transfering address book/current emails to new ISP?

How do I save and move current address book and emails from old ISP's account to my new one?
My old ISP is the only one I've ever had and I've never done this...I,m embarrassed to say ;-(

 

Perhaps you could explain more:

Are you talking about webmail, where you only view the mail over the web using Internet Explorer and do not download it?

Or are you talking about an email program (such as Outlook Express) which downloads your mail on to your PC, and thats where you view it.

The crystal ball can only tell that you run XP, and nothing more.

"Clairvoyance mode" (where we can read minds) would be very useful to me, but is unsupported on this PC, so we have to ask for the info.

 

I use Outlook.
I have used Communicomm as my ISP for a couple of years and am switching to BellSouth for convenience, speed and cost. Just as important, Communicomm dosen't have the built-in virus protection that BellSouth advertises
Several months ago I was infected with the NetSky worm. The author of NetSky should be in chains. I am still on the NetSky mailing list. I don't have the worm but can't get off the list. I want to make sure that there is nothing that could transfer to my new IP address when it changes as well as saving my personal email addresses and current emails.
How do I do this???

 

If you use Outlook, then all emails are on your PC, and not on the ISP system.
As soon as you downloaded them to view them they are removed from the ISP.

Therefore I don't really understand your question?

If you change the settings in Outlook to the new ISP, nothing else needs to change. The emails will come from a new ISP, but the inbox etc in Outlook will continue as if nothing has happened. Your contacts will not know there has been a change, so all addresses should function as before.

Think of it as changing your street address number. The contents of your list of addresses inside in the drawer is unaffected.

The only way you can protect yourself from the new email address getting picked up by the many viruses and worms is never to use the new address. Rather defeats the purpose.

Once you have sent an email to anyone else, if their PC gets infected, then you can get targetted by the virus, which may look as though its been sent by you, even though it was someone elses PC that was infected. Thats how these viruses work, they "pretend" to be from an address picked at random from an address book on an infected PC.

Some simple efforts can help though. NEVER forward emails with a long list of recipients, NEVER permit family and friends to do the same when your address is in the list. These lists are too easily harvested by a virus on any of the recipients PCs.

You may take great care to keep your PC clean, but you cannot control others that may have your address in their system. Thats the danger.

 

I'd like to add to kiwiguy.

Have one email address as your personal, secret, guard with your life email address that you only give to friends and family. Have other email addresses for use on the Internet like when registering to a site like this or purchasing etc. You can change those other addresses once they start getting spammed. Also, never read mails on those addresses unless you are expecting something.

Last point, when emailing a long address list or mailing to people who do not know each other, use the Bcc: address block in Outlook. That way, nobody will see any addresses when they get the email.

 

Thanks for the help. Guess I'm being a bit gun shy from past bad experiencies.