Dorchester — Sep 11th 2018
Mick had prepared a multipart presentation on everything to do with email from the basic setting up of accounts to more sophisticated troubleshooting split under 9 headings, so he suggested that the meeting requested which he should cover. We started at level 3 on his list, Spam. Most email providers provide settings by logging into the webmail account for how they handle spam. This can be holding at the server, marking as suspected spam or deleting on receipt, a fairly risky strategy as bona fide emails may get deleted. Wherever held, mail marked as spam should be checked to make sure wanted mail is not missed. Moving from Spam to Security, Mick explained that the real vulnerability is us users and he showed how to spot suspect mail with key advice being never click on links in emails from e.g. Apple or similar claiming a problem with account, but go to the web site and check there. He suggested little point in reporting spam of this type. We then looked at the differences between POP and IMAP. In the case of POP mail is downloaded from the server to the device which will have setting if and when to delete the email from the server. If using more than one device to access email from the server, Mick advised decide which is the master device and have it the only one to delete mail from the server. He uses the App Mailboxmanager to remotely check messages on his POP accounts before downloading them from the server or deleting them. The best way to understand IMAP is that the mail is all held at the server and devices simply connect to interact via the server, so all devices see exactly the same, any changes being made on any device are really being carried out on the server so will been seen as the same from all devices. Mick showed how to set up new email boxes which can either be on the device, Mac or IOS or in the case of IMAP on the server. In the latter case Mick advised that this is best setup directly on the server via webmail. So now we had reached Level-7 and having set up additional mailboxes, Mick showed how to use rules to move mail to specific mail boxes. You can have a hierarchy of rules, but be careful that an earlier run does not override a later one. A weakness of Apple’s email rules are that they can only be applied to incoming mail and not outgoing. Mick ended by showing a neat trick to have emails sent from a POP account appear in the Sent box of any device. In mail preferences>Composing set always Bcc myself. On any device you wish to have a copy of any sent mail in the sent box, set up a rule to move any email received from self, may be more that one address, to Sent Box.
David gave a demonstration of how he uses Twitter mainly to get useful links from people he follows to useful references and articles. He he showed how these can be shared and also how by clicking on the Open in Safari link, it is possible to save as PDF Files. As the title of the file saved is Safari and date and time, he showed how to change the name via the Files App. Euan showed how he too passively uses Twitter and Facebook to follow Affinity topics and useful discussions. David ended by showing how uses the split screen feature on both the Mac and iPad to access statements from his energy supplier in Safari alongside Excel to where he copies the information for accounting purposes.
