News

12/23 Book Release

4/17 | New Website
5/01 | Book Release
1/19 | Design completed


Want to stay up to date with computer tips, tricks and columns occasionally? Sign up for the Bits and Bytes Newsletter.


 

* Email
* = Required Field
Email Marketing You Can Trust

Welcome to Bits, Bytes & Chips - Computer Services

It' was 2005 when the Bits and Bytes column first appeared in the Charlotte Sun and it has been a pleasure and an honor to write a column each week. I hope that they have been informative, educational, humorous and just plain interesting to read. This column was never intended to be aimed at the technogeeks and as such it was designed to be easy to understand and follow along. I have had the opportunity to visit with many of you in your homes and it is a good feeling to see file folders of past columns sitting on the desk beside the computer. Bits, Bytes & Chips is located in beautiful Punta Gorda, Fl.

This Weeks Column...

Saving that special e-mail! 

This week I will address another question from a devoted reader, try to explain it and perhaps offer some suggestions to resolve the problem.


Faithful reader Ed asks this question. “Can you offer help saving Windows Live Mail e-mail messages to a CD other than "exporting" the whole WLM messages?”
Ed, why do you want to save email messages? I have worn out two delete buttons erasing email. Especially the “hilarious” jokes that six people send me. I’m not sure if there is a belief that they are self appointed humor enhancers, or if somehow only they, in the whole world, received that joke and if they don’t forward it on, the joke will die, never to be heard again and the world will be a sadder place.


Occasionally an email comes in that is worth saving, for example, the very nice email that contained this week’s question. I do keep email messages like these, and later on I’ll explain how I save them. But let’s examine Ed’s dilemma. First some clarification for the novice, WLM stands for Windows Live Mail. WLM is a Microsoft product, shipped with Windows. It is a mail and newsgroup reader. WLM is also resident on the computer, or put another way it is a program that runs on the computer and allows email to be pulled from the Internet to the computer and displays it for reading. WLM also allows the creation of email and its delivery to the Internet. WLM is a simple, easy to use, mail client. There are many others available, some free, some not, that do much the same function. But WLM is by far the most commonly used mail client.


So how do we save those important or critical emails? That email from the insurance or mortgage company telling us there is only seventeen more signatures required before they can release our repair funds. Ed is attempting to use the export messages feature in WLM and is finding it somewhat maladroit. That feature is not precisely designed to accomplish the saving of email as much as to transfer it from PC to PC. There are alternatives at hand.
However, if we want to use WLM then there is a multiple step process that will allow the saving of email messages. (Martha, the dance instructor said the same thing just before I tripped.) First, open Windows Live Mail. Open the e-mail to be saved. Now click on menu heading in the top left corner that looks like a sheet of paper and a sub menu will appear. From the menu choose Save and another submenu will appear. From the second menu select  Save As File. A window will open allowing us to browse to which ever folder on the hard drive we want to save the e-mail in. If we desire we can then burn all the saved emails to a CD or move them over to a flash drive. This is process is not the same as moving an e-mail to a folder located on the left of the WLM window. If we want to save all the emails we have in one group follow the instructions below.


Click on the tab in the far left of the window. From the sub menu click on Options and then on the next menu click Mail.  The OPTIONS dialogue box will open and at the top of the window are some tabs. Click on the Advance tab and then click on the MAINTENANCE button. From the Maintenance dialogue box click on the button labeled STORE FOLDER. A box will open and in that box you will see the location of your MAIL FOLDER. Highlight the folder location path and then right click and a menu will appear. Click on Copy. Click cancel and cancel again to close all the folders. Next click on the Windows START button and click on RUN (XP) or look for the search box right above the Start Button. Paste the Mail Folder location path in that field and click enter. Now a window appears containing all your email database files. At the top of the window there is a menu, click on Organize and then click SELECT ALL. This will highlight every thing in the window. Now from the Organize menu click COPY then close the window.


Create a folder on the desktop by right clicking anywhere on the desktop that is empty. A menu will appear. On the menu, left click on NEW and then a submenu will appear and left click on FOLDER. The new folder will appear and wait for you to name it. Let’s call it My Saved Mail. Now open that folder by double clicking on it. From the menu ad the top of the window, select Organize and then click on PASTE. All your email will now appear in the folder. Close the folder. We have just backed up our email messages and we are ready to copy the folder to a CD or other storage media.


So now that we have saved all our email, how is it restored when we want to view it?  First we ….. oh, sorry I have reached my word limit this week.   
When emailing questions, please provide as much information as possible. Questions of general interest will become column topics from time to time.

Court Nederveld owns his own computer consulting and fixit service –Bits, Bytes & Chips Computer Services.

Services...

If you live in the Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte and surrounding areas, Court is available for computer repair service and computer training. He makes house calls. Some of the services available are:

Spyware Removal -  Virus Removal
Memory Upgrades - Windows Troubleshooting
Data Backups - Onsite Repairs
Wireless Networks - In Home One on One Training
Hardware Repairs - Mailing Lists
Upgrades - Data Recovery
Set up an Internet Provider - Set up or troubleshoot email 
Wipe old computers 
Set up wireless networks and wireless printers
Court Nederveld owns his own computer consulting and fixit service - Bits, Bytes and Chips Computer Servies servicing Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda. He makes
House Calls! You can reach him at court@bitsandbytesonline.com or 626-3285.

About Me...

Court Nederveld spent many years maintaining and servicing desktop computers, computer servers, switches and routers. Prior to that, he taught 1000’s of employees how to use a new business applicaton for a major corporation. Concurrently he taught the use of Word, Excel, Outlook and many other general use programs. After retirement in 2003, he and his lovely bride of over thirty years did a bit of traveling. (Did I say bit?) They traveled 14000 miles around the United States in a 1966 Mustang convertible, spending two months on the road. Court was asked by the Punta Gorda Herald to document his travels in a weekly "From the Road" column which turned out to be extremely popular with readers. Upon their return to Punta Gorda, Court was asked to write a weekly computer column in the same style as the "From the Road" series.

Now Court Nederveld is a popular celebrity columnist. His column runs weekly on this site and is read by over forty thousand readers. He is invited to speak to clubs and organizations. His in depth and humorous insight on dealing with that ubiquitous metal box, have brought accolades from readers and editors alike.   

2011 as part of a column series outlining self publishing for those folks that have great stories to tell, a new book, Epicuria: Adventures That Really Cook! was born. Late 2011 will see the release of a compendium of columns that were printed since 2005.

I continue to make House Calls in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda, Fl and enjoy visiting with folks and helping them resolve their computer prolems.

How to ...

How To Copy and Paste:

Take your mouse, and place your cursor at the beginning of the text in the box below, then click and hold the left mouse button, while pulling your mouse over the text. This should highlight the text. Now release the left mouse button. Now, with the cursor over the highlighted text, right click the mouse for options, and select 'copy'. Now place the cursor where you want to put the copied text and  right click your mouse again, and select 'paste' and you will have copied and pasted the text.

Cut and paste is the same as above, except you choose 'cut', instead of 'copy'.

Shortcuts
To Highlight: Press 'Ctrl' + 'A'.
To Copy: Highlight an area, as shown above, then hold 'Ctrl' + 'C' (For Mac users 'Apple' + 'C').
To Paste: Click your mouse where you want the text pasted, and then press 'Ctrl' + 'V' (For Mac users 'Apple' + 'S'.

The ability to cut, copy, and paste is found in most programs. Sometimes, the ability to do these tasks via the mouse is disabled, but is still quickly achieved through the use of the shortcuts outlined above.

Contact Us...

E-mail us by filling out the form below: