A Quick and Easy Temporary Or Permanent Solution If You're Having Trouble Using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express

Almost everyone I know has, at one time or another, had problems when using a separate email software application like Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. Sometimes a software product can simply be too complex or difficult to use for a lot of folks. At other times, software simply breaks or gets infected with an external problem. Whatever the cause, if you rely on email as a key business communications tool, the end result can be email chaos. This article outlines a solution.

So what's the answer?

Of course, the obvious approach is to identify and fix the problem, or have someone else do the nasty technical repairs to restore your email program back to its former glory. Yet often, that route can be time-consuming, stressful, incomplete and you may still be left with the problem.

How to Export the Risks to a Website That is Tailor-Made for Handling Email 

Another option is to approach the issue from a completely different angle. For example, providing there are no essential emails "trapped" within your currently broken email application, you could consider switching to using a good Web based email service - like Google Mail - completely.

Why?

• No longer will you need an email program like Outlook or Outlook Express.
• Although Google Mail is a free service, it is incredibly effective, successful and especially valuable to web professionals, entrepreneurs and small businesses.
  
• Google Mail can store all of your emails for you securely.
• Since Google do not want bad materials entering their systems, Google Mail is designed to filter out quite a lot of Spam and automatically remove viruses and spyware for you as well.
• Google Mail software is continually being improved and made stronger.
• You won't have to worry about losing any email. You just need web access to get to your email.
• If you have multiple web browsers installed as outlined below, you'll always have multiple pathways to log into your Google Mail account (Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, etc).
• To be 100% secure, you could search for a way that would periodically automatically back up your Google Mail content to another secure online backup location. That way, you'll always have a second copy available situated at a different location, should your Google Mail solution ever fail (highly unlikely - but always remember: have a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C and even a Plan D if you think an extra layer assurance is necessary).

Why Install and Use Several Web Browsers

A web browser is just like any other software application that you have installed on your PC - with the possible exception of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) since IE is more tightly bound the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Therefore, you can have more than one web browser installed and running at the same time. Until recently, mainly for web development reasons, I often had both Firefox and Internet Explorer running concurrently.

If you already have a web business or are considering setting one up (smart move), then I recommend that you have several web browsers installed and ready to use when required. Here's why:

• You can check out how your website behaves when viewed with different web browsers.
• Many virus writers target Microsoft IE web browsers.
• You'll have multiple ways to connect to the web.
• If your preferred web browser is suddenly and unexpectedly found not to run correctly, you can instantly choose to run another web browser instead and complete any urgent tasks required.
• By having several web browsers installed, if you do experience a web access problem, you can more easily narrow down where the problem is by easily identifying what operates correctly and what doesn't.

Tip: Often, web browser problems may be caused by browser add-ons rather than the web browser software itself. Sometimes, a new incompatibility between the browser and the add-on can occur when operating systems like Windows download updates or fixes automatically. We experienced such a problem with an IE web browser some time ago. Using the commands available in the IE web browser, we turned off all the installed add-ons and the problem instantly went away. So by turning back on each of the add-ons in sequence one by one and monitoring what happened, we were able to identify the problem add-on and remove it. A little later, we discovered that the supplier of the add-on already knew about the problem and had released an updated add-on that worked perfectly.

Multiple Web Browsers: An Effective Mix

Tip: I recommend that you always consider upgrading to the latest web browser as soon as the stable version is made available by the suppliers. Why: to enjoy the latest bug fixes and better protection.

In addition to using Microsoft Internet Explorer v7.0, we usually have 3 additional key web browsers installed. In fact, we tend to use Firefox here as our default web browser while using Microsoft Internet Explorer simply to verify that web designs behave as expected.

Why do we choose Firefox? Answer: we have found that Firefox tends to follow internationally agreed web standards better and runs a little faster than IE. Nevertheless, at the time of writing, in recent months, Microsoft do seem to be making a serious effort to also address previous shortfall: excellent news!

Therefore, I recommend that you download and install the latest stable versions of:

• Mozilla Firefox web browser (USA) and Mozilla Firefox web browser (Europe). (your editor's "working" web browser).
• Opera web browser.
• Apple Safari web browser (your editor's personal favorite choice).

Tip: if by the time you read this article, the web addresses above have changed, simply run a search on Google.com for the names of each web browser to find the latest web download links.

How to Have Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer in the Same Web Browser

An intriguing title above - perhaps. Yet to be fair, I should say this tip is about how to install an add-on in a Firefox web browser that simulates how a web page will look when using an Internet Explorer web browser.

The key benefit of installing the add-on is one of convenience: now we only need run one web browser to check out how a page appears in both Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer. That means, less computer memory is used and therefore a running PC is likely to be more stable.

• We've only tested this tip using a Firefox v2.x web browser.
• The Firefox add-on is called: IE Tab and at the time of writing is available here. You could also search for Firefox add-ons at the Firefox website. Alternatively, search on Google for "IE Tab Firefox add-on" (without the quotes).
  
• I suggest you spend a few minutes familiarizing yourself with how to use the add-on.
• Download and install the add-on to use.
• Once installed, the IE view command is also available using right-click options when viewing a page.
• IE Tab configuration options are also available on the Firefox Tools menu.

Why not check out IE Tab?

Enjoy!

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