How to apply for an email address yourname@DargeFamily.com

Just ask me for one. These email addresses are FREE and use the POP3 email protocol and will be good forever (or as long I keep paying the yearly fee to keep this site going). I can set it up so that the mail will be forwarded to your "hotmail" or "yahoo" or whatever inbox. You can configure your favorite email program such as Outlook Express (that comes with Windows) or Microsoft Outlook to work with these POP3 mailboxes or you can send and receive your mail via webmail like you would with Yahoo or Hotmail. After you get an email address from me, go to the Email Setup Page for direction on how to configure Outlook Express.

Note: Protect your "one-of-a-kind" email address.  Don't give it to strangers. Assume that all commercial sites will give your address to all the other commercial sites - and then the spam begins.

Things you should know about email

So you receive an email that has a whole bunch of other recipient's names or email addresses in the "To" field. You say to yourself, "Why are all these names here and why the heck did I get this crap?" You will find your name somewhere buried in the list. The question is, does the sender know that he/she is broadcasting all of these email addresses to the whole world?

Newsflash: email is NOT secure and there are technical ways to intercept email and harvest the addresses.

Here is one solution: Instead of using the "To" field, type ALL of the recipient's email addresses into the "BCC" (Blind Carbon Copy) field. Not the "CC" field. The email recipient will not see any of the other recipient's names. If you are using Microsoft Outlook to send the message, the recipients will see your email address in the "To" field. If you are using Microsoft Outlook Express, the recipients will see "Undisclosed-Recipient". Not ideal, but much better.

Now, if you want to make it better, create a new Contact with a name such as "Multiple Recipients from yourname" that you would like to appear in the "To" field. Put your email address in as this new contact's email address.  When you create a new email to send to multiple people, put this new contact name in the "To" field and all the other email addresses into the BCC field (as stated above). The recipients will all receive emails with the new contact's name in the "To" field and you will receive the copy that was sent to the new contact because it has your email address in it.  You can certainly test this by sending an email to yourself.  Pretty cool.

Note: The BCC field may not show on some email screens. Look in the options or preferences to enable the display of the BCC field.  It's there; look for it.

What is a POP3 email account? It's the best type of email account. you can take it's settings and put them into your Outlook or Outlook Express program and have a whole lot better control of your mail.

How do I stop the spam from clogging up my mailbox? (assuming you all know what spam is). You pretty much can't. Span filters work somewhat, but have a tendency to filter legit mail also.

Warning: Don't ever click on any attachment sent to you from Microsoft. It's a virus! Microsoft NEVER sends an email attachment. These bogus emails are very cleverly crafted and look legit; they are not.

How to submit pictures to be posted on the web

Okay, I'll make this easy for you. Send me your original jpg picture file as an email attachment. These files can be quite large and if you have a dial-up connection, they could take a while to send. I prefer to have the original higher-resolution pictures so that I can add them to my archive. This way, if someone wants a copy of the original, I can send it to them.

If you are scanning a printed picture (old photographs), please scan them at 600dpi (dots per inch) resolution and full color; even if they are old black & white pictures. The 600dpi resolution will allow anybody to reprint the picture and it will look like the original.

I have the programs necessary to resize and configure your picture so that they are suitable for the web site. These web pictures will be reduced in quality and viewable size so that the size of the picture file will be smaller and download faster for those who don't have a broadband connection.

Email your pictures to
Use the same address to request a copy of any picture on this web site.

Remember this and be happy

Warning: Never, ever dial an 809 or 284 area code number. It is similar to a 900 number where you will be charged by the minute and it could be $25.00 per minute. These area codes are in the British Virgin Islands and you will not be connected to a virgin. For more information, search the web for "area code 809" and you will gets quite a list of sites to visit.

Warning: Do not use a cell phone while filling your gas tank. The phone can ignite the gas.

Don't pick your nose in public. It grosses everyone out.
Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.

How to find stuff on the internet

Use a search engine of course. I highly recommend Google which has proven time and again to be the leader, is very fast and give good relative results.

Go to the site and type in your search word or phrased surrounded by double quotes. Try it with a short phrase from a song such as "i can't get no satisfaction" or "darge family" and see what happens. If you join our website, you may eventually be able to search for your name and get a result. Don't bother with upper case letters. The internet is not case sensitive.

It can take a long time to get included in the major search indexes and I managed to get us there. Our site gets "crawled" every few weeks so changes that I make won't show up for a while. I am working on getting better wording displayed in the search results. There are tricks to all of this stuff.

Pop Up Ads

We all know about pop-up ads. They are in your face and a big nuisance. And worst of all, you really didn't win $1000 and a free trip to Mexico. They just want your email address and other information about you. Never click on these unless you have nothing else to do. Do you actually talk to the telephone solicitors when they call you at supper time?

Most all browsers have built-in pop-up stoppers that are set up to run by default. Find your's and configure it if necessary. I recommend FireFox.

Spyware or Adware

All of you that wander the internet should know about Spyware. It's like a virus; you don't want it. These are little Trojan horse programs that send information from your computer to the outside world where advertisers use this information to send you unwanted advertisements. Or worse. Bad guys may be collecting your personal information.

How did the Spyware get onto your computer? Simple. You clicked on something that allowed the program to be downloaded onto your computer. Oops! Read those little message boxes that occasionally pop up on your screen while surfing the web. Don't allow them to make there site your home page or add a toolbar to your browser. And don't download any special reader.

Download Spybot and install it. This free program will remove most Spyware and other problems from your computer. It works for me.

You will probably have to update this program on occasion so that it will catch the newest spyware. Sort of like updating your virus definition files.

Protect Your Computer from Viruses

I think we all know about computer viruses and what they can do to your computer. Most viruses are coming via email messages and an anti-virus program will do a great job of stopping those little buggers coming in and going out.

I recommend Symantec Norton Anti-Virus or McAfee Anti-Virus if you can afford them. If you are looking for FREE anti-virus software, try AVG Free anti-virus software. I highly recommend it. It installs with defaults that should work for you to stop both viruses and spyware. Yes, there are other free AV programs available.

If you are not using anti-virus software to scan your email both coming in and going out, you are very foolish and may lose a few email friends by making their computers sick like yours.