bitsconsultants.com email newsletter

June 2003

Spam, spam, spam.

In the last month, I received roughly 7500 email messages. Of these, all but about 375 were unsolicited and commercial in nature. Almost all were sent without an opt-out option. Judging from the number of questions I answer about spam, I know it's a problem for many of you, too. I never see most UCE (unsolicited commercial email) sent to me because I use a whole slew of anti-spam tools to intercept it. My smorgasbord of spam-fighting tools caught all but about 200 of the 7000+ UCE messages sent to me last month.

Congress has been talking about spam for years but finally seems poised to do something about it. Legislators have proposed competing bills to govern various aspects of UCE. The approaches being considered include requiring labels on all commercial email, mandating opt-out procedures, requiring opt-in procedures, and maintaining a "no-spam" list similar to the FTC "no-call" list for commercial telephone solicitation. According to the anti-spam group CAUCE, the legislation being considered would do more harm than good. They say it legitimizes UCE and would compromise stronger legislation already passed in some states.

This all may be just so much tilting at windmills: it seems spam is here to stay. I believe there are legitimate ways to use UCE (like this newsletter for instance). I just wish there was a good way to stop bulk mailers from sending P0®N to my mom.

Currently, the best way for you to protect yourself from spam is to load and maintain a good email filter software. Of all the anti-spam software I've used, "iHateSpam" is the one I recommend for users of Outlook and Outlook Express (including my Mom). It's easy to configure, and integrates directly with Outlook.

Tech News Highlights

Apple launches iTunes.

Apple launched a new music downloading service called iTunes this month. For 99^¢ a song, users can download music for their Macintosh and iPod, Apple's popular digital music player. So far, this has been a success (particularly in terms of Apple's stock price). There have been some problems with piracy using the iTunes model, but Apple seems to have patched those holes. The iTunes service may become the model for selling media content on the web and the big five record companies seem committed to the service.

In contrast to the iTunes a la carte distribution model, music downloading services for the PC have traditionally required paying an ongoing subscription. The success of iTunes has left Microsoft, Roxio, and other PC realm companies scrambling to catch up and reinvent their music services and copy protection technologies.

Microsoft and AOL reach agreement.

Microsoft and AOL Time Warner have reached a broad agreement over some of the contentious issues that often kept the two companies at odds over the last few years. The agreement includes a cash settlement of 750 million resolving an anti-trust lawsuit from AOL property Netscape. AOL receives a license to distribute Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer for 7 years. The two companies have also agreed to work together to promote digital media content and develop interoperability between their instant messaging platforms. This agreement will probably have a huge impact on the Internet landscape for years to come, and may signal trouble for other Internet media companies such as Apple, Real Networks, and Yahoo.

Ask Randy

Q: Occasionally Outlook gives the error message "sending and receiving reported an error". How can I fix this problem?

A: The first thing I would do is wait for 10 minutes to see if the error continues to occur. This error can result from an unusually high demand on your POP server and may fix itself in a short time.

If the problem does not resolve itself, check your POP and SMTP server settings (for help on this, open Outlook, press the F1 key, and search for "view server settings"). You can get the right name of your POP server from your email account provider and your SMTP server from your ISP (Internet Service Provider). After you have verified your servers, reboot your system.

If the error reoccurs frequently, you may want to increase your server timeouts. In Outlook:

1. On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts.

2. Select View or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.

3. Click the email account you want to change, and then click Change.

4. Click More Settings, and then click the Advanced tab.

5. Under Server Timeouts, move the slider toward Long.

6. Click OK, click Next, and then click Finish.

Antivirus software may also contribute to this problem. To check this, disable your antivirus email scanning. In Norton Antivirus 2002/2003:

1. Start Norton Antivirus, and then click Options.

2. Click Email.

3. Uncheck Scan incoming Email and Scan outgoing Email.

4. Click OK.

If disabling email scanning fixes the problem, you should repair your antivirus software by uninstalling and reinstalling it. 

Tip of the Month

Change your Internet Explorer home page.

Your home page is the page that appears every time you open Internet Explorer. For reasons that elude me, Microsoft made it very easy for a website that you visit to change your home page. Thankfully, it's easy for you to change as well.

1. Go to the page you want to appear when you start Internet Explorer.

2. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

3. Under Home page, click Use Current.

Places on the Web

How Stuff Works

This is a really incredible site. If you've ever wondered why a seashell makes noise when you hold it to your ear or how video facial identification systems identify faces or the mechanics of how identity thieves can steal your identity, this is a great place to find out.

Bali Highway

This is just bizarre. But it's also a lot of fun to explore.

Stay Tuned

We're currently working on these topics for future newsletters:

• Public access Wi-Fi in Austin.
  Public access hotspots are available in Austin and throughout the world. How can you access the Internet on the go?

• Search engine tips.
  How do search engines like Google rank web pages and how can you improve the placement for your site?

• Microsoft Office 2003 preview.
  Should your organization upgrade to the newest Office when it becomes available this fall?