On 31/12/05 16:26, in article , "Rupert"
wrote:


"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...
On 31/12/05 10:29, in article , "michael
adams" wrote:

"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...
A most peculiar thing has happened to my Mac. I switched it on this
morning
and every single message in my Inbox, read or unread, has disappeared,
apart
from three that arrived overnight.


Assuming Entourage has the same features as OE (they're both written
by Microsoft)....one possibility

In your first main Mail window -

Select the "View" pull-down menu at the top,

Omission: then select "current view"
^^^^^^^^^

and then select -

"Show all messages"

Possibly the program simply isn't dispaying messages which have already
been read.

You may need to close down just Entourage, not the machine itself,
and then resopen the program.


michael adams

Thanks, Michael but I'm not using Entourage. I use Apple's own mail
program
which I prefer. It's a bit of a funny one, I must admit. We had no power
cuts, nor anything else that I can think of to explain a glitch. We have
had a hot water pipe leaking from the landing into the hall below but even
I
can't equate that with a computer problem. ;-)


You were recently asking about mailwashing programmes to prevent spam-if you
tried one out then it has probably attempted to do it's job.
You may also find that the mail programme you are using has marked the
missing emails as spam and moved them to a spam folder perhaps.


No, I haven't tried that out. I'm waiting for an infinitely more computer
literate than I offspring to do that. I have checked the other folders for
the missing mail but no, it's not there. What there was was all from people
I correspond with regularly - for the most part - and from people in my
address book. OTOH, the stuff in my Junk folder was still there because I
hadn't cleared it all out last night. Weird.

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...
On 31/12/05 16:26, in article , "Rupert"
wrote:


"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...
On 31/12/05 10:29, in article , "michael
adams" wrote:

"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...
A most peculiar thing has happened to my Mac. I switched it on this
morning
and every single message in my Inbox, read or unread, has
disappeared,
apart
from three that arrived overnight.


Assuming Entourage has the same features as OE (they're both written
by Microsoft)....one possibility

In your first main Mail window -

Select the "View" pull-down menu at the top,

Omission: then select "current view"
^^^^^^^^^

and then select -

"Show all messages"

Possibly the program simply isn't dispaying messages which have
already
been read.

You may need to close down just Entourage, not the machine itself,
and then resopen the program.


michael adams

Thanks, Michael but I'm not using Entourage. I use Apple's own mail
program
which I prefer. It's a bit of a funny one, I must admit. We had no
power
cuts, nor anything else that I can think of to explain a glitch. We
have
had a hot water pipe leaking from the landing into the hall below but
even
I
can't equate that with a computer problem. ;-)


You were recently asking about mailwashing programmes to prevent spam-if
you
tried one out then it has probably attempted to do it's job.
You may also find that the mail programme you are using has marked the
missing emails as spam and moved them to a spam folder perhaps.


No, I haven't tried that out. I'm waiting for an infinitely more computer
literate than I offspring to do that. I have checked the other folders
for
the missing mail but no, it's not there. What there was was all from
people
I correspond with regularly - for the most part - and from people in my
address book. OTOH, the stuff in my Junk folder was still there because I
hadn't cleared it all out last night. Weird.



If you can check the size of the inbox directory (folder), the name
should be INBOX.XXX something or other presumably, if it's still big
when compared with other folders containing only one or two messages
then that would suggest that you simply can't see the individual
messages any more, rather than that they've been lost or deleted.

Are you sure you can't alter the view for individual folders, so that
you only see say, the unread messages etc.? As I'm sure thats the sort
of feature which would be found in any mail program.



michael adams

....

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

On 31/12/05 17:45, in article , "michael
adams" wrote:


"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...
On 31/12/05 16:26, in article , "Rupert"
wrote:


"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...
On 31/12/05 10:29, in article , "michael
adams" wrote:

"Sacha" wrote in message
.uk...
A most peculiar thing has happened to my Mac. I switched it on this
morning
and every single message in my Inbox, read or unread, has
disappeared,
apart
from three that arrived overnight.


Assuming Entourage has the same features as OE (they're both written
by Microsoft)....one possibility

In your first main Mail window -

Select the "View" pull-down menu at the top,

Omission: then select "current view"
^^^^^^^^^

and then select -

"Show all messages"

Possibly the program simply isn't dispaying messages which have
already
been read.

You may need to close down just Entourage, not the machine itself,
and then resopen the program.


michael adams

Thanks, Michael but I'm not using Entourage. I use Apple's own mail
program
which I prefer. It's a bit of a funny one, I must admit. We had no
power
cuts, nor anything else that I can think of to explain a glitch. We
have
had a hot water pipe leaking from the landing into the hall below but
even
I
can't equate that with a computer problem. ;-)


You were recently asking about mailwashing programmes to prevent spam-if
you
tried one out then it has probably attempted to do it's job.
You may also find that the mail programme you are using has marked the
missing emails as spam and moved them to a spam folder perhaps.


No, I haven't tried that out. I'm waiting for an infinitely more computer
literate than I offspring to do that. I have checked the other folders
for
the missing mail but no, it's not there. What there was was all from
people
I correspond with regularly - for the most part - and from people in my
address book. OTOH, the stuff in my Junk folder was still there because I
hadn't cleared it all out last night. Weird.



If you can check the size of the inbox directory (folder), the name
should be INBOX.XXX something or other presumably, if it's still big
when compared with other folders containing only one or two messages
then that would suggest that you simply can't see the individual
messages any more, rather than that they've been lost or deleted.

I can't see a way to find the size of the inbox, no. I really do think a
gremlin has hidden these damned things, not deleted them, no.

Are you sure you can't alter the view for individual folders, so that
you only see say, the unread messages etc.? As I'm sure thats the sort
of feature which would be found in any mail program.


I can't say I'm *sure* I can't do that but I've looked at all the options on
the tool bar of the mail program and clicked on everything that appears
remotely relevant. Nothing seems to alter the situation. I'll explore it a
bit more when I've got time but it's peculiar none of the other folders have
'lost' anything. Thanks for the help to you and everyone.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

On 1/1/06 11:04, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 17:34:49 +0000, Sacha
wrote:


No, I haven't tried that out. I'm waiting for an infinitely more computer
literate than I offspring to do that. I have checked the other folders for
the missing mail but no, it's not there. What there was was all from people
I correspond with regularly - for the most part - and from people in my
address book. OTOH, the stuff in my Junk folder was still there because I
hadn't cleared it all out last night. Weird.

Did your son ever get Google Earth to work?

No, he didn't get time, I'm afraid. A member of the family was taken ill
with bronchitis and he went to the rescue, driving her back here, which took
up the best part of one day. After that, there was so much going on that
computer playing time went out the window! That link was one of the things
that went AWOL, too. And now I have an Epson photo printer to play with
which was a Christmas present, so I've got to learn about that, too....this
could take some time!

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

Sacha wrote:

A most peculiar thing has happened to my Mac. I switched it on this morning
and every single message in my Inbox, read or unread, has disappeared, apart
from three that arrived overnight. One of those was a total blank - no
sender, no subject, no message. I may be able to pick them up some other
way but has anyone any idea why this has happened? At times, I'm rather
concerned that some of the spam I get has the names of either myself or
people I know and email with, in the subject header. Am I being paranoid or
is someone 'getting in' to my computer. I have Norton running at all times,
BTW.

There are basically two points here, but first I'll mention your
security concerns.

There is no known way for somebody to 'get to' a Mac computer running OS
X unless you allow them physical access to your Mac and even then it
would be difficult for them unless you also gave them your passwords.

There are absolutely no OS X viruses or keyloggers of any of the things
that plague the lives of PC users. I can't stress that enough, not one
single virus, despite occasional misleading press reports, so don't
worry about that as being your problem. If a genuine Mac OS X virus ever
did appear, it would be a newsworthy story and you'd hear about it.

However there is one thing that has been known to cause problems on Macs
- and bizarrely, that's Norton Anti-virus ! Until such time as a
genuine virus appears on OS X, I don't see much point in running any
anti-viral software, just make sure that your Mac has the built-in
firewall switched on ( Security control panel ) and that's all you need
at the moment, but if you really want anti-viral protection, Intego's
VirusBarrier X4 is a vastly better choice.

The first point is that the blank e-mail is nothing to worry about. As
others have said, it's something that many of us get sent, it's often
believed to be the result of a corrupted PC sending out spam which isn't
properly formatted. Simply ignore it and delete it.

The second point is the disappearing mails. This is somewhat more
worrying, it might be as a result of a corrupted file, but it's easy
enough to examine this yourself.

If you use Apple's 'Mail' application, look for the mbox files.

You get tot hem by clicking on your computer icon on the desktop and
then navigating through these windows in turn, each step is separted by
an arrow
Users ( your user name ) Library Mail

Onve there, look at the folder 'Mailboxes' and any folders with the name
of your e-mail account - details will depend on precisely how your
system is set up.

Inside those folders you should be able to find folders with 'mbox'
names. They all have fairly logical names and are the contents of the
various mail boxes, such as in, junk, sent etc.

If you click on one, such as the 'in' one for your account the Finder
will show how large that file is. If it's small, say 8KB, then it's
empty and there is nothing in there, but if it's large ( typically
hundreds of KB or a few MB ) then there are loads of e-mails in there.

Double clicking on them should open Mail and reveal their contents. If
the contents are important, forwarding them to yourself, printing them,
or saving them as a PDF file ( via the Print command ).

You can't do any harm by simply clicking on them and opening them. But
don't move them or modify them. You can also duplicate any mbox files to
make back-ups too.

If you use anything other than Apple's Mail, then I'm less knowledgable
about such things, but would able to point you in the right direction to
get help.

If you have an external hard drive for back-up, it might be prudent to
make a back-up copy of your 'Home folder, which is the one with your
user name on it within the 'Users' folder. It bears an icon of a little
house. This will be quite a large file, but it will preserve anything
that might be recoverable later.

One final point is that finding your name as the apparent originator of
spam is also quite normal. I often get spam which appears to be sent
from me, even though it clearly can't have been. If you want to satisfy
your curiosity, use your Mail application's option to 'View Headers' and
a whole chunk of gobbledegook will appear at the start of that message.
This migth show you the real sender, it will probably reveal that it was
sent from a different time zone to you and it will almost certainly
reveal that the originating computer is a Windows PC. Again, viewing
this stuff does no harm, just close that window when you've finished.

The message
from (Roly) contains these words:

/snip/

However there is one thing that has been known to cause problems on Macs
- and bizarrely, that's Norton Anti-virus !

That's not bizarre - that's practically a 'given'.

Until such time as a
genuine virus appears on OS X, I don't see much point in running any
anti-viral software, just make sure that your Mac has the built-in
firewall switched on ( Security control panel ) and that's all you need
at the moment, but if you really want anti-viral protection, Intego's
VirusBarrier X4 is a vastly better choice.

Anything, with the possible exception of McAffee, is a vastly better choice.

/snip mainly Mac stuff/

You can bet however, that there will be people (FSVO people) out there
who are outraged by the rather smug attitude of Mac users and are trying
to write some really devastating scumware.

Personally, I'd have a good AV program (presuming there *IS* one for
Macs) and keep it up to date.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

Martin wrote:
choice.

You haven't mentioned worms

http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/ne...va_renepo.html

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7064


There didn't sem to be any point.

The story broke with a load of fuss and then nothing happened. It was
talked about with great excitement in computer security circles for
several days, but it's nothing more than a script that's designed to do
something nasty.

In order for it to do anything, you have to first of all install it and
then specifically grant it root-level access to your system.

Most users wouldn't know how to allow that even if they wanted to.

The only worms I encounter are in my garden - best place for them too.

The message
from Martin contains these words:
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 12:44:31 GMT, Rusty Hinge 2
wrote:

The message
from (Roly) contains these words:

/snip/

However there is one thing that has been known to cause problems on Macs
- and bizarrely, that's Norton Anti-virus !

That's not bizarre - that's practically a 'given'.

Odd that I have had five trouble free years using initially NAV and
then NIS.

Extremely. Would you know trouble if you saw it?

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from Martin contains these words:
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:17:55 GMT, Rusty Hinge 2
wrote:
The message
from Martin contains these words:
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 12:44:31 GMT, Rusty Hinge 2
wrote:
The message
from (Roly) contains these words:

/snip/

However there is one thing that has been known to cause problems
on Macs
- and bizarrely, that's Norton Anti-virus !

That's not bizarre - that's practically a 'given'.

Odd that I have had five trouble free years using initially NAV and
then NIS.

Extremely. Would you know trouble if you saw it?

I recognise bullshit at a 100 yards. :-)

Then how come you fell for the NAV product?

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

On 4/1/06 10:57, in article ,
"Roly" wrote:

Sacha wrote:

A most peculiar thing has happened to my Mac. I switched it on this morning
and every single message in my Inbox, read or unread, has disappeared, apart
from three that arrived overnight. One of those was a total blank - no
sender, no subject, no message. I may be able to pick them up some other
way but has anyone any idea why this has happened? At times, I'm rather
concerned that some of the spam I get has the names of either myself or
people I know and email with, in the subject header. Am I being paranoid or
is someone 'getting in' to my computer. I have Norton running at all times,
BTW.

There are basically two points here, but first I'll mention your
security concerns.

There is no known way for somebody to 'get to' a Mac computer running OS
X unless you allow them physical access to your Mac and even then it
would be difficult for them unless you also gave them your passwords.

There are absolutely no OS X viruses or keyloggers of any of the things
that plague the lives of PC users. I can't stress that enough, not one
single virus, despite occasional misleading press reports, so don't
worry about that as being your problem. If a genuine Mac OS X virus ever
did appear, it would be a newsworthy story and you'd hear about it.

However there is one thing that has been known to cause problems on Macs
- and bizarrely, that's Norton Anti-virus ! Until such time as a
genuine virus appears on OS X, I don't see much point in running any
anti-viral software, just make sure that your Mac has the built-in
firewall switched on ( Security control panel ) and that's all you need
at the moment, but if you really want anti-viral protection, Intego's
VirusBarrier X4 is a vastly better choice.

snip

Many thanks for this very reassuring post, plus the information and
instructions. I shall get to all that today! I'm very grateful to your for
the lengthy and detailed explanations and instructions.

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:17:55 GMT, Rusty Hinge 2
wrote:


I recognise bullshit at a 100 yards. :-)

I have to be a good bit closer than that, unfortunately!(:-)

Alan

--
Martin