Outlook for Clearing Up E-Mail Mess is Good

By James Coates

Q: I need help to straighten out my e-mail after trying unsuccessfully to change from Microsoft Outlook Express to the Yahoo Mail site on the Web. I opened Microsoft Outlook Express and was asked if I wanted to change my default e-mail provider to Microsoft Outlook Express, and I answered no. Even after answering no, it still pulled all of my e-mail out of Yahoo Mail and put it in Microsoft Outlook. All new e-mail is going to Yahoo, but how do I get the e-mail that’s in Microsoft Outlook back to Yahoo?

— Sue Jungen, Momence, Ill.

A: You need to do two semi-complicated things, Ms. J., and then all will be well. First, you need to use the Forward command in Outlook Express to remail those Microsoft-hijacked messages back to your Yahoo Web site e-mail area. Then you need to go to the Outlook Express Accounts tool and remove Yahoo’s settings. This will be either easy or odious depending upon how many messages are involved.

Here’s the drill: Open Outlook Express and go to the e-mail module and call up your inbox. Now, you want to select a bunch of these messages and then click on the Forward icon in the tool bar. This will bring up an e-mail message with each of the messages attached. Address the message to (yourname)@yahoo.com and send away. This will return the messages and let you search them using Yahoo’s search tool, but it will not restore each message as a separate entry in the Web list of e-mails. I don’t have any problems with this, since I always can open the forwarded messages and do a quick scan if necessary.

Let me offer a tip: If you select the top message and then go down to the bottom, hold down the Shift key and give the last message a click, all the messages will be selected.

Second, you need to remove Outlook Express from the equation. Click on Tools in the Outlook Express tool and scroll down to Accounts. Open this and open the tab for Mail in the menu that appears. Then give your Yahoo account a right-click and click the Remove button you will see alongside the account box. This will stop Outlook Express from wreaking any more mischief with your Yahoo Web account.

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Copy studio photos?

Q: I went to a studio to have some pictures of my wife, my baby boy and me taken, and I just bought five pictures, which they sent to my e-mail. I want to print the pictures, but I can’t because they are locked. Can you tell me how to take this out?

— Arturo Perez@hotmail.com

A: I cannot help you beat the kinds of encryption that are available to photo studios and other businesses because they are almost too powerful for U.S. government supercomputers to crack. But I can certainly show you a way to make personal copies of those images you paid for, and these copies will print fine in most instances.

Open one of the photos and display it as large as possible on the screen. Now, hold down the Alt key and tap the key marked prt scr (or Print Screen) in the upper-right-hand corner of the keyboard. This copies an image of the window being displayed and stores it in the computer’s memory.

Next, you need to call up the Windows Paint program and then paste that copy into it. So click on Start, then Programs and then Accessories. In the list of icons this summons will be one for Paint. With Paint open, click on the Edit command and then select Paste.

A copy of the photo will appear.

Now, click on File and then Save As. In Save As, select the file type of JPG or JPEG and give the file a name. Save it to your hard drive. This file will print just fine, although it will lack the resolution of the original studio shot.

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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at jcoates@tribune.com or via snail mail at the Chicago Tribune, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/askjim.

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