June 01, 2003Email Blog Archives |
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(How to Stop) Spam According to Bill GatesIn an interview with USA TODAY, Bill Gates talks about his ideas to stop spam (again):
01:34 PM Send a Web Page Link with HotmailMy roommate continues to complain about the number of article recommendations I send. (As if I'd read all these clever articles; but shh.. please don't tell her!)Share Web sites via Hotmail. 01:11 PM Netscape 7.1 Netscape have released 7.1 of the Netscape suite. The version number may not indicate it, but this is a pretty significant release if you get spam. Netscape 7.1 brings what Mozilla users have enjoyed and tested for some time:
11:29 AM ISO-Spam-0-8-15Spammers have turned to making their emails look and sound like — what they think is — "normal" mail (in part, maybe, to get past Bayesian filters or those using associative memory, in part to get past the visual image of spam burnt into our minds).What they don't know is that I never get "normal" mail (at least not from people I know). Aren't I lucky? The spammers' idea of normal is also alarmingly (though not surprisingly) pitiable. But since I recognize it as some-kind-of-normal, isn't it also my idea? Of course it is, and writing their idea of normal into everybody's mailbox is an interesting aspect of the subversive nature (or potential) of spam. 02:55 AM NetMailBot 3.0.3NetMailBot has been updated, and with the bug fixes and refinements in the latest version it sends emails from the command line even better. Who needs a GUI?NetMailBot is an extremely flexible tool for creating automated mailings of all kinds. With its powerful database connectivity and mail merging it also makes a great email marketing application. (Windows) 01:17 AM IncrediMail Collects Anonymous Usage DataI'm not very paranoid, way too little paranoid even. But what IncrediMail may or may not know (there's no way for you to know) about you makes one think...As you use letters, animations and other "Style Box" content, IncrediMail counts each item's usage to build the list of most popular content. 01:08 AM Employer Looking for Email Abuse, Will FireA survey among 1100 U.S. employers by the American Management Association shows
01:05 PM Domain Owners: Set up Throwaway Addresses to Fight SpamDo you own a domain? Then following the following tip can allow you throw away email addresses and some spam with them:Create email addresses for use in sign-up forms on the fly to identify — and radically ban — sources of spam. 01:05 PM InBoxer 1.0 Most of the best spam filters available today are Bayesian filters (it's easy to see why), and InBoxer is no exception. Give InBoxer a good trainer such as yourself, and it performs well, knocking out spam in spite of sidesteps and uppercuts (sports metaphors hardly ever sound good, do they?).InBoxer implements great Bayesian spam filtering in an intelligent and easy to use way. It's just a pity that it only supports Outlook. (Windows) 12:23 PM B & W Eyes Stationery A glance is not bound to the physical eye, not even to a painted, photographed or imagined eye. Everything can look at you. But eyes still do it in a certain kind of way:This stationery brings beautiful eyes in black and white. (Outlook, Outlook Express) 01:42 AM Make Sure Your Email Marketing ASP is Opt-In OnlyIf you don't pay close attention, you and your email marketing efforts may end in the proxmity of spammers without wanting, knowing or even suspecting it:How does an opt-in list go together with being blocked and filtered as a spammer? It may be your email marketing service provider's fault. 01:02 AM Outlook Express I'm not a fan of Outlook Express, but there are things you have to like: the stationery, for example, or how easy and transparent it is to access Hotmail.Is the only thing that's great about Outlook Express the security risk that comes with using it? Not quite, but find out yourself. 01:59 PM Not All Mass Email is SpamYahoo! Mail has effective spam filters that will keep your Inbox pretty clean — too clean sometimes.Since the massive rush to the U.S.-national do not call list generated an equally massive rush of confirmatory emails, Yahoo! Mail sent them to the "Bulk" folder. It was a mass mailing, after all. Since mailing lists, also sent in bulk, are good candidates for false positives, too, here's how to prevent having to dig for your favorite newsletters in the "Bulk" folder: Make Sure Yahoo! Mail Never Filters Newsletters as Spam. 10:42 AM AnswerTool 2.2 If you know something and others know that you know it (but don't yet know what you know themselves), they'll ask you. This is a good sign. It is also a good sign if you can answer quickly, because you use a tool like the appropriately named AnswerTool, for example. In this latest version AnswerTool adds the hand option to
05:27 AM Aliencamel (S)Cans Viruses, Too I have previously hailed Aliencamel for its name and for its spam filtering. Now they've beefed up their virus filtering to double-checking everything (both incoming and outgoing), which makes the service even more attractive (given how spammers make good bad use of viruses).Aliencamel can render your email practically spam-free and scans for viruses, too. The best part is that you don't have to download all the spam while false positives are minimized. 02:15 AM Create Justified Text in The Bat!I've always been impressed with thext that's perfectly justified to the right and to the left, and for certain tasks it not only looks, it also reads good.Using The Bat!'s great message editor's formatting power, you can use perfectly justified text in your emails easily. 01:57 AM Use Acronyms SparinglyThe one acronym I can't do without, by the way, is btw.DYK? Not everybody knows every acronym, and they don't save that much time anyway. 01:47 PM 1776 SpamKillers Gaining Indepence on July 4Anything in the news is good for marketing, even if it's only spam. Apparently, McAfee have declared July 4th 2003 the "Independence from Spam Day".Without this silly (and abusive vis-à-vis history) rhetoric, I might have liked the idea of giving away copies of McAfee SpamKiller to (the first 1776) visitors to McAfee.com on July 4. You can also get a boxed copy if you're among the first 20 in an OfficeMax outlet. 01:26 PM Sobig.E, the SpammusThe fifth incarnation of Sobig, Sobig.E is spreading wildly, establishing open relays on innocent computers.Since most mail servers are now closed to relaying mail from third parties (i.e. spammers), spammers have been turning to creating their own relays by spreading viruses that will act as mail servers on infected systems. This isn't a nice picture. Good firewalls should offer protection against the unwanted traffic, though, if your antivirus software doesn't catch the spamming virus or worm. 11:29 AM Catfood Mail 1.00 There's something to tools that give you a direct feel of how things are (even if they're just part of the virtual-symbolic order of email protocols):Catfood Mail is a crude and simple, but also useful and fast way to get direct access to and painlessly delete mail in any POP account. (Windows) 06:22 AM Insert Frequently Used Text Faster in Pegasus MailTyping a lot can be bad for your health. Fortunately, there are ways to avoid typing more than is necessary:Make Pegasus Mail replace short macros (like "ta#") with longer phrases you use frequently (like "thanks a lot, and all the best,") and avoid typing these long pieces of text repetitively. ..:.Pegasus Mail Tips 01:42 AM Spam and the Idiot's TaxTrying to make sense of Allen Westler arguing for a tax or fee or fine for people who respond to spam, I think all people who are robbed should have to pay a fine. Then we'd have no more pickpockets and no burglars, I'm sure.But yes, the problem with spam is that it works by taking advantage of the public-good-nature of email. Generating incentives for those who respond to spam and make it work (I still have my doubts it works that way (exclusively), though) not to do it might be a strategy. If a society concludes that it does not want spam (which, I think, is not as unproblematic as it sounds) it might be justified. But I don't see how calling anybody stupid might help. Simply telling people not to buy from spammers might. 02:42 PM Accessing Your Email on VacationWas it Bernard Shaw who said endless holidays were a pretty accurate definition of hell? If any of your vacations ever resemble hell, there's still email:You're off, but that does not need to mean you are off email, too. Here's all you need to know to read and write email on the road while making sure no prying eyes can get access to your messages. 01:36 PM FilterMy.com You can get your email filtered for spam and viruses with just about no setup and absolutely no mainenance. If you're willing to sacrifice some controllability for this, take a look at FilterMy.com:FilterMy.com is a simple and efficient spam and virus filtering service. Unfortunately, there's no way to get back email that FilterMy.com deemed spam and deleted. 11:15 AM Assign a Custom Icon to a Folder in KMailA picture is not worth a thousand words, but it can help a lot:Using a custom icon, every folder in KMail can get a distinctive face and give you a visual clue to its contents instantly. 01:25 AM Is Spam All Bad? Is Anti-Spam All Good?It's easy to say (and show) how wrong Sandy Starr is in his spiked article Spam: put a lid on it.
What Sandy Starr is trying to say (in harsh words turned a sharp-edged bullet(ed) list), though, is a good and valid point: He thinks
What Sandy Starr maybe fails to see is that openness and freedom need to be protected and defended — this is where spam becomes more than a "practical problem". It is not enough for a government not to restrict my freedom of speech, it must also protect it — both against spammers and against overeager filters (and — in the form of a constitution — against overzealous legislation, too). 03:35 PM Append Your Signature Automatically in IncrediMailAn email without a signature is like... spam without a filter.Sign by the piece with IncrediMail, which can append your signature to all outgoing emails automatically. 01:09 PM Pegasus Mail 4.12a Pegasus Mail has been around for a long, long time, and it still keeps getting better. Pegasus Mail 4.12a, the latest release, fixes a number of bugs, among them the Eastern European charset problem.If you're a fan of Pegasus Mail already, get the update, if you're not yet a fan, this is a great time to take a look: Pegasus Mail is one of the most powerful, secure and generally best email programs available for Windows. (Windows) 12:06 PM Inbox Buddy 1.1 My Inbox just grows and grows, and important mail is pushed back. With Inbox Buddy, at least the latter does not happen. It's really worth a try (and if you're at it, take a look at beloved Ella, too):After a bit of training, Inbox Buddy does a great job organizing your Outlook Inbox in a very useful way. (Windows) 10:21 AM Bill Gates and the End of the Future of Spam"Toward a Spam-Free Future" is the watchword given by Bill Gates, and he details some reasonable steps:
On the one hand, the spam-free future is part of the overall drive to "trustworthy computing" (trust us) and on the other hand the definition of spam "must ultimately be up to the individual" (trust yourself). Of course, the former necessarily boils down to the latter. To trust somebody else, you first have to trust yourself. You need to have trust in your ability to judge. "Trustworthy computing" becomes problematic, however, if your ability to judge (the trustworthiness of trustworthy computing) is hampered by a lack of information. If you never see a false positive chances are you'll not miss it. 05:47 AM IncrediMail Xe Build 1180 When will it reach 4711? The latest IncrediMail version fixes two bugs. If you're having no issues, there's no need to upgrade.Email is boring, email is dull? Let IncrediMail bring fun and excitement back to electronic mail. (Windows) 02:33 AM Email Saver Xe 1.7 One of the most useful, but least prestigious email apps has received a small update:Email Saver Xe is a great tool for easily (and automatically) creating backups of all your email messages and settings. (Windows) 02:27 AM Forward an Email with Outlook ExpressWhat you forward says a lot about who you are. (I know that saying this will come back haunting me.)Let others participate in the great emails you get by forwarding them with Outlook Express. 01:57 AM Send an Attachment with Yahoo! MailI had to walk my dad through opening an attachment recently. It was a lot of fun, not only but also because it was over the phone. Apparently, he doesn't know how to turn up the volume on my mother's cell phone so I had to yell more than if I had called "Jeeederrrmannn". Anyway, here's how to make your dad wonder about (mouse) click and (paper) clip, too:Send files with your messages easily in Yahoo! Mail. 01:46 PM GyazMail 1.0.1 Version 1.0.1 of GyazMail is available and brings
GyazMail is a friendly little useful email program. (Mac) 11:50 AM New Eudora 6 Betas Available Eudora is one of the first email programs I remember using (who doesn't?), so I'm always excited when I see a new release approaching. Hardly have I been disappointed.New beta versions of Eudora ara available for download. Eudora 6.0.0.10 for Windows comes with
03:40 AM Move Spam to the Junk Folder Automatically in MozillaWorks wonders for me. Mozilla detects at least (at least!) 99% of all the incoming spam, with no false positive in the past few months:Let Mozilla keep your Inbox clean by automatically moving incoming mail that's determined to be spam to a special Junk folder. 01:40 AM Mail OS X PantherSteve Jobs had a lot to keynote at WWDC 2003, and it's easy to get excited about sleek maschines with amazing processors or about what he's going to wear next time.The real news is in the programs you're going to use every day, though. The Mail app in Mac OS X Panther is promised to have
What's missing? Secure, encrypted email! 05:22 PM Avoid Getting Spam AltogetherThe best way to avoid spam is not getting on spammers' lists in the first place. Find out how to use disposable addresses, obfuscation and your watchful eye to steer clear of spam altogether.›› Top anti-spam tools for Windows 01:00 PM Spammer — Anti-Spammer DialecticsNow and then, I get spam that wants me to buy anti-spam software (or maybe I get those often, I don't see much spam since it's all filtered away), like ben.It's paradox, but not illogical. If you get lots and lots of spam that you do not want, those who profit are companies that help you get rid of it. Naturally, it can't be in their interest to make spam go away completely. There has to be some "leidensdruck" or you won't do anything. Spamming for anti-spam software is this relationship short-circuited and spelled (or acted) out. That's courage! 08:21 AM InboxCleaner 1.0 I can't recommend this piece of software. But I recommend you try it, it's a kind of (instructive) fun.InboxCleaner's job apparently is to clean your email Inbox of spam. Unfortunately, crashes, weak filters and missing functionality prevent it from doing so. But you can use it as a mail checker. (Windows) 04:53 AM Filter Yahoo! Mail Spam to a Special Folder in Mac OS X MailTaking advantage of Yahoo! Mail's great anti-spam filters, you can have Mac OS X Mail move spam that comes through your Yahoo! Mail account to a special folder automatically.01:04 AM Learn from SpamSpammers can teach you a lot about email marketing.›› More email marketing tips 01:56 PM The Grim Red Line That is SpamIf you've always suspected that spam was on the rise but were afraid to ask your Eudora statistics (or take a look at your POPFile stats), here's the grim red line of (the increase of) spam together with its frightening formula.Spam doubles roughly every 42 days. Does spam mushroom so quickly because it works so well? Or is it that spammers (and a large portion of all spam is reportedly coming from a few sources) have to increase frequency to get (the same) results? 11:49 AM Food4Spam 0.4 If an email address appears anywhere on the web, it will get spam. Heck, spammers will even find addresses that do not exist. There's still something you can do, and not everybody has given up the fight:Food4Spam applies simple encoding to your email address in mailto links to prevent spammers from collecting it. (Mac) ›› More address encoding tools 07:09 AM Tropical Palms IncrediMail Letter Lie down... yes, that's good. Now relax, and watch the palms swinging into sleep. (IncrediMail)›› More IncrediMail Letters 01:54 AM Check the Spelling as You Type in PocoMailLet PocoMail check your spelling while you type to avoid mistakes (almost) without effort.01:00 AM What Makes Spammers Successful?If spammers are people who "have not been successful in anything else" — as Jon Praed is probably correctly describing them —, how is email different from anything else to allow spammers to be successful here?Is it that email feels like a common good (an expensive one, though), and without a way to limit its usage by making abusers pay some take advantage of the possible short-term profit by ruining the resource for everybody. Or is it that spam has a subversive dimension? Its "success" is not what the generally accepted order of things specifies (and, in an interesting twist, they write their idea of normal into everybody's mailbox). But spammers also want to make money, no? If it's all about the money the above question can probably reformulated as "Who pays spammers (if it's not a pyramid scheme)?". 01:43 PM AliencamelAliencamel not only has a nice name (not as nice a name as Wanderlust, though) and looks good, it also works.Aliencamel can render your email practically spam-free with a smart combination of filters. The best part is that you don't have to download all the spam while false positives are minimized. ›› More spam filtering services 08:03 AM Exclude a Line from Automatic Formatting in FastMailPrevent FastMail from applying its formatting magic to lines you want to keep intact (like poems, for example). Poems like:When the wind escaped the kitchen sink, All emails are just filthy spam, 01:00 AM Is Graylisting Spam Worthwhile?Evan Harris is proposing tmpfailing under the title of "Greylisting" (The Next Step in the Spam Control War: Greylisting), initiating a Slashdot discussion.›› How tempfailing and graylisting spam work 03:16 PM KidzMail 1.0 As if letters were no drawings. I had a lot of fun creating drawings that did not look like letters in KidzMail, though. Nota bene the screen shot! Pretty addictive, this stuff.KidzMail is an easy to use email client. The option to create and send drawings in particular is a lot of fun. (Mac) ›› More Mac email clients 08:36 AM MailSmith 2.0 MailSmith 2.0 has been released. Lots and lots of new stuff (SpamSieve and PGP integration!), refinements and fixes with minute attention to details — I like that. Unfortunately, no IMAP.MailSmith is the powerful and feature-rich email client from the makers of BBEdit. (Mac) 04:40 AM See Only Mail from People You Know in HotmailIf your Hotmail Inbox is cluttered with newsletters and spam, turn on this view that shows you only the important messages from people you know.01:00 AM Senate Panel Approves CAN-SPAM ActReuters reports that the Senate Commerce Committee has approved S.877, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.The naming is certainly unique (is it "[junk mailer] can spam" or "can spam [and make my Inbox spam-free]"?), but the measures proposed are not:
12:00 PM Cloudmark SpamNet 1.1.1 All hail beautiful version numbers! Cloudmark SpamNet has reached 1.1.1 and the latest update brings
10:35 AM When in Doubt, End Emails with "Thanks"It's one of the Netiquette problems that plague me every day: If you don't know how to say good-bye at the end of an email, there's one thing that will almost always be appropriate: "thanks".(I end all emails with "thanks".) Thanks. 08:30 AM Fine-Tune the Eudora Spell Checking SuggestionsHere's how to get suggestions from the Eudora spell checker that sound or look like the misspelled word.08:24 AM SpamSieve 1.3.1 In this update of the wonderful SpamSieve:
07:45 AM VM 7.16 Have you sharpened your Emacs skills lately? No? It's about time:VM is a solid, tested and easy to use mail reader for Emacs. It can do all you expect from an email client and some more. (Windows, Mac, Linux) If you're not eager to get familar with Emacs, but want to try Linux, try these Linux email programs for Windows converts. 02:42 AM IncrediMail Xe Build 1177A new build of IncrediMail is available for download. The build number (1177) is nice, but there's not much spectacular and new in it:
01:13 AM Microsoft Sues Spammers Big TimeMicrosoft have filed 15 lawsuits agains spammers in the U.S. and the U.K.. Wired News, The New York Times, The Economist, New Scientist and many other report, Slashdot discusses.Of course, Microsoft is doing us all a service, and themselves. While I'm not sure about the efficacy of any individual lawsuit/s, there is
The New Scientist interprets this to mean "legitimate, but still unwanted" spam will increase. I'm not sure what to make of this given that spam (as such) is illegal in Europe by October 2003 at the latest, and some law will be passed in the U.S., too (sooner-or-later). ›› Tips for fighting spam yourself are here, and there are many tools, too. 03:37 PM Most Popular Stationery Picks (Updated)I have updated the list of the most-loved, most-downloaded stationery picks for Outlook Express, and I am a bit surprised to see how much (how little, really) you appreciate dad's day... Of course, that's just protest, I know. Fathers don't like Father's Day.02:54 PM Make McAfee SpamKiller Update its Filters AutomaticallyMcAfee SpamKiller is only as good at catching spam as its filters. Make sure you're always using the most up to date (thus best) filters — automatically.02:09 PM |
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