Locked out of an account for good? It happens more often than you think, and it's almost always avoidable. I'll explain the steps you can take today to make sure you're never permanently shut out.
(Image: Gemini)
It might be as important as backing up. It’s certainly close.
I hear at least daily from people desperately trying to regain access to their accounts because they can’t sign in for some reason. The number of people who never regain that access would surprise you.
Drowning in 300 junk emails a day? You can't stop spam completely, but you don't have to suffer, either. I'll cover why blocking and unsubscribing make things worse, and share one simple habit that trains your inbox to clean itself.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: I receive about 300 emails daily. I have no one to help me and I would like to be able to block all this crap. I am not very smart about PCs and need some simple instructions to follow. If I continue to receive certain pornographic or offensive emails, how do I ban them? If I open it up to get their email address to try to block them, what happens then? I need all of the help that I can get because this is too much to take care of daily. I do delete my history daily, but I don’t think that helps in blocking them. I use Yahoo! as my mail provider and I am on Windows.
Assuming that you mean you get 300 spam emails a day, I agree that’s a fair amount. Between all my various email accounts, I suspect that I probably get around that many.
The question is not how to stop spam. There’s no way for you or me to stop spam. The better question is how to deal with it so it’s a minor annoyance rather than an overwhelming chore. And of course, how to avoid or at least minimize it in the first place.
Sadly, as I update this article 12 years after its initial publication, very little has changed.
Wondering why your promo emails go unanswered? There is a good chance they are going straight into spam folders. I'll describe three things that make your emails look like spam, and what you can do to fix them.
(Image: Gemini)
Question:
I am a musician. Every couple weeks or so, I sit down and send a large number of emails (on average 150 – 200) to radio stations, magazines, etc., in order to promote my music. My email will usually consist of an attached mp3 and/or links to YouTube videos, etc., along with a bio/description about myself and my music. Though I have had many responses through email, there are still several that have never replied. It suddenly occurred to me, as well as not being interested in the music I am sending (can’t please everyone), could some of my emails be getting marked as spam?
I use a Hotmail account, which I know you say is bad. But I fear that suddenly changing my email will result in a loss of business. I used to send each email individually, personalizing each one, but since my contact list has grown, there are not enough hours in the day to do this. So I use Bcc and send them all in one go.
My question is, do my infrequent emails qualify as spam? Despite the fact that they are spread out over weeks, do the large quantities mean that only a certain number are getting through?
In short, yes. It’s likely your emails are being delivered directly into many spam folders.
Several things could contribute to this. I’ll review those and suggest what to do instead.
The moment you hit Post, copies of what you shared start spreading. Marking it private won't stop it. Deleting it won't fix it. I'll describe what happens to everything you put online, and why it matters.
(Image: Gemini)
When we post something online — say on social media — there’s a reasonable expectation that what we post will remain in our control and be shown only to the audience we care about.
Reality is exactly the opposite: you lose all control of anything you post online, and it can end up in the hands of people (and corporations) you know nothing about. Even with privacy settings set to Private.
The service makes copies. Viewers get copies. Search engines, spiders, researchers, AI scrapers, and archivists make copies. And all of those entities generate more copies when they back up their data.
Your computer goes to sleep just fine, but waking it up? Sometimes it comes back without a hitch. Other times, the screen stays dark and nothing works. I'll discuss why sleep mode can be unreliable and what you can do about it.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: Leo, I’ve got a constant frustration that when I wake my computer after a sleep period, sometimes it comes up fine, other times it cannot reestablish internet connections, or just doesn’t come back up, and I end up having to reboot. I’ve learned to shut down the internet before I let it sleep. That relieves some of the problems, but I can’t figure out why it doesn’t come up at times and just displays a dark screen and no blinking light activity.
You would think, after all this time, that sleep mode (also known as standby) would be more reliable. I wrote that in 2014, when the first version of this article was published, and it’s still true 12 years later, in 2026.
Sadly, sleep mode is still not completely reliable.
I’ll explain why that is, what I do, and what steps you can take.
There's a surprising and counterintuitive technique related to how some encryption tools work: your password is not what locks your data. I'll describe what keeps your data secure and why changing your password doesn't always mean re-encrypting all your data.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: How is it possible that you can change your Windows password without completely re-encrypting a hard disk that was encrypted using that password?
I’ll assume you mean BitLocker whole-disk encryption, but the concept applies to many different encryption tools. You can often change your Windows password (or passphrase) without needing to re-encrypt what you’ve encrypted.
How’s that possible? The secret is this: your Windows password wasn’t used to encrypt the disk.
Instagram just killed its encrypted DMs. But here's the real story: most people never had it turned on to begin with. If you care about keeping your conversations private, I'll share which apps I recommend.
Device drivers are behind-the-scenes software that make your hardware work. I'll discuss the right way to update drivers and explain why to avoid driver update services.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: I have been reading about the importance of updating, if required, the various device drivers within a system. As I understand it, I can update drivers by identifying the driver that may require updating and then by accessing the manufacturer’s website and determining if there are any updates. If so, I believe that the update can be downloaded. Does the download overwrite the existing data within the device in question? I must confess to being a bit nervous regarding this approach and because of this, I have looked at driver update services.
Drivers are another one of those “computer things” that are just so much confusing magic to the average computer user.
I’ll touch on what they are and my philosophy about how and when to update them.
It seems we can’t say or do much in technology these days without that buzzword — “the cloud” — rearing its head. To be fair, it’s a powerful concept: nearly unlimited storage for all your information, accessible to you from anywhere the internet might reach (which is pretty much everywhere these days).
But is your data safe in the cloud? It can be, but there are two types of cloud data threats to prepare for.
When your computer goes to the shop, can you trust a stranger with your personal files? I'll share how to keep your data safe before handing your machine over, and what your options are when it's too late.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: How does one secure a hard drive when sending the computer to a repair facility? I have personal financial information on my hard drive. Will a password provide sufficient protection while the computer is in the shop? After the fact, is there a way to find out if someone has copied files?
This presents quite a dilemma.
To answer your second question first: no. There’s no way to determine if your files have been viewed or copied.
As for protecting your data, there’s no guaranteed solution. I’ve even heard of companies electing not to repair a hard drive because doing so would expose sensitive data to repair technicians.
Your options are somewhat limited, but if you can plan ahead, there’s a chance of preserving security.
Your router's default password might as well be no password at all. Changing it is an important step you can take to secure your home network. I'll show you how to find your router's settings and lock it down with a strong password.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: How does one change the router password? Where are the controls and settings for the router?
A new AI just found thousands of security vulnerabilities in nearly every major operating system, and its maker decided the world wasn't ready for it. What does that mean for you?
(Image: Gemini)
You’ve probably read that Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI, announced a new version of its LLM, Mythos2. What made it extra newsworthy is that while announcing its existence, Anthropic also indicated that Mythos was being purposely withheld from public access.
Why? Because it had proved too adept at discovering vulnerabilities in existing software, including every major operating system and many other popular tools. Instead, a select few — typically the owners of the operating systems, tools, open source projects, and a few others — would be given access, presumably so they could correct all the vulnerabilities Mythos had discovered.
Myth? Hype? Reality?
It’s unclear. Anthropic has played games with their announcements before, so it’s possible this was a stunt.
But even if it was, it doesn’t matter, because it’s pointing out something much more important about the future of AI.
Losing a computer to theft or loss isn't just an inconvenience. Your personal data could end up in the wrong hands. I'll describe what steps to take now so that if your device disappears, your data stays safe and your recovery is quick.
(Image: Gemini)
I often talk about computer failures of various sorts and how to prepare for the crash that happens just before you save your document to disk, the failure that renders a disk completely unreadable and unrecoverable, or the computer that dies a true death, taking all of your data with it.
But by being prepared for that, you’re only ready for half of a somewhat-related disaster.
Technology never stops changing, and your attitude affects how well technology works for you. I'll discus why accepting and even welcoming change might be the most useful tech skill you can develop.
(Image: Gemini)
When your favorite operating system, software program, or online service gets updated, it can take some getting used to. What was once familiar may now require learning new ways to get your tasks done.
Can hackers really get to everything, including your external hard drive? I'll cover what malware can do and what you need to do before it happens to you.
Question: I have found that my computer contains 2 trojans. I have heard that hackers use trojans to gain unauthorized access to all your data. Is this true? If so, then is the data in my external hard disk (which I connect to the computer at least once a week for a span of half an hour) also compromised?
Hitting "delete" on your browser history or emails doesn't mean they're gone for good. I'll cover what actually happens when you delete things, and what it really takes to make them disappear.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: When I use the Chrome “tools and settings” for deletion of my browsing history and emptying of the cache, does that permanently delete those items, or can they be retrieved later if desired? With all the notoriety regarding legal discovery and requests for production of emails and texts, is there a way to permanently delete emails and texts from a PC so that they cannot be recovered or reconstructed by a PC expert?
It’s a well-known fact that deleting things on your computer usually doesn’t completely destroy them. Depending on several factors, it’s possible that files can be undeleted.
So there is definitely some risk in the scenarios you describe.
A security researcher just showed that bypassing BitLocker on Windows 11 takes little more than a USB stick and a reboot. I'll discuss what we know, who needs to worry, what the risks are for most people, and what you can do about it right now.
(Image: Gemini)
News broke recently of an exploit called YellowKey that allows attackers to access BitLocker-encrypted hard drives without needing the usual credentials.
WHAT!?
It’s pretty simple, too: copy some files to a USB stick, reboot to a Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), and the drive is available in unencrypted form.
While that’s bad — really bad — a few things make it slightly less of a total disaster than you might think.
You're backing up regularly. Yay! But when you try to restore an image backup to a brand new PC, it doesn't go as planned. Image backups are good for many things, but not that.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: I’m a good little backup-er. I follow all of your instructions and happily use Macrium for regular image and file folder backups. Recently, the video system on my aging PC died, and I decided to buy a new PC. I thought I could easily restore the image backup to my new PC, thereby saving me hours of reinstalling my software. But no, I can only restore an image to the same sort of hard disk on the same PC. What a waste! Surely most people will want to replace their whole PC when they have a failure that requires them to think about restoring an image. How many people, and in what circumstances, find an image backup has been a lifesaver?
I understand your frustration, but restoring an old backup to a new computer is not what image backups are for.
It’s also not why you back up.
An image backup includes the detailed settings and configuration information for the specific hardware being backed up. When restored to a new/different machine, those settings no longer apply. The backup can still be useful, but not for what you’re trying to do.
So, when is an image backup useful? Let’s look at a couple of scenarios.
Overwhelmed by too many password manager choices? I’ll walk you through the best current options, what makes them different, and how to pick the one that fits you best.
(Image: canva.com)
Question: I’m confused as to the best password manager. The reviews I’ve read tend to contradict each other as to what’s best. I now have information paralysis and can’t decide which to try, but I need to do something. I’m overwhelmed by the number of passwords I have to keep track of.
I hear ya. I have hundreds of accounts and passwords, and managing them without a password manager would be impossible.
There are many options, as you’ve seen.
That’s good news, because many of those options do quite nicely. Pick one of those, and it’d be hard to go wrong.
Want to report spam to the ISP it came from? These days, spam comes from massive networks of hacked computers, not a single traceable server. I'll explain why reporting spam to what you think is the source of that spam is mostly a waste of time.
Zombies just want to send spam. (Image: Gemini)
Question: Is there a good way to report spam to the originating ISP?? SpamCop used to do it automatically with a paid subscription; it worked very well.
No, there is not.
Even if there were, I wouldn’t recommend using it. There’s just no point in reporting spam to anything you might consider the source, because it’s probably not the source at all.
Cloud backup sounds good until you realize that most options only cover part of your data, and some aren't real backups at all. What works is a layered strategy that combines local image backups with cloud sync to keep your files safe no matter what happens.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: You had an article on cloud backup software, and I’m ready to subscribe to one of them. Which one?
It depends on the kind of backup you want.
What many people want in a cloud backup isn’t typically practical.
At the other end of the spectrum, what many people think is a cloud backup isn’t really a backup.
Nonetheless, the cloud can be part of a healthy breakfast… er, healthy backup strategy.
Your team shares one account, but two-factor authentication keeps locking everyone out. There are real solutions to this problem, and they don't sacrifice security. I'll show you how to set up shared two-factor authentication so everyone can get in.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: Our Little League organization uses an MS Outlook account for email. For years, two of us were able to share access to it, but it now requires a security number to be texted to my phone. And now, after doing that, it has forced me to install Microsoft Authenticator on my phone. Is all this added security really worth it, and is there any way around it? My colleague can no longer access the email unless I send him the code sent to my phone.
I’ve run into this multiple times in accounts from a variety of providers, both email and online service-related. Once you enable two-factor authentication, it becomes difficult for the account to be shared between multiple people in different locations.
There are a couple of solutions if the service offers the correct types of two-factor authentication.
Tech support always says the same thing: "Have you tried rebooting?" It sounds lazy (and perhaps crazy), but there's a reason it works so often.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: It seems like every time I call the tech support line for my software, operating system, or even my broadband connection, the first thing out of the technician’s mouth is “reboot”. Or worse yet, “Power down for a while.” What does that have to do with anything? And why does it work?
It does seem like magic, doesn’t it? The computer’s acting up, you reboot it, and poof, things are better again. At least for a while.
It gets even weirder when you achieve the same effect just by powering it all down and pulling the cord for a while. It’s so well-known that it became a meme from a popular television show.
Think the most important skill in tech is coding? Nope. Whether you're asking for help online, applying for a job, or using AI, writing and speaking English well matters more than you'd expect. I'll explain why it might be the most valuable skill of all.
(Image: Gemini)
My business is to answer questions about computers and technology — everything from broken hardware to lost passwords and more.
The answers have one important thing in common. It’s something most people don’t even consider, and I’m willing to bet it’s not what you think.
I’ll give you a hint: today’s topic is off-topic. It has nothing to do with computers or technology.
Typing the same email address dozens of times a day gets old fast. AutoHotkey is a free program that lets short key combos do your typing for you. I'll show you how I use it every day to make a few keystrokes replace long blocks of text.
(Image: Gemini)
Question: How do I create a hotkey for entering my email address? I do this dozens of times a day, and it seems to be a chore!
Many programs do what you’re asking. I’m going to share what I use, not just for email addresses or email signatures, but for many other things. In fact, I’ll use it several times as I update this article.
AutoHotkey is a free program that runs in your notification area. It intercepts keystrokes (and mouse activity, if you like), and allows you to configure anything from simple remapping of one key to another to simple text insertion and complex actions that are nearly little programs in and of themselves. The only caveat is that it’s a tad geeky to set up, so it may not be for everyone, but it’s incredibly powerful. Let me show you some of the things I configure AutoHotkey to do.
