Create a Digital Certificate for Email

Now-a-days, it is most convenient to send and receive letters and documentation through the use of email. Unfortunately, important emails containing sensitive information can be stolen or read by someone unintended. Though this is rare, it does happen. Big businesses go to strict measures to insure that their data is kept safe. They resort to embedding digital certificates into sent emails, which insures that emails are not tampered with during transit and that the message is authentic. Digitally signed messages can even be encrypted to prevent unauthorized people from seeing it.
I recently stumbled upon a website called Comodo. It specialized in online computer security offering anti-virus, firewall, SSL certificates, TrustConnect®, and more online solutions. I was surprised by the fact that it offered many free products for Home and Home Office use. One particular product that caught by eye was the free email certificate, so I decided to give it a try. (Note: This is only free for Home and Home Office Use only.)


Obtaining an email certificate from Comodo© is really easy. I would recommend using Windows Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, or Mozilla Firefox when filing for a free certificate. Google Chrome will not work and cause the webpage to fail. The first step is to fill out details for your personal certificate including your first and last name, email address, and country. Do not make this information up! When you send an email to someone using your certificate, it has to correspond to your name and email (or it may seem shady to the recipients.) You will also need to select a key size and revocation password. I recommend using the highest grade key because it is the most secure. The revocation password allows you to invalidate or revoke your email certificate if you suspect that is has been stolen or is being used by someone other than you. Once you have all the information filled out, you need to read the license agreement and agree to its terms. Shortly after, you should receive a verification email with steps on how to install your new email certificate. The email should contain a link to download the certificate. The certificate should automatically download to your system once you open the link. Below I have written the steps required to use the certificate on certain email clients.

Windows Live Mail (Version 14):

1. Open Windows Live Mail, and create a new message. (The certificate should automatically be installed, if not see step 3-4)
2. Press ALT+T to bring up the tools menu and select Digitally Sign. If you want to encrypt the email, select Encrypt. (Note: Only recipients with your private key can decrypt your email. Usually though, only people sending you sensitive emails encrypts the message using only your public key. You can send recipients your public key through the export wizard in tools→safety options→ security tab→digital IDs window.)
   
   

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3. Go to tools, safety options, the security tab, and click on the Digital IDs button.
4. Press the import button, select your certificate, and follow the Import Wizard’s Steps.

Mozilla Thunderbird:

1. Make sure your certificate was exported and open Mozilla Thunderbird.
2. Go to tools, options, advanced, certificates. Press the View Certificates button.
3. Under the Your Certificates tab, press the Import button and select your certificate unless it is already listed. Type your password if necessary.
4. Then when creating a new message, use the security button located in the toolbar to digitally sign or encrypt your email.

Microsoft Outlook:

1. Open Outlook and create a new message. (The certificate should automatically be installed, if not see step 4 or 5)
2. In Outlook 2007, in the message, on the Message tab, in the Options group on the ribbon, click the Encrypt Message Contents and Attachments button . In Outlook 2002 and 2003, when composing a message, click Options, Security Settings. Select the Encrypt message contents and attachments check box.To change additional settings, such as choosing a specific certificate to use, click Change Settings. Click OK three times.
3. Compose your message and send it.
   
   

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4. If using Outlook 2003 or 2002, go to this address to learn about importing email certificates. http://www.globalsign.com/support/personal-certificate/per_outlook03.html
5. If using Outlook 2007, go to this address to learn about importing email certificates. http://www.globalsign.com/.../per_outlook07.html 

Apple Mail:

1. Install your certificate. If you use Apple Safari as your web browser, the certificate will be located in the downloads folder. A dialog will pop-up asking for you confirmation to add the certificate. Press OK.
2. If you use Apple Mail, you should have two new options when composing a message that will allow you to encrypt and decrypt your emails.

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Yahoo! Mail vs. Gmail vs. Hotmail

The flow of information these days is overwhelming. With the use of cell phones, netbooks, and that magical thing called “Wi-Fi”, you can easily access tons of information at your fingertips while staying in touch with your family on-the-go. A useful piece of technology that is used by almost everyone is email. It’s the fast and easy way to send and receive messages, pictures, documents, and files to anyone. Now, you have probably heard of the “Big Three”, which are Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and Windows Live Hotmail. Maybe you want to get a new email so your wondering which provider will benefit you the most. Take a look below at the comparison chart, showing some of differences between them feature-wise.

 

Yahoo! Mail: Yahoo! Mail is ranked #1 in popularity, offering unlimited storage, an easy-to-use interface, and excellent integration with other services. Yahoo makes it easy to keep up with friends and family by displaying updates from sites like Twitter, YouTube, Pandora, Picasa, and more. Surprisingly, Yahoo users can chat with users on Windows Live Hotmail or with other Yahoo! users using the built-in chat feature. New apps help increase productivity by editing photos, storing and sharing large files, sending or receiving money through a PayPal account, and more. Along with sending emails, Yahoo! Mail can send text messages to any mobile phone and receive texts back. New users can even import their contact lists from websites like Facebook, Hotmail, and Gmail.

Unfortunately, Yahoo! Mail has its drawbacks. Users of the free Yahoo! Mail have a ton of advertisements to deal with. Yahoo! Mail also has poor spam filtering and no IMAP support. Users also cannot see updates from social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

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Windows Live Hotmail: Hotmail is ranked #2 in popularity, offering ever-growing storage (or storage that grows), a simple and customizable interface, and excellent integration with other Windows Live Services. Free users start out initially with 5GB of space for email. Messages don’t have to be deleted as long as your inbox grows at a steady rate. The 5GB will grow with your email as time passes. If a user happens to have more than one Hotmail account, they can easily switch between them. Hotmail also has good spam filters. Like Yahoo!, Hotmail will display updates from friends through the use of “web activates”. Updates from websites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Pandora, Photobucket, WordPress, StumbleUpon, and more can be seen and shared among contacts. Hotmail also makes it easy to send important information in a email using the "Quick Add” sidebar. It helps add information like maps, restaurants, movie times, images, videos, and business listings to an email. New users can import their contact lists from websites like Facebook. Myspace, AOL Mail, Gmail, and more.


Since Windows Live Hotmail is part of Windows Live, there are ton of other services associated with Hotmail like Windows Live Skydrive. Skydrive is an online storage site allowing users to upload a variety of files to a whopping 25 GB of space. The service includes Microsoft’s online Office Web Apps which allow office documents to be editing or created online for FREE! That’s not all, there are other services like Windows Live Groups, Windows Live Calendar, Windows Live Spaces, and more. Finally, to top it all off, Microsoft created a suite of desktop programs which are part of Microsoft Essentials. They include Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Family Safety, Windows Live Sync, Windows Live Writer, and Windows Live Movie Maker.


Windows Live Hotmail has some some disadvantages such as a 10 MB size limitation on attachments, no support for virtual folders, and no support to send SMS messages.

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Gmail: Google’s Gmail is ranked #3 in popularity, offering only 7.3 GB of space (which is growing slowly), a simple and very customizable interface, tagging support, strong phishing and spam filters, a built-in video and messaging service, SMS support, and more. A sweet feature called "Google Buzz" allows users to see and make status updates to social websites like Facebook and Twitter. Users can also chat with users of AIM through their Gmail account. Gmail is undeniably an undisputed leader in the web-based email area, offering almost every feature and more for free. This has made it a dangerous competitor for Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, and others. Gmail has one feature in particular that has made it stand-out from other competitors. This feature happens to be “conversation” view which allows users to keep track of their conversations with various people by sorting and presenting all the emails in a group, making it easier to access. Like Windows Live, Gmail comes with a service called Google Docs which allows users to share and edit spreadsheets, word documents, and PowerPoint presentations. A Gmail account also gives you access to Google Calendar which allows for easy managing and sharing of appointments.


Gmail has some disadvantages. One unpopular aspect of Gmail is the account registration. New users must provide their phone number in order to receive a verification number to activate their account.

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Windows 7 Allows Logon UI Change

Microsoft’s newest operating system came with a lot of enhancements “under the hood”. One of those enhancements is the ability to change the logon screen without the use of third-party software. For most users, this may or may not be a welcomed change as this feature was specifically made available for OEMs. This means OEMs can place their logo as the background image of Windows 7’s logon screen. This feature is primarily set through the use of a registry key. If you bought Windows 7 off-the-self, this key maybe inactive or nonexistent. OEM copies of Windows 7 are more likely to have that key existent and active.

In order to successfully change the background to the logon screen, you need to determine whether the required registry key is active. Open the registry editor and go to the following directory: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background. Find a DWORD value called OEM Background. If there isn’t a key already there with that name, then create a new key using that name. Set the value of the key to 1. The registry editor can then be closed. Next, open up Windows Explorer and navigate to the following directory: %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds. If the location doesn’t exist, then create new folders so it does. Finally, place your favorite jpeg picture into the folder. The picture cannot exceed 256kb in size. For best results, use a picture with the same aspect ratio as your screen’s resolution. Restart your computer and…Presto! Your logon screen will be changed.

If upon restarting your computer and you realized that it is hard to read text on your logon screen, you can make a simple registry change to combat the issue. Microsoft has secretly created three types of button sets for the logon screen to make text more legible. This time when opening the Registry Editor, navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI. Create a DWORD value called ButtonSet and set its value according to the following choices:

• 0 - Lighter text shadows, darker (more opaque) buttons (Windows default)
• 1 - Darker text shadows, lighter (more translucent) buttons (for lighter backgrounds)
• 2 - No text shadows, opaque buttons (for darker backgrounds)

If you are afraid to manually change the logon screen you can use Tweaks.com Logon Changer for Windows 7. It’s free and there is no install required. It also allows for the logon to be reverted back to its original state.

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