Is it possible to backup the Windows Address Book and Outlook Express emails onto a CD or USB drive, so these can be recovered to the computer or a different computer? My computer is running Windows XP. (more…)

I read an item in your column a few months ago about closing processes running in the Task Manager under my user name (which is HP_administrator). However, when I go to close some of the processes a message appears saying “Terminating the process can cause undesired results”. Can I safely close these processes? (more…)

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) clients are a dime-a-dozen these days, but finding a good free FTP client is more of a challenge. Fortunately, there is an excellent free FTP client called FileZilla. This software is quite fully featured, yet lightweight, and performs its primary function (i.e. transferring files using FTP) very efficiently. FileZilla can be downloaded for free at:

I am having difficulty connecting to the Internet using my Telstra Next G LG mobile phone as a modem, mainly so I can send and receive email messages while away from home (I don’t intend to use this for web browsing, as this would become very costly). Outlook Express is my email client, and when I connect to the internet using the inbuilt modem over a standard phone line everything works fine, and I can send and receive email messages. However, I run into trouble when attempting to use the mobile phone as a modem. I am using all the same settings as for my standard dial up modem connection, and have unsuccessfully tried three separate methods of connecting. First, I have tried the phone as a dial-up modem and attempted to dial the same OzEmail national number (0198379000). The mobile phone does nothing, and almost immediately a message appears on the computer saying “Error Message 678 - The remote computer did not respond”. The second approach used the LG Internet Kit which was supplied with the phone. This is a program that I understand was produced by Telstra for LG and the standard default setting is to use the Telstra PS Data network using the shortcut dialling number *98#. I changed that shortcut dialling number to the standard Ozemail dial up number (0198379000). This produced the same error message as above, and the phone did not actually dial out. Third approach was just to connect via the Telstra short cut dialling number (*98#) and this gives me a connection. However, while I can receive incoming e-mail messages, I cannot send any outgoing messages. Attempts to send produce the following message: “The message could not be sent because the server rejected the sender’s e-mail address…Server Response: 530 Authentication required”. I have tried a different brand of phone (ZTE 850) which functions as a standard modem and dials the OzEmail 0198379000 number with no trouble. Contacting my ISP, the phone manufacturer, and Telstra have not resolved the problem, each suggesting that I contact the other two. The computer is an Acer Aspire laptop computer running Windows XP SP2. (more…)