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Tech Tips: How to Reduce Eye Strain and Spam

As beneficial as technology can be, sometimes it can be downright aggravating. Tricks that can lessen these effects are useful to have in your back pocket. This article addresses two common problems that can crop up with email. Staring at a screen for long periods of time is part of life as an attorney. Eyesight can become strained, making it difficult to read. And anyone who has an email account is certainly familiar with the nuisance that is spam. Read more to find out about ways to reduce eye strain when reading email, and how to reduce spam.

Tips for Reducing Eye Strain

Q: Dear IT Guy, I am an attorney who recently had eye surgery. Since the operation, my vision has been slightly impaired and I'm having a hard time reading my email [in MS Outlook] because the font size is too small. How can I make the email font bigger?

A: Here's how to change the viewing font size of the folders in MS Outlook: From the Inbox, right click on the Column Headings (i.e. From, Subject, and Received). Doing this will display a drop down list, and you should select the option to "Change the Current View" or "Customize Current View." A box will appear entitled "View Summary." Select the "Other Settings" option, which will open another box. This "Other Settings" box will allow you to change the font, font style and size of the Column Headings, the Rows (email subject and sender information in the inbox), and the AutoPreview. Click OK after making your changes. An increased font size will make viewing your email a lot easier.

Reducing Spam

Q: Ever since I registered for an online service, I've been receiving tons of spam email. How did the spammers get my address, and what can I do to make it stop?

A: It's true, the number of spam emails has been prolific. The large amount is compounded by the fact that when you register for online service or make an online purchase, the email address you provide becomes sold property through large database sales amongst online companies. Address blocking is an option, but the spam senders get around this by frequently changing their sender information.

One sure fire way to dodge spam is to request an additional email address from your System Administrator. Most email systems can deliver multiple addresses to a single mail account. To illustrate the point, if your primary email address is johndoe@abc.com, you can request a second address, johnqpublic@abc.com, and you will receive mail sent to both addresses in your inbox. Use your secondary email address to register at sites where giving your primary address is not prudent, and reserve your primary address for business purposes only. Then, when the amount of spam coming to your secondary address reaches an annoying level, a request to the Network Administrator for a changed secondary address will eliminate this unwanted email, thus solving the problem at the root.

Tips courtesy of Chuck Linebaugh of O'Hagan, Smith & Amundsen.

Technology changes quickly. For a more up to date discussion on this topic, please visit the Legal Software section at FindLaw’s Technologist blog.

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