Q and A with common technical questions from Dr Dr Gavin Scott of the Tropical & Travellers Medical Clinic at No.88 St 108, answered by Glenn Miller of EZEcom

How and why do emails get lost?

Often human error and the complex nature of the internet together with the huge variety of email applications now available, all contribute to lost emails. Also, in my experience this is usually due to junk mail and spam filters. Since spam has become more sophisticated, more and more legitimate emails can get caught in the filters and never get through to the intended recipient.

How do criminals pinch your email and use it to send spam?

Usually a Trojan or another hidden form of malware will steal your details without you knowing and send the information back to the criminals. People should be extremely careful when using shared computers in places like internet cafes. Another common practice is to trick a user to click on a link using a Phishing email. This is why people should not click on links that look suspicious or come from people they do not know. If you do lose control of your email account you need to resolve the problem with your email provider, many of the email providers now have ways to help you keep control of your email accounts.

Cambodian phone sellers sell iPhones with the usual hype  and I asked one to show me an internet search and he couldn’t because there was no wifi connection. So what’s the point in selling things that don’t work because of connection problems?

I can imagine that some phone shops might not be prepared for such demonstrations and therefore can’t make it work in front of you. You might get a better result at a different phone shop. In my opinion, a lot of people that walk into a phone shops to by such things as an iPhone have made the decision before they walk into the shop and are looking for the best deal, so they would rarely ask for a demonstration.

What do all these terms mean: 3G, 4G, speed, MB, memory - what does it all mean? It’s like a chain with a huge padlock, but the strength lies in the weakest link - fast speed phone fine but if server slow, what’s the point?

What it all means is technical and will not be easy to explain. However, these technical terms get used for Marketing and this drives people to purchase based on a desire to have the latest and most up-to-date technology. Unfortunately, even technology can have problems sometimes and that does create frustration.

For people like me, who want a fast email and internet search capacity for business, and are not interested in playing video games etc. What is the best iPhone andbest internet provider in Cambodia?

For iPhone, Cellcard actually have the small size SIMs and EZECOM was just awarded Best of ISP for 2012, the second year in a row.

On a social level, how can we educate Cambodians not to send huge attachments and spam that block our inboxes?

Send an email back that is twice the size of the one they just sent you.

For example, explain how one car franchise sends me spam, I’ve asked for my email address to be removed from the mailing list, it has - I’ve checked- but I still receive it’s spam.

Possibly their system has been infected with malicious software. Another possibility is that there is more than one person that sends marketing type emails.