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Q: I run Windows XP with Microsoft Office 2003.  My primary email program is Outlook.  Why, when I designate a sender/email as junk or spam using the Junk E-Mail button, does it keep coming into my Inbox instead of going straight into my Junk Email box?  It seems as if there are certain addresses that Outlook Junk E-Mail program ignores no matter how many times I “block” the sender!

-Elizabeth O.
Santa Rosa Beach,FL

A: There are many things that could cause this problem, Elizabeth.  I would suggest you try the following potential solutions:

First make sure you have all the latest updates installed, by running “Windows Update” from Internet Explorer’s “Tools” menu.  If the problem persists, make sure you have only one anti-spam addin installed.  If you have any others besides Outlook’s, disable them.  It is also possible that your junk mail rule in Outlook is corrupted.  Try editing it, or deleting it and re-creating it from scratch.  Also make sure your Junk E-mail folder doesn’t have a size limitation that has been exceeded.  There are other potential solutions, but I don’t have enough room here to cover them all.  For some additional tips, view this Microsoft page: http://tinyurl.com/y97lgz

Q: My daughter burned pictures onto a DVD and a CD. They played once, now they will not play at all.  When I try to play the DVD on a computer an “Auto play” window pops up offering blank DVD options. When I try to access the DVD through “My Computer” it indicates that 211 GB free space remaining of 4.38GB.  However, no files are shown of the 200+ GB on the disc. When I try to access the CD through “My Computer” nothing happens except the flashing on the drive where the CD is located. I right click on the drive and a pop up window states that 576MB free of 702 MB. The pictures were deleted from the computer that burned the DVD and CD’s Is there a way to recover these pictures?

– Bob B.
Fort Walton Beach,FL

A:  We sometimes have a tendency to handle picture files like we’re dealing with a photo album, so it’s common to have all the files selected at once.  This can lead to trouble when an errant mouse or key click accidentally deletes them, or drags them to a new location.  The numbers you’re giving about storage space used on the optical discs indicates that the files are still in tact on the disc.  There are numerous utilities available on the internet to help you recover accidentally deleted picture files.  Do a Google search on “recover deleted pictures”.  Make sure you use safe download practices, and try out some of the utilities listed.  Some of them are even free.  Also, I highly recommend maintaining a backup of your photos on an external hard drive, rather than deleting them once they’re copied off to optical media.  Although they can last for many years, CD-Rs and CD-RWs do have a limited usable data retention time, and will eventually degrade.