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Thursday, May 18, 2000 By David Radin
Q: How can I view my e-mail messages from the road?
A: E-mail does you no good if you can't read your messages. You can read them in several ways.
If you carry around a laptop computer, you can install a standard e-mail package onto the laptop to access your normal Internet e-mail account. When you do this, make sure that you leave the message on the server so you can retrieve it later from your desktop system and read it there, reply or file it as appropriate.
Although this process differs a bit for various e-mail packages, if you use Outlook Express, do the following within Outlook Express on your laptop system: Select [Tools], then [Accounts...]. When the Accounts dialog box shows up, activate the [Mail] tab, where you'll see a listing of only your active e-mail accounts. Highlight the appropriate account with your mouse; then click the [Properties] button in the dialog box. This will invoke a new dialog box for that account. Click on the [Advanced] tab. To make sure that Outlook Express does not delete your mail after your view it remotely on this system, place a check in the box labeled "Leave a copy of messages on server." Repeat the procedure for each ISP email account you use. On your office computer, the check must not appear. Otherwise, you will end up with a very long list of undeleted messages on your ISP's mail server.
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Recently, more people have been using PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and Wireless Web through cell phones to access email. These devices typically have a text-based menu driven interface to help you retrieve your messages. No real standards have emerged for set-up and download. So check with your vendor for the appropriate procedures to get your mail.
If you don't carry a laptop, PDA or wireless Web device, you can still view your e-mail remotely using somebody else's computer. To eliminate the need to set up your account on each computer from which you access mail, you'll need your own Web-based mail account, such as Hotmail (MSN), Yahoo!Mail, or MailCity (Lycos). When you sign up for your Web-based mail account, you'll need to provide a bit of personal information plus the name of the mail server used by your ISP. If you don't know the mail server info, you can either look it up in your current e-mail software, or ask your ISP to provide it to you.
One of my favorite things about Web-based e-mail is that I can look at my messages just about anywhere. For instance, when I go to a conference, I often find that the organizers of the conference provide a bank of computers hooked to the Net. Pull up the Web-browser, and check e-mail. You can do the same thing at other offices or at your friends' homes. For security purposes, make sure that you close down the Web-browser immediately after viewing your mail. Otherwise, whoever continues your session with the browser can see your mail and act as if it is his e-mail account.
Q: Is the threat of the "Love Bug" over?
A: No. The threat of the "I Love You" worm is not yet over. If you have received the message without invoking the worm, it may still reside dormant on your system. Additionally, if somebody else gets infected, and that person has your e-mail address in his address book, you may still receive an infected message, which in turn may infect you. Plus, there are now 29 identified variants of the "I Love You" worm, any of which can infect your system.
To find out whether the worm is lying dormant on your system, search your disk drives for the file that causes the infection; then search your e-mail folders for the message that carries the worm. To find the file, click on your [Start] menu, then select [Find], then [Files or Folders...]. When the "Find dialog box" appears, type "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs" in the field labeled "Named." Then select "Local Hard Drives" from the drop down menu labeled "Look in:". Click on [Find Now]. Delete any file that comes up. DO NOT DOUBLE CLICK ON THE FILE, as that would infect your system immediately! After you have deleted the file, right-click on your Recycle Bin, and select Empty Recycle Bin.
Microsoft has promised to post an update to its e-mail products by May 22 that will make your system less susceptible to infection by worms. I have posted information at www.insiderradio.com about how to search your Outlook Express and Outlook e-mail folders for e-mail remnants of the "I Love You" worm, as well as a simple procedure to set up Outlook Express to automatically delete it. Based on the number of questions I've received, this is an important topic for readers, so I'll include additional tips and tricks to address virus issues in future columns.
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