Wednesday, August 24, 2011

How to rein in iPad that hogs email

I just bought an Apple iPad tablet and connected it to my home Wi-Fi network, which already had two Windows PCs on it. But when the iPad is using the wireless network, we cannot receive any email on the other computers. What’s the cure?

Rein in your iPad, which is trying to monopolize your email account, and, as a result, is locking out your two PCs.

Why? The iPad is set up to use your email account continuously, or at least to access the email account often to update your list of received mail.

But, if your email account uses a common technology called “POP3” (Post Office Protocol version 3), only one your three computers can access the account at a time. Because the iPad gets to the email first, the two PCs don’t stand a chance.

There are three solutions.

Close the iPad’s mail application when you aren’t using it. This ends its connection to your email account and gives the PCs a chance to access the account.

If your iPad isn’t constantly connected to email, another alternative is to change its settings so that it checks your email less frequently. You can do this by going to the iPad’s “Settings,” then to “Mail,” “Contacts,” “Calendars,” and then to “Fetch New Data.”

The last and most obvious solution is to disconnect the iPad from the Wi-Fi network when you want to use one of the PCs to get your email.

My laptop PC recently became infected with the Google Redirect Virus. This happened even though I have Norton security software installed.
How do I get rid of the virus?

Fortunately, it is rather easy to get rid of the Google Redirect Virus, which takes people to malicious websites when they click on legitimate search results. Symantec provides a free downloadable virus removal tool; see http://tinyurl.com/2dmtozz.

And you really do want to get rid of this virus because in addition to redirecting you to wrong websites, it hides itself from antivirus software, displays advertisements and opens an electronic doorway that allows other malicious software to enter your PC.