 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Prostate Cancer / May 2004Speaking of spam ...
After changing ISPs some time ago I decided not to use my new ISP email address for posting anything on the Internet. Instead I use this Yahoo address. I'm probably averaging about 100 spams a day on my Yahoo address, but their spam filters catch about 95 of them. They seem to be doing a super job of catching spam. I recommend Yahoo to anyone who wants a free email address for Internet postings that is reasonably resistent to spam. It means I've got two mailboxes to check, my private one and my Yahoo one, but I like that better than having 100 spams a day delivered into my inbox. Alan I found it interesting that the day after I got my new AOL email that I had spam. How the heck did they get the email address, I had not even used the account yet? I had a welcome message from AOL, and spam! My new Earthlink account, about three weeks old now, has not yet had any spam, even though I am using it daily. Of course my email address here is entirely fake. After getting over 200 a day with the last Microsoft patch mess I would never use my real one on a ng. Just my 2 cents. Thank you. Have a good day. David S. >After changing ISPs some time ago I decided not >to use my new ISP email address for posting anything [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Alan Why am I not surprised!! The answer is simple......AOL!! I detest that ISP and we see loads of problems on the WinME ng's because AOL 9 conflicts with our O/S. A few weeks back, I wondered if Yahoo had cleaned up their act (and Hotmail) and opened a new account at each and never used it. No spam in either of them so far. Yahoo has changed and it is ever so much better....6 meg of messages now and the bulk and trash don't count. I will be using it more often, I think. Dump AOL, Dave......Heather > I found it interesting that the day after I got my new AOL email > that I had spam. How the heck did they get the email address, I had [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > > > > Alan this old webtv was getting hit hard with spam until about three weeks ago, when finally got their act together and my spam ads have dropped by 95% without my having to do anything. ~ curtis knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional "Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so." > ... > Dump AOL, Dave......Heather > ... I've always thought that the relentless advertisements AOL pushes in front of you were as bad as the spam you get in your mailbox. It's like you're paying AOL to spam you. Most ISPs give you a connection to the Internet and then leave you alone. AOL charges as much or more than the others, and then pushes ads in your face on top of it. I'm not sure the extras that AOL has - their own special content and chat rooms, are worth the extra hassle. It's not like the Internet doesn't have enough information on it and the extra stuff on AOL is required. Having said that, I'll also say that I'd be surprised if AOL sold your email address to a spammer. I think it's more likely that 1) you picked an email address that somebody else used a long time ago and then gave up - and was still floating around the spammer databases, or 2) you are the victim of an email address generator program that happened to generate your address. The spammers don't care if 90% of the email they send out goes to non-existent addresses. That's only a problem for the mail relays that they hijack to send the spam. So they often run programs to fiddle with common email addresses to generate variations that might also be possible hits. Alan > Why am I not surprised!! The answer is simple......AOL!! I detest that ISP > and we see loads of problems on the WinME ng's because AOL 9 conflicts with [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Dump AOL, Dave......Heather Not that I'm a big AOL supporter Heather, but I am a computer techie and geek. Of course the latest AOL won't work with your machine. You can't use an OS, WinME, that's no longer even supported by Microsoft and complain. I speak for many clients that were glad to dump it years ago. It's awful, crashes constantly, and was replaced years ago by WinXP which is lightyears ahead of it in every way. NO MORE BLUE SCREENS OF DEATH with XP. That's right, not one in the years I've been working with it. We have already had a service pack 1, that addressed many security issues, and a service pack 2 coming. It's directly supported and updated by MS online. Now I'm sure you'll tell me why you love WinME, but there's still plenty of folks using Win95 & Win98, and swearing by it as well. I'd bet you could find an active users group for Win3.11, and even the Tandy Color Computer. Getting back to AOL. I'm one of their Beta testers for new products, but I have no allegiance to them at all. In fact I hate them like poison for many reasons. 9.0 is feature rich and wonderful except....... the advertising is totally out of hand. Rumor has it that they do sell their member lists all over the place. Especially newbies. The vultures troll it like mad, stealing passwords, and spreading worms. The spam problem is horrendous, but is somewhat controllable. The thing that keeps all those millions of folks there? All those message boards and live chat rooms.  SignatureJK Sinrod Sinrod Stained Glass Studios www.sinrodstudios.com Coney Island Memories www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories Btw.....I better say this up front.......I am writing this tongue in cheek......enjoying the verbal jousting to be honest. see inline.... > > Dump AOL, Dave......Heather > > > Not that I'm a big AOL supporter Heather, but I am a computer techie and geek. Of course the latest AOL won't work with your machine. You can't use an OS, WinME, that's no longer even supported by Microsoft and complain. <<< OK......I didn't want to disappoint you by not defending WinME (G). But you are totally wrong, Mr. Geek......MS changed their mind and are now supporting it till June of 2005, or is it 2006.......anyway, WinME is still getting patches (rarely needs them tho) and support. As is 98 for a while. I will find the appropriate link if you wish. >>>> I speak for many clients that were glad to dump it years ago. It's awful, crashes constantly, and was replaced years ago by WinXP which is lightyears ahead of it in every way. NO MORE BLUE SCREENS OF DEATH with XP. That's right, not one in the years I've been working with it. <<< Love it....you are on my turf now. I have used WinME for over 3 years and I get the occasional blue screen....doesn't scare the hell out of me, my man. But I know the few quirks that WinME has and trust me, they are not many......which is why I give advice on the MS news groups. I am not a certified 'geek' (aka MS-MVP).....but sure do know a lot about WinME. And if I don't, then I have some very expert MVP's to ask. >>>>We have already had a many security issues, and a service pack 2 coming. It's directly supported and updated by MS online.<<<< Ummm, something you don't know. I go to people's houses and take worms, trojans and viruses off their XP computers.....sure do get a lot of them, don't you?? (VBG) However, I will concede that my friendly virus writers (sarcasm) are targetting XP and 2000. I am quite happy I don't have either. And security issues?? Hell.....I updated my neighbour's XP (coz he didn't know he had to do that).....there were over 70 patches and critical updates to be downloaded on a brand new computer. So that is a *secure system*??? Not. I have never in 3 years downloaded more than maybe 20 or 30. Not all that many, anyway. Unfortunately no one tells *Joe Average User* that he has to clean out his cache, TEMP files, cookies, and check Startup to uncheck a lot of crap that isn't needed. I usually spend some time and clean up the XP computers and teach them how to do it. Plus I download Zone Alarm, AVG antivirus, Spybot Search & Destroy (if they are literate enough to use it), Mailwasher, SpywareBlaster.....and any other freebie program that will prevent their getting infected again. I also use HiJack This and CWS, if warranted. And then threaten to break their fingers if they don't keep the proggies updated......grin. My neighbour had 12 trojans and 115 pieces of spyware on his XP two weeks ago. Why? He turned off Zone Alarm and AVG.....didn't think he needed to have them running coz they 'slowed XP down'. You and I both know what slowed him down..... I have had browser hijackers.....back when no one knew what they were. But that is the extent of it. I practice 'safe hex' and don't get viruses. I use EZ Trust, with F-Prot for DOS as a backup manual scanner. Rarely need them, but EZ Trust is running all the time. I DO have XP Home sitting in a box beside me.....it has been sitting there for a year. When I get time to figure out how to partition this baby, I will add it. I want to dual boot, but it is a big job and haven't had time to learn all the ins and outs. But I am glad to see your explanation re AOL possibly selling names. That did cross my mind. I am not a fan of chat rooms either. I don't know why on earth people use that ISP, but their tech support sucks.....as do most of the big companies (Dell, Compaq and so on)......that is why we get so many people coming to the MS news groups saying that X company told them they had a virus....(same on the antivirus ng). Cheers...and this post has been fun, really. I wish that our respective governments would get off their butts and put a stop to spam and viruses. Some of the English ISP's are really cracking down on it. I see that because I run a couple of British genealogy Lists and spam and viruses are such a pain. I have my folks trained and no one seems to get them anymore on MY Lists...but others do. Over to you, grin.......Ms. Geek. > Getting back to AOL. I'm one of their Beta testers for new products, > but I have no allegiance to them at all. In fact I hate them like poison [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > horrendous, but is somewhat controllable. The thing that keeps all those > millions of folks there? All those message boards and live chat rooms. Heather: Thank you again for your help on the virus/worm thing. I ran the program to test for the presence of the virus and came up clean. Then I downloaded the patch from Gates & Co.. And I ordered Zone Alarm Pro 4.0 from Amazon (free shipping, so I won't get that until next week). I did try to download the free version of Zone Alarm, but with dial up it took forever to get to 19%, and after sitting there waiting for the other two to download it was time for bed, so I decided to go full boat and get the paid version. I think with that I get a year's updates too, so that may be worth the money. Again, I just wanted to thank you for your help. Of course, I did not tell my wife about us :) . Thank you. David S. >Btw.....I better say this up front.......I am writing this tongue in >cheek......enjoying the verbal jousting to be honest. [quoted text clipped - 94 lines] >> horrendous, but is somewhat controllable. The thing that keeps all those >> millions of folks there? All those message boards and live chat rooms. I'm starting fresh instead of copying all the previous so this will be scattered. My government will NEVER fix the spam issue. Why? My country is completely, utterly, and entirely ruled by LAWYERS. If 1/10th of 1% of a small group, even criminals, has their rights trodden on. They become the victims in the eyes of our justice system. I love my country, but hate the legal system sometimes. Throw away your sissy XP Home, and get the latest edition of WinXP Professional that has all the updates included. The reason there are so many small updates to install, is that it's been around for a long time, and is constantly trying to keep up with the animals that look for loopholes 24/7. Why would a 14 year old criminal virus creator want to mess with an obsolete OS that has a few users, when he can attack to biggie with millions of victims? Don't forget that XP is very network friendly. You may not know this, but using just one of your computers with XP, you can network, with net access 100's of machines without even using a router. It has a built in firewall, and you can dictate sharing on each machine on your local net. As I said it's really light years ahead of WinME. Ever wonder why you are spending so much time on your WinMe NG's giving and seeking advice? IT'S AWFUL. The millenium has been over for 4 years!An admitted mistake by MS, and was only in use a short time. The longer you run ME the more compatibility issues you'll have, but it really depends on exactly what you are using it for Heather? If you are word processing, and NG reading, you may as well use Win98. If you are sharing printers, broadband, files, playing state of the art games, DLing etc... you'll want the latest and the best. -- JK Sinrod Sinrod Studios www.sinrodstudios.com Coney Island Memories www.sinrodstudios.com/coneymemories Hi JK......see inline..... > I'm starting fresh instead of copying all the previous so this will be > scattered. > My government will NEVER fix the spam issue. Why? My country is > completely, utterly, and entirely ruled by LAWYERS. If 1/10th of 1% of a small group, even criminals, has their rights trodden on. They become the victims in the eyes of our justice system. I love my country, but hate the legal system sometimes. Can't argue with that.....but I worked in law for 30 years and have a different take on our legal system. Doesn't mean I disagree with you though. You guys seem to be so hung up on 'freedom of speech'....that mystifies me. We have always had freedom of speech.....as have most civilized countries. > Throw away your sissy XP Home, and get the latest edition of WinXP Professional that has all the updates included. The reason there are so many small updates to install, is that it's been around for a long time, and is constantly trying to keep up with the animals that look for loopholes 24/7.<<<<<< I don't want XP Professional....that version is for businesses, networking and heavy duty gaming......none of which I do. Besides, this one was free. And legal. One of my MS-MVP friends ordered it for me from Microsoft when he heard Ron had Pca...... > Why would a 14 year old criminal virus creator want to mess with an obsolete > OS that has a few users, when he can attack to biggie with millions of > victims? Don't forget that XP is very network friendly. You may not know this, but using just one of your computers with XP, you can network, with net access 100's of machines without even using a router. It has a built in firewall, and you can dictate sharing on each machine on your local net. As I said it's really light years ahead of WinME.<<<< And therein lies your problem.......*network friendly*. File and print sharing is what the virus writers aim at. I turned that off in WinME immediately. The built-in firewall for XP is NOT as good as Zone Alarm or other 3rd party firewalls. > Ever wonder why you are spending so much time on your WinMe NG's giving and seeking advice? IT'S AWFUL. The millenium has been over for 4 years! An admitted mistake by MS, and was only in use a short time. The longer you run ME the more compatibility issues you'll have, but it really depends on exactly what you are using it for Heather? If you are word processing, and NG reading, you may as well use Win98. If you are sharing printers, broadband, files, playing state of the art games, DLing etc... you'll want the latest and the best. Nope....disagree. Most of the problems seem to be with not being able to scandisk and defrag, particularly when they haven't done it for a year or two. I simply tell them to do it in Safe Mode. Btw....have you ever used WinME?? I find that most of the people that run it down have never used it. Oddly enough......to you anyway......WindowsME has far less problems that XP. And far less patches. It was a quick O/S thrown in till XP was ready to be *beta tested* on the unsuspecting public, grin. XP is a combination of WinME and Win2000. So it can't be all that bad, lol. Probably boring the hell out of the Pca readers, but you do have some points for XP....I have some for ME. (WinME, that is). When I look at the XP help groups.......there are far more problems with that O/S. But then again.....it is very often the user.....not the O/S. No one is ever given proper instructions on how to run it and they don't RTFM. Cheers.....Heather At the risk of stepping into a religious war I'll weigh in with a point or two. WinME is the last version that still has some 16 bit real-mode code in it. NT, 2000, and XP are 100% 32 bit protected mode code. In "real-mode", the processor can access any bit of memory, anywhere. In "protected mode", the processor state is such that hardware prevents it from accessing any memory that was not allocated to the particular process that is running. Although most Win95/98/ME programs are written in protected mode, they call device drivers, OS services, and DLLs that may switch to real mode to do things. That makes it possible for a bug in a program to overwrite memory used by another program, or by the operating system, thus crashing the whole system instead of just the one program with the bug. Microsoft didn't like keeping in the real-mode code, but they did it to maintain maximum compatibility with old DOS and Win 3.1 applications. In XP, that shouldn't happen, and my experience is that it really doesn't. All bells and whistles aside, the first and most important thing I want in a computer is reliability. So I have to vote with JK for XP. The guy at Microsoft who was in charge of NT/2000/XP development (Jim Allchin) was a serious believer in reliability and I think he did a pretty good job - though the guys working on ME were no dummies either. And now for a real religious experience, how about trying Linux! It's pretty stable, pretty secure, comes with a ton of useful software and (ta da!!!) is totally FREE! Alan Updated Clarification on the Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Support Extended Announcement (to June 30, 2006, btw) http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[LN];LifeAn1 Heather > Not that I'm a big AOL supporter Heather, but I am a computer techie and > geek. Of course the latest AOL won't work with your machine. You can't use [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > horrendous, but is somewhat controllable. The thing that keeps all those > millions of folks there? All those message boards and live chat rooms. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.