Q: Your recent answer to the question about receiving e-mail with red Xs instead of pictures left out one important step. After clicking on Tools in Outlook, next is Options, then Security. I finally found it on my own.
A: Your note was at the top of a long list of e-mails from readers who mostly gave up after following my instructions for making one’s computer display pictures embedded in e-mails. It should have said: “Open Outlook Express and click on Tools, then Internet Options.
In the tabbed menu that this summons, click the one for Security. There you will find a yes/no check box to enable or disable showing pictures embedded in e-mail messages.” My apologies.
Q: When visiting a website that requires a password, I accidentally let Windows “remember” the password each time I visit the site. What do I do so that I have to type in the passwords?
A: You share this confusion with many others because users cannot directly edit these lists of names and passwords; Microsoft’s security concern over hackers stealing passwords outweighs convenience. Let me suggest some optional moves in Internet Explorer 7 that will permit you to remove all of the stored sign-on names and passwords and/or shut down the feature for good.
The Auto Complete tool works by using highly encrypted formats to store the words you’ve entered to fill out different boxes in the past. As you type letter by letter, a box of possible responses drops down so that as soon as the exact phrase you want appears, you can click on it.
A user can remove individual entries from future suggestions by selecting them as they come up one at a time and then tapping the Delete key.
Now I’ll walk you through several options to customize the way stuff gets or does not get remembered.
You can remove all your passwords and start over again by using the Internet Options tool that is available when one clicks on the Tools item in the Browser’s top command line.
The General heading that comes up in the tabbed menu contains an Auto Complete button to click and clear all of the passwords, sign-on names and history of Web visits all at once. Click on Settings under Auto Complete.
You’ll get a list of buttons that let your computer start or stop remembering various types of information that include: passwords for log-on boxes; form data that are saved as you fill in forms at websites; the history of all of the websites visited in the past 20 days or so; “cookies,” which are small files that websites transfer to computers to simplify repeat visits; and “Temporary Internet Files,” which are downloaded, as well as files viewed in the past, such as photos and films.
You can enable or disable each of these in turn.
Users also have the option of shutting off this tool. Click Tools, then Internet Options and select the Advanced tab. In a long checklist of options, you will find one to disable Auto Complete.
Contact Jim Coates at jcoates@tribune.com
