Do you still have some old AOL email addresses?

If you're like me, you still have one or two AOL email addresses that you keep because someone from your past might try to contact you with one of them. In the meantime, those email boxes fill with spam, discouraging you from every checking for that long-lost contact's email.

Some time ago, AOL offered IMAP accesses to email. I've never totally liked IMAP - I like the control of knowing that my email is on my PC; that I can delete it; I can back it up; etc.

Well, recently I stumbled across an AOL page that described how to access it via POP3. Finally, I can bring my AOL email into Outlook, apply my rules and junk mail filters, and treat it like the rest of my email - i.e., consolidating it all into one email client.

I don't know why AOL hasn't advertised this, but they haven't.

You can add an AOL email address to Outlook by following the instructions at http://about.aol.com/faq/openmailaccess. The incoming server is pop.aol.com and the outgoing SMTP server is smtp.aol.com. The incoming port is 110 and the outgoing port is 587, and the outgoing server requires authentication.

You can even use GMAIL to collect all your POP3 mail, now including AOL, and bring it all into one easy-to-search environment.

Apple's MobileMe

MobileMe sounded like an answer to many of my Office problems - I thought I could finally easily sync my email, calendar and contacts across my several PC's, smartphone, and iPod Touch, and do it all wirelessly.

Unfortunately, it did not do this for me. From what I've read in other blogs and reviews, I'm not the only one who is disappointed.

I could not make MobileMe copy my Outlook calendar to the cloud. It did copy my Outlook contacts mostly right, but for a few of them, it did not copy the complete contact information with all phone numbers and email addresses. And, I couldn't get it to do anything with my email that I received through other email addresses and that presently resides on my hard drive in Outlook. As best as I could tell, the only solution to my email sync problem it provided was to give me yet another email address as a consolidation point, and I already have too many of those, any of which could serve as a consolidator (if only all my contacts would use it!).

For those of you haven't yet tried MobileMe and who have the same hopes of it that I did, my recommendation is to wait. Apple usually build great stuff, and I have hopes that they will get this right. So, save your free 60 day trial for a time when the chances are much better that you will be pleased with the product.

In the meantime, use the Google Calendar Sync to solve this problem for your Outlook Calendar, and set up a Gmail account that collects email from all your POP3 mail accounts. For contacts, you'll have to periodically manually sync up Gmail and Outlook. It isn't perfect, but Google does a better job today at this problem than MobileMe did for me.

I'm rooting for Apple to get it right, and hopefully they will soon.

Keeping Your Calendar Sync'd Across Devices

I use Outlook on my PC. I have a Palm smartphone that syncs to Outlook via a cable. I have an iPod Touch that has a calendar function and web access via wifi. And, sometimes I use other PC's. It's quite a challenge to have access to the same calendar data in all these environments.

Well, there is a way that is simple, convenient, and FREE. Google offers a calendar capability and a program that automatically keeps it updated with changes made in Outlook on your PC. You can access your updated Google calendar on any device that has internet access.

This means my current calendar is now on my Palm smartphone, my iPod Touch, and on other PC's - provided I have internet access.

Protecting Data on a Notebook Computer - Whole Drive Encryption

I've worried for a while that it would be more than just a little inconvenient if my notebook was stolen. As most people do, I have a lot of confidential personal and business information on it. While I back it up regularly, which protects me from one type of problem associated with a stolen PC, I have no protection from "bad guys" who would use my data for all sorts of nefarious acts.

There's technology around that solves this problem, and I'm pleased to report that it's easy to use and incredibly powerful. I recently downloaded the latest version of a free, open source, program called TrueCrypt. It enables its users to protect files, folders, and now even the entire system drive (the C: drive). Using state of the art encryption technologies, it encrypts the entire drive and makes it virtually impossible for anyone who steals your disk drive to get at any of your data.

The process of encrypting the drive takes just a few minutes of your time and several hours of your computer's time. Amazingly, TrueCrypt performs its magic while still permitting you to use your PC while it runs. Because it slows the PC down, it would be best to let it run overnight, but you don't have to do this.

Once you complete the process, no one can login to your PC without the TrueCrypt password, and no one can make sense of your disk drive if they remove it and put it in a drive enclosure. Your data is safe from prying eyes.

TrueCrypt is a great package. The price is right. The technology is powerful. And it provides a very valuable security function that every laptop user should take advantage of.