email is also called "spam." Install a spam filter onto your desktop mail client or use a trusted webmail provider that provides powerful spam filters to automatically delete messages from known spammers.
  

Sending Attachments

• Before sending, check with your email provider to ensure that your attachment meets the size limits set by your administrator. If your document contains sensitive data, you can provide a layer of protection by first compressing it in a different file format (such as .zip or .rar) and requiring a password to access the data.
  

Receiving Attachments

• Always run a virus scan on an attachment before opening it. Never open an attachment from a spammer or otherwise unsolicited or unknown source. Never open attachments with the extension .exe as this may open a virus that can harm your computer.
  

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How to Change the POP Settings on Your Email

Changing the POP settings for your desktop email client might be necessary if your Internet service provider, or ISP, modifies the settings on your mail server. If that occurs, you must change your POP settings before the local client, such as Windows Live Mail, can sync with the mail server.

"POP" is an acronym for Post Office Protocol, which controls the communications between your desktop email client and your mail server. The most commonly used email clients, such as Outlook, Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail let users perform this task through simple menus. Once you obtain the required information from your email provider, it only takes a few minutes to change the POP settings on your desktop client.

Instructions

All Mail Clients

• Obtain the correct POP settings, security type and port numbers for your account from your ISP. This information is often available in your registration confirmation or in the customer support area of the provider's website. If your service provider recently changed the server's POP settings, look for the new settings in an email from your ISP announcing the server upgrade or change.

Save the POP settings in a text file so you can refer to this information as needed. If you do not configure these settings correctly, you'll receive an error message when you attempt to retrieve your email from the mail server.

• Launch your desktop email client. The program must be running for you to make any changes to the POP settings.

Live Mail

• Find the name of the email account that you need to modify by scrolling through the list in the left panel of the Home window. Right-click on the email account and choose “Properties” from the pop-up menu.
• Click the “Servers” tab in the Properties window to see your current POP settings. Look in the input field next to “Incoming Mail (POP3).”
• Delete the existing information from this field and type the new POP server name, which is typically pop.yourispname.com or mail.yourispname.com.
• Tick the radio button for the authentication protocol your ISP instructed you to use. The most common protocol is “Secure Password Authentication,” but you might need to select a different protocol.
• Click the “Advanced” tab and verify that the port number for “Incoming mail (POP3)” matches the number provided by your ISP. If it does not match, type the correct port number into the box. Click “OK” to close the window and save your new POP settings.

Outlook

• Click the "File" menu and select “Info.” Choose "Account Settings" and then select "Email." If you have more than one email account in Outlook, highlight the name of the account that you want to modify, then click “Change” to open the POP settings page.
• Locate the “Incoming mail” text box in the Server Information section of the settings page. Replace the existing information with the new POP server settings that you obtained from your email provider. Change the "Authentication" setting, too, if necessary.
• Click the “Advanced” tab. Compare the “Incoming mail” port number with the one you were given and change it if it doesn’t match. Click “OK” to save your settings.

Thunderbird

• Open the “Tools” menu and select “Account Settings.” Thunderbird displays all of your email accounts in the left pane of this window.
• Choose the email account that you want to modify by clicking on it. Select “Server Settings” under that account.
• Change the server settings if they do not match the information supplied by your ISP. Enter the correct information and click “OK” to save your changes.

 

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What Is an Easy Way to Embed a JPG in Email?

Nearly every email client lets you copy and paste a JPG photo or other image right into the body of an email message, as long as the message is in rich text or HTML format, not plain text. Email clients and webmail applications that do not embed copied and pasted images give users another way, such as an "Insert image" button to guide users through inserting a picture.

Email Formats

Email messages can be formatted as plain text or HTML. You can't embed an image in a text email, but you can embed one in an HTML message. An easy way to tell the difference is to check and see if your email program will allow you to change the color or font of the words in the email body. If it will, then the format is HTML. If the email format is plain text, you can change it to HTML or rich text in the message settings. For example, in Windows Live Mail, if formatting options are grayed out in the New Message window, click the "Rich Text (HTML)" button in the Message ribbon. In Gmail, click the "Rich formatting" link above the compose window.

Copy and Paste

• The first step to embedding a photo is to copy it. If you have a photo displayed in an email, in a document or on a Web page, you can copy it just like text. Right-click on the photo and choose "Copy." Alternatively, highlight the photo by clicking and dragging the mouse cursor over it and then either press "Ctrl-C" on the keyboard or click "Edit," "Copy." After copying the photo, move to the email message in which you want to embed it. Right-click in the location where you want the photo to appear and choose "Paste," or press "Ctrl-V" on the keyboard, or click "Edit," "Paste."
  

Insert

• The ability of most email clients and some webmail apps to accept a copied and pasted image is relatively new. Before users could rely on the system clipboard for image embedding, they could insert an image using a method similar to adding a file attachment -- and they still can. In Gmail, for example, after ensuring the message is in rich text format, click on the icon that looks a bit like two mountains (for the more literal-minded, the icon with two overlapping triangles). Users of the Thunderbird email client can click on the icon representing a dog-eared sheet of paper and then choose "Image" from the resulting drop-down menu.
  

Attach Instead

• An alternative to embedding a photo in the body of an email is to send it as an attachment. If you do this, the recipient will see the email as text and below it see either the image or images you attached or a link to click on to view or save the image.
  

 

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Email Mailbox Full Messages

Online email services such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo give free account users gigabytes of space for storing messages and attachments. These Web-based mail services allow users to save virtually any message, document or photo received in an email without fear of using up their allotted space. Still, even an email account with an incredibly large inbox can fill up over time. A full mailbox is even more apt to be a problem if you use a school or work email account with a disk-space quota that limits the amount of messages and attachments you can store on the server. If your inbox becomes full, you may occasionally receive “Mailbox Full” errors, which effectively prevent you from receiving and sending messages. If you receive this error while you are checking your messages, you can use tools built into your email client to clean your inbox and quickly restore your ability to send and receive messages.

Why the Error Happens

• The most common reason that a “Mailbox Full” message appears is the fact that your inbox on the mail server has reached its quota or storage limit. All servers impose some sort of limit on the amount of space an account can use on the server’s hard drive. If you are the owner or postmaster of a website, your inbox might not have a specified size limit, but storage is still limited by the physical size of the server’s hard drive. On the other hand, if you have a regular email account on a school or business website, chances are your account has a default size limit. Because organizations may have thousands of email users on a single server, inbox quotas can be relatively small. In fact, many organizations limit inbox storage to a modest 50 to 250MB. If you receive text-only emails, you’ll be able to store thousands of messages in this space, but if you receive email with photos or music attachments, your allotted space on the mail server may fill up quickly. The bottom line is that the more messages you save (or neglect to delete) on the email server, the faster your inbox will fill up. Even if you have a multi-gigabyte email account with Gmail or Yahoo, you will eventually exceed your inbox quota.
  

Store Messages Locally

• Some users regard their email accounts as free online storage because the files in their inboxes are readily available to them from the mail server. Over the long term, this option is only viable for users with accounts that provide a lot of storage space for messages and attachments. If you have a Gmail account with 3GB of email storage, you can probably leave important documents and photos on the mail server indefinitely. But if you have an email account with minimal storage, leaving important files on the server may quickly push you over your quota. Another fact to consider is that server backups by schools and smaller organizations might not be as frequent, putting your important data at risk if the server crashes. Virtually all email clients offer an option for deleting email on the server after downloading the messages to your local computer. In widely used applications such as Outlook, Outlook Express and Thunderbird, enabling this feature is as simple as opening the Options or Preferences menu on the application toolbar and clicking on a few settings. Instead of using the mail server as online storage for your files, consider opening a free account with DropBox or SkyDrive. You can then safely store your important files in the cloud and free up precious space in your inbox.
  

Clear Email on Remote Server

• Using the “Delete messages on server” option can help you free up space in your inbox, but this option might not work for older messages that existed on the server before you enabled the feature. In some cases, email clients check only for new messages when communicating with a server, so if you have older messages on the server, your software might not see them at all. In this case, you might need to create a new profile in your email client and then enable the “Delete messages on server” option before clicking the “Send/Receive” button on the toolbar for the first time. When creating the new profile, use the same login information that you used for your primary profile. Then, when you click the “Send/Receive” button in your email client, the application should download all messages in your inbox on the mail server, including the old messages that were not previously detected. Once you have created the new profile, downloaded your mail and deleted all messages on the server, set the new profile as your default. You can delete the old profile from your email client or leave it as is so you can reference older messages not included in the new profile.
  

Preventing Future Errors

• Although neglecting to delete old emails on the server is the primary reason for “Mailbox Full” error messages, spam and old email subscriptions are major culprits as well. If you receive a lot junk mail in your inbox, be sure to mark those messages “Spam” or “Junk.” This tells the software that any messages received from those senders in the future should be routed directly to the junk mail folder and deleted from the server. Also, report spam to your email or network administrator so that he can filter and delete messages from offenders before they reach your inbox. If you subscribe to online newsletters, review your subscriptions and unsubscribe from any that you do not use regularly. Some organizations send daily newsletters with embedded images that can fill up an email inbox rather quickly.
  

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How to Request Confirmation That an Email Has Been Read

Waiting for a response to some emails can be nerve-wracking, such as when you send a message to your boss asking for a raise or when you're giving your realtor your highest bid on a house. As more time passes with you inbox empty, your stress level can continue to build. Email read receipts can help ease some of that anxiety by sending you a notification the moment the recipient opens your email. However, not all email programs offer a read-receipt feature, and different email settings on your recipient's server may prevent the read receipt from generating. A read receipt can be a handy tool to let you know your email's status, but keep in mind it won't always work effectively.

Instructions

Microsoft Outlook

• Open Microsoft Outlook and enter your password if necessary. Click "New" to compose a new message. Write your email as you normally would.
•  Click on the "Options" tab at the top of the email window.

• Find the "Tracking" group. Select the type of receipt you prefer by checking the box beside your selection. "Request a Read Receipt" notifies you when the recipient opens the email. "Request a Delivery Receipt" informs you when the email is successfully delivered to the recipient's email server, but not when the recipient opens the email. Click "Send."
  
• Configure your email to request a read receipt every time you send a message by clicking on Outlook's "File" tab and choosing "Options." Click "Mail," then "Tracking." Select "Read Receipt Confirming the Recipient Viewed the Message" for a read receipt or "Delivery Receipt Confirming the Message was Delivered" for a notification the email was delivered to the recipient's email server.

Thunderbird

• Open Mozilla Thunderbird. Click "Write" in the top left corner of the page to compose a new message. Write your email.
• Click "Options" at the top of the window. Select "Return Receipt." This lets you know when your recipient receives that specific email. Click "Send."
• Set your configurations to send return receipts every time you send an email. Click on the "Tools" menu and choose "Options." Under "Advanced," select "General."
• Check the box beside "When Sending Messages, Always Request a Return Receipt."

Windows Live Mail

• Log in to your Windows Live Mail account and click "New" to compose a new email. Write the email.
• Click on the "Tools" menu on the email message's menu bar. Check the box beside "Request Read Receipt." Send your email.
• Change your email options to request a read receipt automatically with each email you send. Click on the "Main Menu" button in the top left corner of Live Mail -- it's dark blue and looks like a piece of paper. Choose "Mail," then "Options." Choose the "Receipts" tab and check the box beside "Request a Read Receipt for All Sent Messages." Click "OK."

Google Apps for Business, Education and Government

• Log in to your Google Apps for Business, Education and Government email account. Read receipts aren't available for personal Gmail accounts. The Google Apps account offers business-grade hosted email services at a small monthly fee after a 30-day free trial.
• Compose your email. Click on the "Request Return Receipt" link, which is found directly below the "To" field. Click to check the box beside "Request Read Receipt."
• Click "Send." A read receipt is requested from each individual listed in the "To" and "CC" fields. Google Apps doesn't send read receipts to group mailing lists, only to individual email accounts. When returned, the receipt shows up below the body of the message if you're using conversation view or as a separate message if you're using the standard view.

Tips & Warnings

• Read receipts are not reliable and often fail to inform you when the email has been read. If the recipient checks his email on his smartphone, it's unlikely to send a read-receipt notice to you. Also, the feature relies on the recipient's email server to send a reply, but many are configured in a way that prevents read receipts from being sent. Many email programs, such as Outlook, ask the recipient if he wants to notify the sender that the email has been read. If he selects "No," then no read receipt is sent.
• As an alternative that may help you track when a recipient has opened an email from you, purchase email tracking software such as Point of Mail, Zendio or ReadNotify. These programs typically track other information in addition to when an email is opened, such as if a recipient clicked on a link in your message and how long he spent looking at your message. Some can text your cell phone to let you know a specific email was read and when.
• Use read receipt requests sparingly for the best results. Recipients who are prompted by their email programs to decide whether to send you a read receipt are more likely to click "Yes" if it only happens occasionally. If you request a read receipt with each email you send, recipients are likely to ignore them.

 

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Printing Your Email Contact List

According to a study released by the Email Marketing Reports website, over a billion computer users have a registered email account with either Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Windows Live Mail. These Web-based email clients, as well as desktop email programs such as Outlook, allow you to keep track of the incoming and outgoing emails tied to your account, and keep track of your email contacts in a digital address book. You can also print these contacts, though the steps for doing so vary depending on your client.

Outlook

• Launch Outlook and click the "Contacts" tab in the navigation pane. Click the "Address Cards" option beneath the Current View heading. Click the "View" menu and move your cursor over the "Arrange By" option. Move your cursor over the "Current View" option and select "Customize Current View." Place a checkmark next to the contact information you want to print, then click the "View" menu and move your cursor over the "Arrange By" option. Move your cursor over the "Current View" option and select "Phone List." Click the "File" menu and select "Print" to print the Outlook email contacts.
  

Thunderbird

• Launch Thunderbird and click the "Address Book" option. Click the "Tools" menu, select "Export," type a name for the file in the space provided, then select the "Comma Separated (.csv)" option from the "File type" drop-down menu. Click the "Export" button to export the contacts. Double-click the CSV file to open the file in the computer's default text editor, click the "File" menu and select the "Print" option to print the contacts.
  

  Gmail

  • Log in to your Gmail account. Click the "Gmail" drop-down menu on the left of the screen and select the "Contacts" option. Click the "More" drop-down menu above your list of contacts, then select "Print..." and click the "All Contacts" radio button. Click "Print" to print the email contact list.
    

  Windows Live Mail

  • Launch Windows Live Mail and select the "Contacts" option in the navigation pane. Click the "File" menu and select the "Export" option. Select the CSV format from the "Format" drop-down menu, type a name for the file in the space provided and click the "Save" button to save the file. Double-click the CSV file to open the file in the computer's default text editor, click the "File" menu and select the "Print" option to print the contacts.
    

  Disclaimer

  • When you send an email to someone, his contact information is not added to your contact list unless you have your email client configured to do so automatically. Only contacts who are added manually appear in your contact list and, therefore, only contacts you've added manually are printed when you print your email contact list. Double-check your contact list to make all of your contacts are present, and manually add any absent contacts before printing.
    

  
  

  
  

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How to Clean up the Spam in Your Gmail Account

Like many email services, Gmail uses a smart filter to determine if messages should go into your Inbox or your Spam folder. Each time you mark a message as spam, the filter uses information in the message to better detect unwanted, bulk, commercial email in the future. The more often you report messages as spam, the smarter the filter becomes and the less spam lands in your Inbox. You can use a search filter to quickly sort spam from your Inbox. You can then save that filter to send future spam directly to the Trash without it ever appearing in your Inbox again.

Instructions

Cleaning out Spam

• Log into your Gmail account in a new Web-browser window. Select "Inbox" in the left-column menu. Click the arrow located on the right side of the Search field to reveal the search options.

Type search criteria that applies to much of the spam you have received into the appropriate search field. For example, you can type a name, email address or partial email address in the "From" field. You can also type words that are used in the spam messages in the "Has the Words" text fields. Note that if you type more than one word in these fields, any messages without one of those words will not be selected.

Click the "Search" button. All emails that fall within your search criteria are displayed. Scan the results to ensure only spam is now displayed.

Click the "Select" button below the Search field and select "All." Click the "Report Spam" button (a circle with an exclamation mark) that now appears to the left of the Select button. The spam is reported to Google and is deleted from your Inbox.

Filtering Future Spam

• Click the Arrow beside the Search field on your Gmail page. Type an email address belonging to a spam account in the "From" field. Alternatively, you can filter all email coming from a domain by typing the domain name in the From field. This is the part of the address following the "@" symbol. You can also type words in the "Has the Words" text fields that contain spam, but that your friends and colleagues would never use.
• Select the "Delete It" option, then click the "Create Filter" button. Any incoming messages using your search criteria will automatically be sent to your Trash folder.
• Open your Trash folder from time to time and mark the spam by selecting the messages and clicking the "Report Spam" button.
• Edit your filter at any time by clicking the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the Gmail window. Select settings, then click the "Filters" tab. Click "Edit" then change the filter as desired. Click "Edit Filter Actions," then "Update Filter" to save the changes. You can also click "Delete" to permanently delete the filter.

Removing Messages From the Spam Folder

• Review the contents of your Spam and Trash folders at least once a month to ensure nonspam messages have not been placed there. Messages in the Spam and Trash folders are automatically deleted after 30 days.
• Select any message that was incorrectly marked as spam and click the "Not Spam" button to remove it from the Spam folder.
• Select for permanent deletion any individual spam message in the Spam folder by clicking the check box on the left of the message. Alternatively, select all of the messages in the folder by clicking the "Select" button above the messages and selecting "All." Click "Delete Forever" to permanently delete the selected messages. When the Spam folder is empty, Gmail will display the message: "Hooray! No Spam Here!"
• a filter to ensure the sender's messages are not placed in the Spam folder again. Copy the name or email address of the sender. Click the Arrow beside the search field and paste the name into the "From" field.
• Click the "Create Filter With This Search Link," then select the "Never Send It To Spam" option. Click the "Create Filter" button. Messages from this sender will always be placed in your Inbox.

Tips & Warnings

• Another way of ensuring someone's messages are not mistakenly sent to the Spam folder is to add the person's email address to your Gmail contact list.

 

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How to Choose an IM Carrier

When it comes to choosing an instant-messaging carrier, never have there been so many to choose from. IM services are now offered by social-media websites like Twitter and Facebook, email services like Yahoo and Windows Live, and voice services like Google and Skype. Before choosing an IM carrier, consider which will work best with your computer and any other Internet-enabled devices you use, as well as those used by the people you will want to connect with.

Instructions

• Examine websites and services you already use to see which have IM capabilities. Facebook, Yahoo, Skype, Gmail and Windows Live all have IM capabilities. Twitter also includes a basic instant-messaging feature through its Direct Message page.
•  Consider how accessible you want to be on any IM service. Examine each service for privacy settings that allow you to communicate with some people while remaining invisible to those you may not feel like talking to. Most services, including Google Chat, Skype, Windows Live and AIM, let you remain invisible, appearing offline while you are online, even while you're chatting with someone. Facebook Chat lets you limit which contacts can see you when you are online by selecting visibility options for different groups of friends. Note that there are third-party applications that others can use to determine whether you are using an invisibility setting or if you are actually offline. 
• Consider whether you want to install a dedicated client for instant messaging, or if you want to use a Web browser to use the service on your computer. Facebook, Yahoo, Google and Windows Live use Web browsers for their IM services. Skype uses a client you install to your computer. With AIM, you can install a client or use a Web browser.
• Examine your smartphone or tablet to determine which IM services include apps for your device. If there are particular people you want to chat with, ensure their computer operating system or mobile device is able to access the same service you plan to use. Facebook Messenger and Skype both have apps available for Android, Blackberry and Apple phones. Twitter includes these devices as well an app for Windows Phone 7 devices.
•  Consider security before selecting an IM carrier. If being able to chat without your messages being intercepted by others, your chat sessions in a Web browser should use the HTTPS protocol. This is a secure version of the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that uses Secure Sockets Layer encryption to protect data from being intercepted. Google Chat, Twitter and other services use HTTPS for security. Facebook does not use HTTPS by default, but it can be enabled by changing your security settings. Skype uses encrypted Transport Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datatgram Protocol (UDP) to protect your messages from being intercepted.
   

Consider additional features you may want to use in addition to chatting using an IM carrier. Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Skype are among those that let you use video chatting with their service.

 

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The Best Photo Sharing Websites

Online portfolios for hobbyists and serious photographers provide sharing options that eliminate the tedium of sending your photos by snail mail. Uploading your pictures to a photo-sharing website not only gets them out of the camera but also provides a safe place to back up your treasured memories. The best photo-sharing sites also make it easy to upload from mobile devices and to publish your photos on blogs and social media sites. Many of the best sharing sites offer free accounts with storage limits and paid accounts with upgraded features.

Flickr

• Now owned by Yahoo, Flickr accounts are automatic for Yahoo Mail users. Those who don’t have Yahoo accounts can register with an email address or an existing Facebook or Google account. Flickr members with free accounts can upload up to 300MB of media per month, which includes a maximum of two videos. A Flickr Pro account offers unlimited storage for a nominal yearly fee. Flickr users have access to basic photo-editing tools for uploaded pictures only through Picnik, a photo-editing service. When Picnik closes down in April 2012, Flickr members will need third-party tools to edit photos in their accounts.
  With Flickr’s privacy options, you can restrict who views your photos and prevent unauthorized downloading. Flickr supports uploads by email and from popular mobile phone platforms, including Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Windows 7. It has a desktop application and provides integration with programs such as Aperture, iPhoto, Picasa and Windows Live Gallery. Alexa’s list of Top 50 websites by traffic ranks Flickr.com as number 37 in the U.S. and 47th globally. Flickr is the only photo-sharing website in the Alexa Top 100.

Photobucket

• Photobucket gives its members unlimited photo storage space, a feature that sets it apart from other free photo-sharing websites. Users also receive a generous storage allowance of 500 videos per account. Register using a Facebook or Twitter account or an email address. Users can keep media private with password protection or allow public viewing and use. Photobucket supports Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Windows 7 phones and provides the Snapbucket app for iPhone and Android sharing.
  Photobucket gives users the ability to organize files utilizing tags, albums and slideshows. Free photo-editing tools and photo-gift options also draw users to Photobucket. Professional accounts, available for an annual fee, are ad-free and members can upload high-resolution photos; professional members also receive discounts on photo-printing services and gifts.

IPhoto

• Apple's iCloud is free with all of its OS 5 devices. Included in the iCloud service is Apple's cross-platform photo-sharing service iPhoto, which provides options for syncing, storing and sharing your photos. All users must also have an iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone to set up a photo-sharing account; PC users must have Vista or Windows 7. Apple provides 5GB of free storage and lets users upload documents and music to the same account. Sign up with an existing iTunes account or by creating a new iCloud account. Organize your collections by theme, date or custom tags. The service has Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and email integration options. Apple provides editing options that you can use to create and gift items. Privacy options for iCloud give you the ability to restrict access to your media.

Picasa

• The Picasa photo-sharing site is a Google service that appears as a top choice on almost every photo-sharing review list. In addition to the reliability and familiarity of Google, Picasa offers simplicity for novices. Once you download and install the desktop software, Picasa automatically searches your computer’s hard drive for photos and adds them to your online account. Picasa also uploads your photos to Web albums that you can make public or share privately by email invitation. Users need a Google or Gmail account to register for Picasa. The 1GB of photo storage is part of your total for all Google services. You can add 20GB of additional shared storage for Google services for a few dollars a year. The online Web album has no editing tools, which are provided only in Picasa’s desktop software. Picasa supports email, Google+, Blogger and Twitter integration. Facebook sharing requires a third-party application. Picasa’s integration with Google Maps makes it simple to embed location data in your photos with Google’s geotagging tools.

Smug Mug

• Smug Mug, a paid photo-sharing site, was selected by Consumer Search as best photo-sharing site in 2009 and was a PC World “Best Bet” in 2011. A basic, paid membership includes a choice of more than 50 photo gallery templates. Smug Mug provides CSS and HTML customization options, a custom site name and 1080p video uploads for Power members and Pro members, who pay higher annual membership fees. Pro membership includes e-commerce options you can use to sell media downloads. Smug Mug memberships do not impose storage limits, but a maximum file size of 24MB is enforced. You can create slideshows, photo gifts and embed photos in blogs and emails. Share photos directly on Twitter and Facebook, Tumbler and FriendFeed. The service provides integration with iPhoto, Lightroom and Picasa. Smug Mug apps are also available for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Use the site’s privacy options to hide your photos completely or use passwords to protect certain galleries.

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How to Market Your Small Business on Twitter

If you're not sure whether Twitter supplants soap operas as a time sink or offers you some of your best opportunities to build relationships with customers and enhance your company's brand identity, the answer may not surprise you. Like any marketing medium, or any medium that can be used for marketing, Twitter offers you results commensurate with how thoughtfully you approach it and how wholeheartedly you engage in it. Look past its non-traditional exterior to see Twitter's real ability to connect people in ways that can transform your company -- a little bit at a time.

Instructions

•  Remember that success on Twitter can build slowly, and that trying to hurry it by buying followers or using shady shortcuts doesn't work. As SocialMediaToday points out in a case study of hardball marketing run amok, "There is no magic pill, magic ticket or free ride to success in social media and business."

• Be yourself. That means two things on Twitter. First, make your tweets sound like the cohesive voice of your business. If you're small, capitalize on your identity as a one- or two-person business and equate your size with a focus on treating customers like individuals. Second, even if you're bigger than a sole proprietorship, assign one person who's good at communicating your authentic value as a business to be your official and singular voice on the service. Keeping your participation real goes a long way toward attracting followers. As Twitter itself suggests, "Share photos and behind the scenes info about your business. Even better, give a glimpse of developing projects and events. Users come to Twitter to get and share the latest, so give it to them!"
• Balance overt attempts to attract customers with tweets that convey your company's personality without making an obvious commercial pitch. When you do post a discount offer or a special sales event, your followers pay greater attention to it because you're not always explicitly soliciting their business.
• Use your Twitter presence to gather more than customers. You can share insights with fellow business people, and even find opportunities to barter services, collaborate on a project with community implications, build a network of like-minded entrepreneurs or learn from veteran business owners. Use mentions and following strategically to build a position of authority in your field. Twitter recommends that you "Reference articles and links about the bigger picture as it relates to your business."
• Think twice about following everyone who follows you. If you're using your Twitter timeline as a place to rub elbows with customers and suppliers, trying to keep up with a long list of people you followed only as a thank you turns your tweet stream into a raging river of who-can-read-all-that. If you do decide to follow back routinely, define whom you'll follow and whom you won't on the basis of attributes you can discern easily, then create original, non-automated thank-you responses in keeping with your focus on authenticity. As Mashable points out in an essay on the American Express OPEN Forum, "If you do decide to follow everyone, authenticity is key. Your followers will be able to tell whether they're talking to a robot or a person — and a real person is always more valuable on Twitter."
• Leverage your plans for charitable giving into your Twitter strategy. Consider the relationship between Halo Pets, a holistic pet food company, and the twin websites Freekibblekat.com and Freekibble.com. Modeled on the FreeRice microgiving concept, in which visitors correctly define words to add small numbers of grains of rice to the total donated toward world hunger, these two websites donate small amounts of pet food to homeless animals in shelters. Visitors take a daily multiple-choice quiz, and right or wrong, their participation adds to the kibble donation.
  New Twitter followers of the charitable sites trigger additional kibble donations, as do new followers of the Halo corporate Twitter account. Followers see discounts on pet food, previews of the daily trivia questions, and other informational and commercial tweets. The relationship unifies two congruent organizations in an endeavor that's consistent with both their goals, and gives the commercial enterprise added credibility for its visible commitment to a cause.

Don't

• Avoid the "too-much-information," or TMI, phenomenon. If you overshare with your target audience, you may wear out your welcome. Never give your desired customers a reason to unfollow you. As difficult as it is to garner worthwhile followers, it can be many times more difficult to reacquire them, especially if they tell their friends why they stopped following you in the first place.
• Don't bribe people to follow you. It's one thing to offer special discounts, one-time or longer-term, to your followers. It's another to post repeated tweets about how grateful you'll be for followers, or anything else that sounds awkward, desperate and just plain wrong. Ask yourself if you'd make the same pitch or solicit business the same way if you were on the phone or in the office with the people you're courting on Twitter. If the answer is no, don't implement the strategy.
• Ignore messages -- formerly direct messages -- and tweets that ask specific questions or offer specific comments at your peril. If someone's taking the time to engage you on specific grounds that relate directly to what you do or what you didn't do, meet her halfway and learn something from how you're perceived, good or bad.
• Be the powerboat, not the ocean liner. Ocean liners need lots of space and time simply to turn around and move in the opposite direction. Twitter's short, direct communications encourage and foster nimble abilities to move in new directions you weren't expecting to go. Listen to what your customers ask, and don't be afraid to change a bad policy swiftly in response to criticism, or continue a special offer if too few customers found out about it in time.
• Resist the temptation to tweet about or at an event just because it's different to do so. Different killed the Edsel, a remarkable car with advanced features -- and a grille that looked like a chrome gourami. On a Network Solutions blog, Joe Loong describes five things you don't want people remembering you tweeted about, including two that involve life and death. You don't want to be the company that live-tweeted a child's funeral, or the doctor live-tweeting a kidney operation. Some things need not see the light of day.
• Don't get into a back-and-forth defending yourself against an accusation of a deal gone wrong from a disgruntled customer who clearly gets more enjoyment out of visibility than you do. Take the high road. In the long run, it's far less expensive to maintain.
• Sign up for Twitter to help build brand equity for your business, not to become a compulsive retweeter with nothing original to say. If your Twitter output consists of nothing but what other people think, your customers and prospects have no idea where you stand and every reason to suspect you don't, either. The occasional retweet can be a great way to show your agreement with an equally great idea, but think about how annoying “me-too” behavior can be in real life, and avoid being a digital bore.  

  Tips & Warnings

  • Proofread your tweets before you post them. Yes, you can delete a mistake and repost a corrected version, but that's just plain tacky.
  • Don't use the privacy of direct messages as a way to shove complaints under the rug.
  • Check and post to your timeline at least once a day. Develop a feel for when your tweeps are likeliest to communicate and be where they are when they're there.
  • Never say anything on Twitter that you wouldn't want the entire world to read or know. Potentially, that's who is reading what you tweet.

  
  

 

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How To Post Simultaneously on Multiple Social Websites

If you've signed up for and built a following on multiple social-media websites, you already may have traded the novelty of connecting with others for the time-consuming routine of cross posting your thoughts to each site individually. Save your energy and effort by using built-in and third-party shortcut services that turn multiple steps into one-step convenience. With these time-savers, you can create a single post and share it efficiently among more than one of your social profiles.

Instructions

All Tweets to Facebook

• Post your tweets to Facebook directly through Twitter without a third-party application, service or website. In September 2011, Twitter launched support for cross posting to Facebook.

• Click on the "Profile" icon -- a head-and-shoulders human silhouette -- in the bar at the top of the Twitter screen. Choose "Settings" from the drop-down menu that opens
• Click on the "Connect to Facebook" button when it appears. Log in to your Facebook account when you're prompted, if you aren't already connected. When the Facebook "Request for Permission" window opens, click on the "Allow" button.
• Open the application settings in Facebook. Select Twitter from the list of options, then set the "App Privacy" drop-down menu to "Friends."

Selective Tweets to Facebook

• Use the Facebook Selective Tweets app to share only those tweets you want your Facebook friends to see. Go to the Facebook apps page for Selective Tweets and sign up your profile for the app. You can enter "Selective Tweets" in the search box at the top of any Facebook page to find the app's sign-up page.
• Enter your Twitter username in the box on the "Your Profile" tab on the Selective Twitter page and click on the "Save" button. This establishes the link to Twitter from Facebook.
• Compose your tweets using your favorite Twitter interface -- mobile or on the Web. End each tweet you want to share on Facebook with the hashtag "#fb." Only those tweets with the hashtag cross over to your Facebook profile.

HootSuite

• Log in to your HootSuite account and open your HootSuite Settings. Click on the "Social Networks" item and choose "Add Social Network."
• Select from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress and Myspace. Authorize each social network you want to include, enabling each to accept access from HootSuite.
• Click on the Launch Bar at the top left corner of the HootSuite interface to open the HootSuite Launch Menu. Type a message into the Compose field, pick the sites to which you want to send it and click on the "Send Now" button.
• Click on the floppy-disk-shaped "Save" icon to save your message as a draft so you can review and send it later. Click on the calendar-shaped "Schedule a Status Update" icon to set a date and time for HootSuite to send your message.

Tips & Warnings

• When you combine Twitter with Facebook through Twitter's native support for Facebook, only your tweets cross over, not retweets -- unless you create them completely manually -- or replies, otherwise known as mentions.
• If you connect Twitter to Facebook through Twitter, you can't use Selective Tweets. The converse also is true. Use one approach at a time or your tweets won't appear on Facebook.
• Limit your message length on HootSuite to avoid exceeding Twitter's 140-character maximum.
• Think carefully about what you cross post. Some message types and content don't lend themselves equally well to all social media services.

 

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