For the April Weekend spot we had a look at the Powerhouse Museum's
Email
Australia project and how important email is to many people's lives.
Simon pointed out the idea email would kill letter writing has been
proved very wrong. Today we probably write more than ever. This is why
it's so important to protect your
email records.
Another problem is much of what we write is stored on formats that
may not be readable in a decade's time. This is why saving to external
hard drives or CD is so critical to recording critical data.
Protecting email records is one of the concerns of the Powerhouse Museum
and a driving force behind the Email Australia project. If you'd like
to contribute, Email Australia is open to submissions until May 18.
Listeners questions
As usual we had plenty of callers. If you missed out asking a question
about a computer problem, you still can at our IT
Queries website.
User profiles
Denise's son had set up user profiles for himself and the family, giving
himself Administrator rights. Denise wanted to know how to get rid of
these profiles.
We'd recommend keeping them. Profiles are a very handy way of protecting
your computer and data. By giving each user their own profile, they
have their own settings and data stores and so can't mess up anyone
else's.
Another important aspect of using profiles is they can be set to Limited
User restrictions which means Windows computers are far less prone to
becoming infected on the Internet. We've
instructions on how to set up Limited User profiles on another page.
If you do this, it is essential you set up an Administrator
account with a password that the rest of the household doesn't know
and can't easily guess. You'll need the Administrator password whenever
you install new software or change settings.
Copying emails
Peter asked about copying emails from his old Mac
Cube to his new computer. The Thunderbird website has instructions
on transferring data to new computers. To find the mail store use
command-F and search for inbox.
PCs versus Macs
Ross bravely raiser the religious issue of the merits of Windows versus
Apple Macs. We've covered this previously
on the website.
The basic advice though is to buy what you, your colleagues and your
friends are used to and comfortable with.
If you are switching between systems be aware there is a learning
curve. However that process is not as big as it was in times past.
Upcoming shows
Our apologies to callers we couldn't get to, if you'd still like to
ask a question visit our IT Queries website.
The next ABC 702 Weekend spot will be on May 25 at 10am.
