Spam | Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners

Posts Tagged: spam

I don’t miss spam

Margaret Shaffhauser with bull terrier dog at the Canine Association Show, 3 Nov 1934 / by Ted Hood

photo credit: State Library of New South Wales collection

I just emptied 536 spam from my email spam folder.

Today, I ran across some clients who had problems with email spam, and I recanted the following story.

Once upon a time, my email inbox was filled to the brim with spam every single day. Then one cool autumn day in Las Vegas, Nevada at the now defunct Comdex show in 2000 or 2001, I met some nice folks from a startup company called Cloudmark. They were discussing and promoting a new way to combat spam that used human eyes and minds to identify spam instead of computer algorithms.

Intrigued, I immediately downloaded and started using it upon my return from Vegas. Cloudmark was nothing short of Continue reading →

Changing email addresses – It’s not that difficult

photo credit: TheeErin

AOL made millions of dollars for years because computer users are afraid to change their email addresses. All week long, I hear, “Oh, it’s too hard to change email addresses now.” Or, “It will take forever to change my email address with everyone.”

Come on folks…we’re using computers! You don’t have to fill out a change of address form and march it down to the postal office. You don’t have to send out a post card to every person you know. You don’t have to fill out a change of address for all your bills and utilities.

Changing email addresses is actually pretty painless and can be cathartic as well. In fact, think of it as going into the digital identity protection program. Here’s how to make it a smooth transition Continue reading →

Email Tips — No Comments
18
Oct 09

Email Filters – Outlook Express

This tip gives you the tools you need to help organize your email with Outlook Express or Windows Mail. Using Filters is like having an assistant go through your email for you and sort it before you see it. Click here for a previous tip on how to use filters to keep spam out of your inbox. Continue reading →

Riding Shotgun with Rick / Tech News — No Comments
16
Sep 09

Google buys reCaptcha

Google just announced that they have bought reCaptcha. reCaptcha has been a leading company in helping to thwart comment and account spam by requiring a human to decipher characters and words scanned from books before continuing on in a posting or sign up process. Check out the article here:

Official Google Blog: Teaching computers to read: Google acquires reCAPTCHA.

Email Tips / Internet Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
7
Jul 09

Beware of this type of spam

Below is an example of an email spam (unwanted email) that is increasing in frequency. Overall, the email looks to be legit and normal. However, there are two parts of the email that you need to pay particular attention to:

Who is it from? In the example below, I have no idea who Allison is. Red flag number 1. If you don’t recognize the name or the email address, be suspicious.
Link in the email uses an URL (web address) shortener service. If I don’t know who it is from, I’m darn sure not going to click the unidentified link. Red flag number 2.

I started using TinyURL.com years ago in my email and on the radio to be able to quickly and clearly send someone to a long web site address with little hassle. However, with the rising popularity of Twitter and other quick messaging and blog services, more and more URL shortener services have emerged. Most of which have no problems. The problem is Continue reading →

Computer User Group / Email Tips / Internet Tips — 5 Comments
8
Apr 09

Gmail guide for beginners – 3 Videos – Video Tip

This week’s video tip is a HelpMeRick.com first…it involves 3 videos to cover the topic of Gmail. Directly above each video below, I give a short synopsis of the videos contents. The more I use it, the more impressed I am with Gmail. If you currently use Gmail, don’t be afraid to watch these videos as you might pick up a tip or two yourself.

Google offers a good Help section covering their email system, and you can find it by clicking here. My short video series here are meant to just get you started quickly and give you the highlights of this email system. Continue reading →

Announcements — 2 Comments
7
Mar 09

Important Newsletter Information!

If you are a weekly newsletter subscriber, please read this information.

After two weeks of soul searching, research, and web browsing, I decided to move the email newsletter subscribers to my FeedBlitz service. Feedblitz picks out my newest articles and delivers them to you in an email. The service works great and I will be moving the address list into it starting on Monday or Tuesday.

As soon as I move the list into the FeedBlitz system (which is secure and the only access to the email addresses is through me), you will receive an email from the FeedBlitz service asking you to confirm that you want to get the email updates/newsletter from me through them. Click the link in the email that confirms your decision and that’s it! You will soon be receiving the email updates from HelpMeRick.com.

The FeedBlitz team advises the following:

As part of your pre-import advisory message to your existing subscribers, please advise them to:

Add feedblitz@mail.feedblitz.com to their address books or email whitelists immediately.

Only unsubscribe using the links we provide in each email, and not their ISP’s spam or abuse buttons.

Look out for the message from FeedBlitz advising them that the change has taken place.

Thanks for your patience through this transition from the old newsletter service which went south on me.

Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
9
Feb 09

Reunion spam makes a comeback

Social engineering strikes again.

Last spring, a spam posing as a reunion invitation made its rounds around the Internet. The spam/virus gets spread by an unsuspecting and less than alert computer user opens an email supposedly from a class mate inviting them to a reunion. Once the email is opened, a root-kit (hard to detect spyware/virus hybrid) gets deployed on the person’s computer and begins to spread itself from there.

This scenario repeats itself hundreds of thousands times over a couple of days and eventually infects millions of computers around the world.

A variant of the very same ploy started to make its rounds again this year coming to a crescendo over the past couple of weeks with millions more people duped.

Why are so many computer users desperate enough for friendship that after years of warnings, they continue to open up suspect emails? I cringe every time someone tells me, “I only open up emails from people I know.” Don’t you think that the degenerates in our society know that? Of course they do, and that’s why they purposely design these types of malware to take advantage of your inability to distinguish between legitimate email and suspect email. It’s also why the most visited page on my web site is about puppy scams…people, in general, don’t want to think. They want everyone else to think for them, but curse and cry when they are taken advantage.

Wake up people! The answers are out there if you want to find them and learn from them. Anyone who puts the least amount of thought into what they are doing with email should have no problems what-so-ever with this kind of tripe.

Email Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick — 3 Comments
27
Oct 08

Clean your inbox

stuffed inbox Email truly revolutionized communication. The ability to retrieve a message from anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds is mind boggling. However, judging by the size of your inboxes (a poll I posted recently showed that 60% of email users had more than 100 messages in their inbox), you could benefit from some tips on how to keep your inbox clean.

I used to keep as many as many as 50 or so email stacked up in my inbox, but I always felt that I was behind in my work and consequently much of the email went unread and unanswered. A little more than a year ago, it all changed after I read an article that struck a chord with me called Email Zen. I immediately started practicing the techniques and suggestions in the article and found myself with a cleaner inbox and a better overall outlook (no pun intended) about email and my email communication. I continue to strive for the empty inbox and find that if i get more than 10, I start to get a little jumpy.

From reading that article and my own experience over the past eighteen months, here are my suggestions for reaching harmony with email:

Employ a good spam filter. The best one available for Outlook, Outlook Express, or Thunderbird is Cloudmark Desktop, hands down. Don’t even bother telling me about another one…unless it is better than this one.
Use Gmail instead of Outlook or any other email system. The tools available in Gmail make handling email a breeze, and the built-in spam filter with Gmail is phenomenal negating step 1.
Learn to use filters to sort and manage your email.
Learn to use built-in search tools in your email program to extract information from saved email.
Unsubscribe from any online newsletters, forums, or email groups that you don’t actively read and never will. Remember NOT to unsubscribe from spam, that only brings more spam.
Ask your email buddies who forward messages and jokes to you that you would like to be removed from their list…again, if you don’t actively read them.
Respond to your incoming email as quickly as possible…preferably directly after you read it so that it is handled only one time.
If you have a phone that is capable of checking your email, use it while in the bathroom, standing in line for lunch, waiting for an appointment, etc. Responding to an email on your phone will make your response brief and to the point and save you that time later when you return to your computer.

Another good article for learning how to handle email in an efficient manner is Inbox Zero over at 43folders.com If you have some other techniques that you find work well for keeping email under control, leave a comment and share it! If you are one of the 60% plus who have 50 or more email in their inbox, give these techniques a try and let me know what you think.

Photo by PatrickO’Shaughnessey

Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
16
Oct 08

My first year with Gmail

Mailbox I closed Outlook and started using Gmail exclusively one year ago. At first, I thought it would be a good experiment to see what Gmail was really all about, but I was also fed up with Outlook and its limitations. It took me two or three weeks to wean myself of thinking of my email in the same way that I used to with Outlook. For the experiment to work, Gmail had to satisfactorily accomplish 3 key functions of email that I handled pretty well with Outlook:

Spam filtering (I used Cloudmark Desktop with Outlook for years and am convinced that for Outlook/Outlook Express or Thunderbird users there is no equal).
Aggregate all of my email addresses (5) in one system.
Organize my email with categories (folders) and automated filtering for shifting email to their appropriate category/folder.

If Gmail could equal or exceed what I could do with Outlook, then I would consider it a success. Gmail’s spam filtering quickly impressed me. In fact, one year later, I can say confidently that Gmail’s spam filtering is superior to that of the Cloudmark system that kept me sane for years with Outlook. Feature #1, check!

I learned to use the Accounts feature in Gmail to successfully and seamlessly pull all my email addresses (and sort them) into my Gmail account. Beautiful; Feature #2, check!

Organizing my email, without the use of folders, proved to be the biggest learning curve. One year later, however, I am happy to report that the learning curve was worth it. Gmail’s Label system for organizing email becomes an astonishingly superior method of organizing email compared to folders once you get the hang of it. Combining the use of Gmail Labels and Gmail Filters makes organizing and managing email almost painless. Feature #3 check.

Since Gmail handled all my key elements of email use with aplomb, I stayed with Gmail and for the time being have no interest in changing. I’m always on the look out for a quicker, easier, and more intuitive to accomplish any technology task, but when it comes to email, every other service, in my opinion, has much to learn from Gmail. In addition to accomplishing all the things I need email to do, I find that the two other features that keep me tied to Gmail are the superior and quick searching ability and the fact that I have access to my email from any computer or phone in the world. Using Gmail made me start to enjoy email again and I know that I’m much more organized and responsive to my email than I was just one year ago.

To learn more about email, read my tip and watch my 3 how-to Gmail videos by clicking here. Do you have a Gmail story to share? If so, please post it below…good or bad.

Story photo by Tim Norris