bioneural.net » outlook

Bumped off the 'net, unable to send e-mail?

Bruce — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:12:46 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Maybe it's because Outlook Express has decided to automatically disconnect you from the Internet after checking for e-mail... Why it should do this is anybody's guess. I know of two people who recently had this issue; they could receive e-mail, but were unable to send any. If they clicked send-and-recieve, they got an error about being unable to establish a connection with the POP (receiving) server. Why? Because their Internet connection had been terminated by Outlook Express! By an action other than of their own hand, the connection settings for Outlook Express had been mysteriously altered. Whether coincidence of not, both computers experiencing this issue were running Norton Antivirus. Could this application (or some other application) be responsible for changing their Outlook Express settings? The solution, however, is to reconfigure the connection options in Outlook Express: Choose "Options" for the "Tools" menu; Click on the "Connections" tab; Uncheck "Hang up after sending and receiving".

Apple Mail + httpmail for Hotmail disabled

Bruce — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:41:31 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

A free Hotmail account allows you to keep your primary address private, and use Hotmail as a "disposable" email address for giving out to online shops, mailing lists, and other places that might result in your getting unwanted email (spam). But accessing your Hotmail via the web could be a bit hit-and-miss: into the gap stepped httpmail, a plug-in that allowed you to send and receive email as you would with any POP account using Apple Mail. However, Microsoft have recently begun disabling access to Hotmail via email clients—including Apple Mail/ httpmail—unless you give them money... Try accessing your Hotmail account via Outlook Express and you'll now be greeted with this message: Using Apple Mail and httpmail, you'll just see an exclamation icon next to your Hotmail mailbox indicating that it is offline. As MacNN reports: Microsoft has began requiring Hotmail customers to purchase premium subscriptions in order access email from desktop email clients. Users of Microsoft Entourage, which features direct integration with Hotmail, this morning began receiving alerts noting that they would need to purchase a paid Hotmail subscription in order to access their Hotmail accounts from within Entourage. As noted by MacNN in September, Microsoft said it would disable direct access to Hotmail from desktop clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express, and Entourage in an attempt fight spam. "Microsoft says that spammers have been abusing the Outlook feature and creating false Hotmail accounts using an automated process from which they can send huge batches of unwanted commercial messages. Likewise, the httpmail pages note: Since ...

Receiving digital signatures with Outlook Express

Bruce — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 12:39:02 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

What's "revocation checking" about, and does it matter that it's turned off? When you receive a digitally signed message using Outlook Express 6, you will see the following screen (unless it has been disabled): When you get past this warning, the digital certificate used to sign the e-mail message is indicated with a red ribbon: Clicking on this ribbon with allow you to view the details of the certificate. You will likely see a note that "You have turned off revocation checking": Here's what Outlook Express help has to say about revocation checking: How do you verify a digital signature? With revocation checking, you can verify the validity of a digitally signed message. When you make such a check, Outlook Express requests information on the digital ID from the appropriate certification authority. The certification authority sends back information on the status of the digital ID, including whether the ID has been revoked. Certification authorities keep track of certificates that have been revoked due to loss or termination. However, according to this Microsoft Knowledge Base article: Beginning with Outlook Express 5.01, certificate revocation checking is disabled by default. If revocation checking is enabled, users with slow connections may experience a long period of inactivity while a certificate's revocation status is checked. This behavior may cause the user to believe that Outlook Express is not working properly. If revocation checking is disabled you cannot know if a certificate is valid or not: it may have expired, or been revoked (e.g. if the owner believes his or her private key has ...