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In addition to my technical writing background, I have worked as a computer consultant for many years. Thus, allow me to suggest a few things for you to do if you're so bothered by these messages. If you're using Windows:
1) If you *can* do so, dump Outlook or Outlook Express. These are notoriously insecure. One really great-looking new Windows email client is Bloomba, with a free beta from www.bloomba.com. Nearly anything other than Outlook is better, though, from a security standpoint.
2) If you are not using an external spam filter, there are several very good ones. If you *must* run Outlook, try the plugin from the SpamBayes project (www.sourceforge.com/projects/spambayes). They also have a proxy version if you are using another mail client. This is a spam filter that "learns" from your spam messages and quickly will eliminate the problem.
3) If you don't have some kind of firewall on your system, you should. A free one that is pretty good is Zone Alarm from www.zonelabs.com. The free version is accessible from the bottom left part of the home page (unless they have moved its position); the paid one is, of course, more feature rich but you should be able to get all you want from the free one.
4) Of course, you should also have an up-to-date antivirus program. As you probably know, there are several and many of them should be quite adequate.
Now, if you have the option, I would also suggest you consider using a dual-boot setup for your mail and Web surfing. Linux or one of the BSD variants are much faster than *any* version of Windows; there are several variants that are also very secure by default.
I hope this may be helpful to you...feel free to email me off list if you wish for any specific advice.
David Neeley
dbneeley -at- oddpost -dot- com
-----Original Message from "Domaschuk, Rob" <Robd -at- datalogics -dot- com>-----
After being on and off this list for 5 years, I am saying farewell. I've
received some great advice, given some irrelevant advice myself, and had a
lot of fun.
However, I cleaned out the 150+ spam messages on Saturday, only to find 400
in my inbox this morning....
NEED TO PUBLISH YOUR FRAMEMAKER CONTENT ONLINE?
?Mustang? (code name) is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to Web, intranets, and online Help.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! See a live demo that
will take your breath away: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l3
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