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Dear
Readers - WELCOME to another Computer Clinic.
Most of you know the importance of making regular backups. Some
of you do it ... some of you ... well !
In Clinic 8 we showed you a simple and
effective way of saving important documents and e-mails onto floppies.
This time, you will learn a method to save your
Address Book onto a floppy.
FLOPPIES
vs. CD-R's
CD-R's
are ideal for making backups of large files and files that remain
unchanged e.g. pictures. Floppies
are ideal for small files and for data that might change frequently.
That includes your Address Book. When someone gets a new e-mails
address, when you add new people into your address book etc. backing
up onto a floppy is ideal. Floppies enable you to "write-over"
the old address book and save the new, updated one
quickly and easily.
A
reminder about the "rules" for floppies listed in Clinic
8 - it is false economy to use old floppies - also to try and
"save space" by putting as much as you can onto any bit
of unused space ... like trying to cram your address-book backup
onto your AVG boot disk, for example
BACKUP
YOUR ADDRESS BOOK
- Label a
good floppy disk (e.g. Address Book Backup) and put it into
your floppy drive.
-
In either MS Outlook or the Outlook Express e-mail client, click
on "Tools ... Address Book"
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Your full Address Book will open ... now ...
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Click on "File ... Export ... Address Book (WAB)
- it looks like this :
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With
your
Address Book
open in front of
you, click on
FILE ...
Hold mouse over
EXPORT ...
Then click on
ADDRESS BOOK (WAB) |
-
The following box now open up.
-
Click on the little "down arrow" at the end of the
Save in : space
-
Click on 3 1/2 Floppy - you should hear a "cluck"
as you floppy drive engages
-
Type in a File name in the space below - e.g.
Address Book
-
Finally click on the Save button
-
This is what it looks like ...
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Down
arrow at the
end of the Save in:
Click on 31/2 Floppy
Type in a file name
(e.g. Address Book)
Finally click on
SAVE!
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WELL
DONE ! Now, if anything terrible happens to your PC, you've got
your whole Address Book saved. One less thing to worry about!
UPDATING
YOUR BACKUP
O.K. Two weeks has passed. You have added a few new addresses and
one of your friends has asked you to amend their e-mail address
- which you have done. The Address Book you saved onto that special
floppy is out of date. Time to update it
- Follow the same steps above.
- Put your Address Book Backup floppy into the floppy drive.
- Open up your e-mail client and click on "Tools ... Address
Book"
- Click on "File ... Export ... Address Book (WAB)"
- When the box pops up, click on the "down arrow"
and click on "3 1/2 Floppy."
- BUT NOW ... you will see your previously
saved Address Book.
- LEFT-click ONCE on the Address Book file AND ...
- Its name automatically appears in the "File name"
space ... so ...
- Click on the "Save" button. It looks like
this ...
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Click
once on
AddressBook.WAB
The name appears
in the File name box
Then click on
SAVE |
A small dialogue box will pop up asking you if you want to replace
the existing Address Book. As this is now out of date, you DO want
it replaced ... so click on YES :
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Click
on YES
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"Brrrr ....wrrr .... zrrrr" ... and your Address Book
is now updated and saved! Easy!
RESTORING
YOUR ADDRESS BOOK
If something terrible does happen ... if you have to format your
PC (which only needs to be done after all else fails) and you kiss
good-bye to EVERYTHING ... including that precious Address Book,
then you can restore it as follows :
- After reinstalling Windows from scratch, updating Internet
Explorer and Outlook Express, and setting up all your DUN (Dial-Up
Networking) accounts all over again, at least you have a back-up
of your Address Book.
- Follow the same steps as above. Put you backup floppy into
the drive, open up your e-mail client, click on "Tools
... Address Book"
- Then click on "File ... IMPORT
... Address Book (WAB)
- As before, the same box will pop up.
- Navigate to the Floppy drive, then click once on your saved
file "AddressBook.WAB"
- The name will automatically appear in the "File name"
box at the bottom.
- Now, click on the button called "OPEN"
"Zrrr
... brrr ... wrrr" .... and your whole Address Book is IMPORTED
into Outlook Express (or Outlook) again! PHEW !!!
O.K. Now you know how to do it. So ... WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO ACTUALLY
DO IT ?
Remember - AFTER the disaster will be TOO LATE !
As always, UPDATE Ad-aware. Check for
AVG Updates. Give your PC it's regular
weekly MOT - clean out all
junk e-mails, then empty your e-mail
"Deleted items" folder. Close down all running
programs using End It All, then clean
up all the junk files using Disk Cleaner.
Finally, give your computer a Standard
Scandisk.
If
it's time to do a Defrag, then please do it correctly (See Clinic
20) Don't forget to also disable any screen-savers before doing
a Defrag as well as closing down all running programs
Thanks
for joining me at the Clinic.
Happy Computing and ... SAVE that Address Book NOW ! (Doctors
orders!)
With my very best wishes,
Dr. Mac
Dr. Mac's Computer Clinic
LIBRARY
All
the Computer Clinics that have appeared on the idf50 web-site
are HERE
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