BT Internet email Changes

If you are a BT customer you will begin seeing communications regarding changes to BT Yahoo email.

New Home for BT email

BT's email was previously outsourced to Yahoo, hence "BT Yahoo", but this arrangement is coming to an end and these email accounts are to move to BT's own systems.
Read BT's news here: http://home.bt.com/news/btlife/the-bt-yahoo-mail-login-experience-is-changing-11363812900474?s_cid=con_FURL_yahoo_loginchange

After the change, you will sign into your BT email at a different page. I have no security concerns with the change itself which will be managed by BT.

SCAM WARNING

 

However, this is an opportunity for the con artists (scammers and phishers) and you need to take care.

Fake emails
Do not fall for emails, apparently from BT, asking you to follow a link to confirm your details or login to your new BT email. This is a common method crooks use to steal login details and bank details via a fake website. It is really easy to get a link in an email to read "www.bt.com" whilst having it actually go somewhere else.

BT will send links to advertising but they will NOT send a link for you to login, they will tell you to find your own way via bt.com.

Simple Precautions
These checks follow for web pages used for personal banking and shopping as well as email, anywhere that you are entering personal of financial data.

Correct Address?
Check that the address of the web page you are on is where you expect to be. The address is shown at the top of the screen. A BT.COM page will have "bt.com" before the first single slash, e.g. http://home.bt.com/  or http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayPnSHub.do?btheader_primarynav_index=2

Secure?
Before entering username and password or any other personal details, ensure that the address of page you are on starts https:// by checking at the top of the screen. The 's' on https indicates that this is a Secure site and you should also see a Closed Padlock symbol. If these are present then your details will be encrypted before leaving your computer.

Mouse Pointer vs Cursor

Any computer needs to know what you the human sitting in front of it want it to do, or to put it another way it needs "Input" from you.

Two well known Input methods are the Keyboard and the Mouse. On a laptop PC you will usually have a Touchpad with 2 associated buttons on the side facing you which performs the same function as a Mouse.

More recently, Touch Screens have appeared which you stroke and tap with one or more fingers or a stylus and products like Google Voice Search in Chrome allow you to provide your Input by talking to your computer. All of these are Input Devices.

Cursor vs Mouse Pointer

So that you know where the PC is going to respond to your Input, 2 helpers appear on screen, these are the Cursor and the Mouse Pointer. Both may be on screen at the same time so it is useful to understand which is which and its purpose.

Cursor
The Cursor is a flashing vertical line " | " and shows where the Keyboard is currently active. The Cursor only appears in places where text can be entered such as boxes in forms and in email and word processing applications.

If you are typing and nothing is happening, check where the Cursor is as you will sometimes need to deliberately place it where you wish to type. Alternatively, you may be looking at something which is read only and cannot be edited so the Cursor will not be displayed.

Mouse Pointer
The Mouse Pointer shows you where the PC will react to a Mouse Click and takes a variety of forms depending what it is over on the screen and whether or not a Mouse Button is currently pressed.

Here are some examples of the different Mouse Pointer appearances and their meaning:

Left Tilted Arrow; It's default General Pointer behaviour

Right Tilted Arrow; ready to Select a Block e.g. in the left margin on word processing

Upward Pointing Finger; when over a Link on a web page

Grabbing Hand; ready to Drag Page Content around, e.g. centre a map (left button pressed)

Capitol 'I' (or end of an iron girder); over Text. This shape makes it easier to align with letters and lines.

Left Tilted Arrow Dragging a Shaded Box; ready to Move a Block of Text in Word or Outlook and others by Dragging (left button pressed)





There are others including Double Headed Vertical, Horizontal and Diagonal Arrows when resizing the edge of a Window and some Programs allow it to become a Magnifying Glass to zoom in or out.

Some only seen in Tables and Spreadsheets:

  Select Cell

  Select Column



Resize Row Height



Resize Column Width


18 Jul 2013: 
I have changed some of the wording referring to "Input Devices" following feedback. 
Comments are always welcome.  Ged