04/12/08 Hillary, Outlook Express, Phones, and Shared Calendars
So, we started our Equal Opportunity candidate bashing today. Harold found a website that generates funny little sayings about Hillary every time you refresh. Enjoy!
Here are those instructions for fixing a corrupted inbox.
In Outlook Express, first you want to create a new folder. Click on “Local Folders” in the left column. Now right click on the “Local Folders” and choose “New Folder”. This will create a new folder in your local folders area. You then have a chance to label it, so just type something like “Filed”. This is where you’re going to try to back up your emails from your inbox to.
Now click on your “inbox”. Select all the emails in your inbox. You can do this easily by clicking (to select) on any one of the emails in your inbox. Now hit ctrl-A. (That’s hold down the “ctrl”, or control key, then type the letter A.) You should see all of the emails in your inbox as selected now. (They’ll all turn dark blue).
If you right click on any one of those emails and choose “Move…” (or “Move to…”) then another little window will come up where you can select the new folder we just created above.
That will move all the emails out of the inbox, effectively backing them up in another file, since every one of those folders down the left hand side is a separate file, also referred to as a DBX file, since they end in .dbx (i.e. inbox.dbx, or sen items.dbx).
Now you want to get rid of the old inbox. Shut down Outlook Express. (this gets really “steppy”). Double click on My Computer. Choose Tools>Folder Options. Choose the View tab. Choose “Show hidden files and Folders” by clicking the little button to it’s left (these are called “radio buttons” by the way.) Click “Ok” to close the window. Now, in the My Computer window you just opened you have to do this:
Double Click on Local Computer. Double click on your C: drive. Double click on “Documents and Settings”. Double click on Local Settings (this folder will look a little hazy, because it’s usually hidden, but we just selected to “Show Hidden Files and Folders”! Aren’t we clever!). Click on Application Data. Click on Identities. Click on the long serial numbery looking thingy. Click on Microsoft. Click on Outlook Express. Now you’ll see all the little files that make up your Outlook Express mail. Pretty cool, huh?
Now, remember, we’ve backed up all the email in the inbox. So we could just delete the inbox. WAIT! Let’s go ahead and rename it. It doesn’t take up too much space and you might need it some other time if this doesn’t go well. So, right click on it and choose “rename”. Now call it something like “inbox_old.dbx”. That should do it. Close all your open windows.
Now when you open Outlook Express, the inbox should be empty (it was last time we were here), but the file itself should be rebuilt. If you drilled back down into that folder again, you’d see inbox.dbx AND inbox_old.dbx.
That’s a good way to fix your Outlook Express when your inbox goes nuts. You can do the same with any folder in Outlook Express. Just choose the other folder name instead of inbox. Email us if you have any questions!
We talked about the Treo vs. the iPhone. Really these days it’s more about the Blackberry or the iPhone. What do you think? Post a comment below and get something started…
We also talked a little about shared calendaring. The cheapest way to do it if you already have Outlook (not Outlook Express) is to use the calendar in Outlook in and send events to your colleagues. They can accept them through email. If you want to have live scheduling, probably the most economical solution might be to use an online calendar sharing program, like Yahoo Calendar, Google, or an online Intranet, which has per person associated costs.
Let us know what you want to know. Email us! Let us know how you think we’re doing and what you’d like to hear about. We want to talk about the computer stuff you’re interested in!
We’re on iTunes now! Check us out and subscribe to the podcast.
Thanks for listening and don’t forget to write!
Mike Squires
Host - Computer 101 960am, KIMP
Posted: April 17th, 2008 under After Show.
Comments: none