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.