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.

For all of you who use Microsoft Outlook and have never backed up all of your emails, here are step-by-step directions to back up your emails.

1. Open Outlook and give it a minute to download all of your new emails.
2. Click on the File menu and choose Import And Export. If you don’t see Import and Export in the menu, move your mouse-pointer over the down arrows at the bottom of the menu, and then click Import and Export.
3. 
4. Click Export To File, and click Next.
5. 
6. Choose Personal Folder File (.pst) , and then click Next.
7. 
8. Choose the account (If you see and “-” signs, click them. You only want to see “+” signs to be sure that you are backing everything up) that you want to backup and click in the check-box that says Include subfolders, then click Next.
9. 
10. Click Browse, and then select the location where you want the new .pst file to be saved. The Desktop is always a good place to save it because its easy to find and you can move it to another drive later.
11. In the File Name box, , type the name that you want to use for the new backup file, and then click OK.
12. 
13. Click Finish.
14. Strangely, this isn’t the end of the line. There is still another box that pops up. Here you have the option to password protect the file. If you choose to use a password, be certain that it is one you’ll remember. Click OK.
15. 
16. Your computer will now show a green progress bar that shows how far in backing up each folder you are. DO NOT cancel this. If you do, you will have an incomplete backup.
17. 
18. Once the backup is complete, copy the file to another drive for safe keeping.

Happy Computing,

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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I never knew this capability existed. Now we can easily add holidays to the Outlook calendar and it works for both Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. There are simple instructions available here: Add Holidays to the Outlook Calendar. I just did it and it worked great!

Happy Computing,

Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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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.