Has your email stopped going out? Can you receive but not send? Do you have Verizon as your Internet Service Provider? Here is the explanation and fix for it.

Verizon, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to start blocking TCP Port #25 on all home and some business accounts.If you use a 3rd party email system (not verizon’s email, that still works) they are going to block the most common port over which people send out email.

What this means is that if you have your email hosted by another service, say godaddy.com or 1and1.com and use Verizon as your Internet Service Provider (ISP), you can still receive mail but you won’t be able to send it. Thanks for the warning, Verizon!

How to get around this issue…

1. Use Verizon’t email. A trick to get you at least somewhat locked into staying with their service…
2. Switch your Verizon account to a Business account with a Static IP Address. This is, of course, more expensive than what you currently have.
3. Use your email host’s webmail. No, Outlook, Outlook Express, and Thunderbird will not work.
4. Switch the port number from 25 to 587 and hope that your email host has that port open. Click here for directions on how to switch Outlook from port 25 to 587.
5. You can click HERE to read Verizon’s instructions on how to change other programs to port 587.

And just in case you don’t believe me that Verizon is blocking this essential email port, just click HERE and read what they had to say.

Tim Biden

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Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company and we now offer Online Computer Support.

If you have earthlink.net for your email provider and suddenly you can receive email but not send, I think I have the solution for you.

I am assuming that you have already checked your username and password as well as your server settings to be certain that they are correct.

If after checking these settings, you still can’t send your email, check your SMTP port settings.

From the Email Account settings page,

1. Click the More Settings button.
2. Click on the Advanced tab.
3. Check the contents of the Outgoing mail (SMTP) field. If it is not 587, delete the contents and type 587.
4. Click the OK button.
5. Click the Next button.
6. Click the Finish button.

This should solve your problem.

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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Yesterday I received a call from a client who I had not spoken with in a while. It turns out that he had gotten himself an Apple iMac. It was beautiful but that’s beside the point. He called because in Apple Mail he could not change the font size of his print outs no matter what he did. The type was tiny and the whole printout took up about 1/3 of the page.

I looked online for the answers and could not find them so I am posting the answer here.

The problem is in the Print Setup. So here’s what you need to do…

1. Press Command and P to print.
2. Next to where it lists the printer that you select, there is a downward facing arrow that looks like the the blue arrow below. On your print properties, click on that as shown in picture below.
3. You will now be presented with a much larger window. Towards the bottom of this larger window you will see 3 options. They say “Scale Message to Fit”, “Rewrap Message to Fit”, and “Keep the Same Apparent Font Size”.
4. “Scale Message to Fit” will probably be highlighted by having the blue dot next to it. This is the problem.
5. You must click on “Keep the Same Apparent Font Size” and move the blue dot there as shown in picture below. You can now press the print button and your documents will print normally.

I hope this is of help to you.

Happy Computing,
Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

Today I was assisting a remote desktop client who wanted to have multiple accounts set up in Microsoft Outlook. Usually this isn’t a problem but the way she wanted it just can’t be done.

Here is what she wanted… She wanted to be able to have 1 Microsoft Outlook window open with her personal account and a completely separate Microsoft Outlook window open with her business account.

This is not an unreasonable request. It just can’t be done. You can create separate outlook profiles and have the choice of which to open, but when you open another window it remains in the same account as the first that was opened. This does not accomplish what she wanted.

Fortunately this client was easy to please (Thank you if you’re reading this…) and we set her up with an IMAP account so that she could separate her 2 accounts into different folders located on the left hand side in the “Mail Folders” window of Outlook. That pleased her. Now she just has to get used to the delete and purge issue with IMAP.

If she had Outlook 2007, she could have done the folder separation with different POP3 accounts but since she had an earlier version of Outlook, going with IMAP was our only choice.

If you are looking for a way to separate your different POP3 email accounts within Microsoft Outlook 2007, look to this page to find out how to do it. Look for the “Directly assign the account a Folder Set” at the bottom of the page. Thank you to howto-outlook.com for the info!

Happy Computing,
Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

If you are like me, you have a few different email addresses that are being managed by Microsoft Outlook. I have 2 IMAP email addresses that I have to check but Outlook defaults to opening the standard inbox first.

To correct this and setup Microsoft Outlook to open the folder you want open first, just follow these easy steps.

1. Go to the “TOOLS” menu and Click on”OPTIONS”.
2. Click on the “OTHER” tab at the top of the new window.
3. Now click on “ADVANCED OPTIONS” then click on the “BROWSE” button.
4. Highlight the folder that you want to see opened when you first open Outlook and click “OK”.
5. Now click “OK” and click “OK” again.
6. Reboot your computer and when you start up Microsoft Outlook it will start up in the folder that you chose.

If you have other computer support needs or questions, please feel free to contact Biden PC.

Happy Computing,
Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

Do you own a small business? How many computers do you use at your location? What, you don’t have a server? How do you back up all of your files from individual computers? How do you share important files among your employees?

A server really isn’t as large an investment as most small businesses imagine and the benefits are immense! A server running Windows Small Business Server 2003 can cost as little as $1,500 and for this you can:

• Host your own email and website
• Store user’s data on the server for backup or review
• Share a contact list and calendar
• Control who has access to your computer network
  
• Control which users have access to which public files and folders
• Access work computers from anywhere else in the world via a web browser
• Access email via a web browser
• Automate the Windows update service for user’s PCs
• Control user’s password complexity for security
• Reset a user’s password in case one forgets theirs or leaves the company
• Share Printers
• Receive faxes via email

Windows Small Business Server is an excellent platform for small businesses because it has many of the features that a large company needs with a much smaller price tag. You get the Windows Server platform, Microsoft Exchange for email as well as to share appointments and calendars, Microsoft Web Server and in the Premium Version you can also get the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database.

Whether your company has 3, 25, 50 or even 75 computer users, your company can still use all the functions of Microsoft Small Business Server on just 1 computer. When you are ready to make your small business more efficient and take productivity to the next level, contact Biden PC for your free server consultation.

Remember, servers do more than just store files. They provide backup, security, increased productivity and peace of mind.

Happy Computing,
Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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