Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
November 7, 2005

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Volume 1, Number 21 -- Monday, November 7, 2005
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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7.  Another Look at Blocking Spam

Email -- we love to get personal email. We need to get our business email. But, do we need to get all the junk emails, too?

Back in the early 1990's, I remember checking my email one morning and finding a really neat one -- some creative computer science student from Hawaii had sent me his résumé. It took me a little while to figure out what had happened. This was my first-ever piece of spam. This kid had sent his résumé to everyone who had posted a message to any of the Usenet comp.sys.ibmpc newsgroups. Even after I knew what he did, I thought it was cool. Not too long after that, though, was the start of the most prolific Usenet spam -- the "green card lottery" spam.

Fast forward to 2005: I now receive about 250-300 emails per day, and it seems like 50% of them must be spam. Our ISPs can help, but, as users, we also have ways to control this.

First, never open or "preview" the junk email (with Outlook and Outlook Express, the "preview pane" actually opens the email in an embedded Internet Explorer window, which is probably one of the worst things you could do from a security point of view.)

Second, never, ever, click on the link in the spam email if you do open it.

Third, never, ever, ever buy the product advertised through spam.

Spammers send millions of emails, hoping that even a tiny percentage of recipients will buy through their advertisement. If people refuse to buy the products advertised with spam, then the spammers will give up!

What else can you do? One control system you can use is a program called Mailwasher. With Mailwasher, you preview the sender and subject of emails before you actually download the emails from your ISP. Then, you can delete the junk emails before they are sent to you. The power of Mailwasher, though, is that Mailwasher can bounce the email as if your email address did not exist. If you are lucky, your bounces cause the bad guys to take you off their list. Mailwasher is available for Windows XP/2000/ME/98, Mac OS/X and multiple Linux distributions.

Spam Bully is another anti-spam program with some of the same features, and which works with Outlook and Outlook Express. Spam Bully uses several functions to decide which emails to allow or disallow: a Bayesian Spam Filter, an Allow/Block List, a Punish/Bounce/Report/Challenge system and Auto-Delete. Spam Bully can even forward emails to your cell phone.

Microsoft Outlook has its own "junk filter" system built in; however, I have heard mixed reports on its effectiveness. Some other email programs also have built-in junk filters. Eudora, the email program I use, similarly has its own Junk filter.

My primary spam filter is a free email “classification program” called PopFile, that handles spam/junk email as well as classifying any other type of email you want to identify -- such as "work," "computer tips," and "hobby." PopFile works in conjunction with "rules" that you create in Outlook & Outlook Express, also known as "filters" in other programs like Eudora, to segregate spam from the good stuff.

By default, PopFile will add "[spam]" to the beginning of the subject line of a message that it thinks is spam. Then, you can use the rules/filters to say "if the subject contains [spam], put this email in the junk folder." After training -- you have to train any anti-spam system to tell it what _you_ think is spam -- PopFile on my computer has averaged 99.45% accuracy since I reset the statistics in May, 2004 -- that's on over 165,000 emails!

You can download PopFile at http://popfile.sourceforge.net. It is free to use and free to share. PopFile works with Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Thunderbird and other POP3 email programs.

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Creating a web site is fun.  Learning that others visit your web site is even better.  But, the web sites you can host for free at your Internet Service Provider are sorely lacking in space and in functionality.

When you are ready for the next step, you need a web host that gives you plenty of space and plenty of throughput and no surprise overage charges.  I use Powweb for all my web hosting.

Powweb offers an extremely affordable web hosting package.    Powweb's standard price a great deal at only $93.24 per year (average $7.77 / month).  The price even includes a free domain name for the 1 or 2 year hosting period that you purchase. Powweb's control panel includes automatic installation of blog software, forum software, content management software, photo gallery software, an online shopping cart and more.

iPowerWeb is also a popular web host, who offers an excellent hosting package at an affordable price. iPowerWeb offers both Linux-based hosting and Windows Server 2003 hosting (which you need if you are wanting to run web scripts based on Microsoft's .ASP and .NET. Read more about iPowerweb.

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8.  Just for Fun - NetDisaster

One of my old favorite fun sites is www.NetDisaster.com. I thought about it the other day and searched my bookmarks. Happily, I found it again.

NetDisaster.com requires the Macromedia Flash plug-in for your web browser. It takes a snapshot of the web site and then gives you a custom Macromedia Flash interactive show within the web page NetDisaster creates.

Simply, you select the web page of your choice and the type of disaster. You might pick Nuke, which drops nuclear bombs on the web page. Some disaster types have various options, such as auto-repair (or massive damage) and manual control or automatic. "Nuke" gives you both - with manual control, you get a cross-hair target sight that you can move across the page. Click where you want to attack.

Coffee Spill is another fun disaster, as are the meteor strike and the dinosaurs.

Have fun with www.NetDisaster.com.

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9.  Visit Terry's Computer Tips - the Blog every day

I am posting log entries at least daily at my computer tips blog.

It's all for you, my readers, and any others who want to keep up with what's happening in the world of personal computers and the Internet.

Recent entries include:

• Sony Rootkit - another update
• XoftSpy Anti-spyware
• More on the Sony Rootkit Fiasco
• Google's New Adsense Referral Program
• Firefox's New Supporter — Google
• Bill drops bomb on OpeDocument Format in Massachussets
• Sony Releases Rootkit Remover for Music CD

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10.  Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends

If you like my  Terry's Computer Tips newsletter, you can help me increase the number of subscribers to my free newsletter.  Recommend it to a friend.

Feel free to forward your copy of the newsletter to a friend or friends that you think would be interested, including all copyright notices and any advertising.

Be sure to mention that the Just For Subscribers articles that are available only in the email version and the Special Edition Newsletters, too.

Don't forget, the current issue and the newletter archives are available online at http://www.terryscomputertips.com/archives/, and, of course, via a link from the navigation bar on each Terry's Computer Tips web page.

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11.  Send me some email!

I always have time to read emails from you -- the readers of Terry's Computer Tips.  I can not promise a personalized response, but I reply to many of the questions, tips, comments and feedback emails.  I also may use your email in my newsletter!

Send me your comments, send me your tips, send me your questions, and send me your feedback!

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Back to Part 1   Part 2

Volume 1, Number 21 -- Monday, November 7, 2005
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Copyright © 2005 Terry A. Stockdale.  All rights reserved.