January 31, 2009
I get occasional emails or letters from companies looking to renew my website domain for me for a fee. Are these legit? Should I respond to them to renew?
We see a lot of these kinds of inquiries. Most of them are spam or solicitations to renew on your behalf, but I would highly recommend consulting with your current web provider to ensure they are legitimate. Most are not, as one would normally renew their domain names with the original registrar, such as GoDaddy.com or Network Solutions.
I bought a new PC this Christmas that runs Windows Vista. What’s the best way to transfer my programs, files, and email settings over to the new PC?
In terms of programs and applications, really the only effective way to get them onto your new PC is to reinstall them onto the new PC with the original CDs. For applications such as Microsoft Office, I recommend that you uninstall it on your old PC before installing it on your new PC. This will keep your licensing agreement with Microsoft intact.
For most of your files (documents, photos, tax returns, etc.), I like to use a USB external hard drive to transfer the files over to the new computer. You may already have one, but they’re relatively inexpensive and readily available in different hard drive capacities. And they can be used as a backup source or portable storage source in the future. Connect this hard drive to your old computer, navigate to your My Documents folder, and Select All files (you can do this by selecting CTRL-A). Then drag those files onto the external hard drive. The copying will take some time depending on the volume of data you are transferring. Once completed, plug the hard drive into the new computer, and copy those contents into your new My Documents folder. When done, double check the folder to ensure you have transferred everything you want over to the new computer.
For your email settings, I am assuming you are referring to Microsoft Outlook 2007, although the settings will be similar for Outlook 2003.
In the File Menu, navigate to File/Import and Export.
Select Export to a File.
Select Personal Folder File (.pst).
In the directory menu, select the folder you would like to backup.
Check the box “include subfolders” if there are any subfolders to backup.
Save the exported file to a path where you can retrieve it later, such as C:\Users\Spiderman\Documents\Outlook Backup PST\emailbackup.pst.
Select Finish to execute the command.
Repeat for any other folders, you may want to transfer over. Do the same for your address book, if applicable. Once all completed, copy these .pst files onto a USB drive or the external hard drive, and transfer it to your new computer. Now repeat the exercise, but “in reverse”, Importing a file, and navigating to the file to import.
For your email username and password, along with the server settings, I would hope that you have this information stored somewhere, or can be retrieved from your provider. These settings will need to be recreated when you first configure your email account(s) on your new computer.
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