The Post Ghost
My voice has been silenced, but I can still tap my fingers – one for YES and two for NO…
For 3 days now, my Outlook Express Email program has been acting hauntingly peculiar. Some of the emails I receive have been blank – empty – nothing in them. And most all the messages I type out arrive at their destination erased of text. After hours of sending test messages that no one could see, I finally figured a way to communicate. You’d be amazed at how much you can fit into the subject box of a message. Some of my recent empty messages have been titled:
Subject: My messages are coming back blank!
Subject: I see the text in my Sent Box but not when it comes back.
Subject: If YOU think this is frustrating- think about me!
Subject: Hi everyone! This is my new email box!
Subject: You’ll just have to go to looseleafnotes.com to hear from me (which fits perfectly in the subject line of an email post with not a letter to spare.)
After more hours of tech support that didn’t fix the problem, I got creative with what I wrote in the email boxes (you know the part that others saw as blank):
Testing…one…two…buckle your own shoe.
You probably won’t be able to read this…I’m writing with invisible ink.
And…Dear John, We need to talk.
After days of sending out “SOS” and speaking in vanity license plate language, here’s the message I got from my sister Trish:
“Coll, I was beginning to think this was some sort of prolonged April Fools type joke!! Everything is blank! What’s happening with your computer?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ll keep you posted…or not.”
April 4th, 2005 10:47 am
EWWWW!!! Good luck with that! Too bad it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. I like the invisible ink one though!
April 4th, 2005 4:18 pm
You are so CREATIVE. You have become my new “writer’s crush”. BTW, I am a recovering foster child. heehee. I am now 37, and have a family of my own–so I can now look back on the experience and smile. Happy Monday!
April 4th, 2005 8:37 pm
It’s getting spookier here. Seems I will have to reinstall my whole windows. When I put up my first blog under bloggerspot, I downloaded some software I thought I would need (really don’t tend to know what I’m doing when it comes to computers) and it corrupted my computer. I’ve been using “systems restore” but it won’t let me go past the date I installed the thing. It’s protecting itself! It all sounds like science fiction to me. Can you imagine if someone were deliberately trying to disbable your car everyday??
April 6th, 2005 11:41 am
When you get your computer fixed, download and install Netscape 7.2 or higher. Have someone help you configure Netscape mail (not that hard) and use Netscape as your primary browser and email. If you go to a website that doesn’t look or work right then us Internet Explorer for that particular site, otherwise stick with Netscape.
Most of the viruses, trogans, spyware and email bombs are aimed at Microsoft Products like Internet Explorer (aka IE) and Outlook (Express).
I believe you will avoid a lot of problems in the future if you do this.
Good Luck,
Sherlock