Getting Rid of Spam

I don’t know about you, in the past 6-months or so, I have been inundated with spam e-mail! Imagine receiving this much junk mail in your mail box everyday! So, how do we get rid of it. 1st of all, if you have a website, you’ll be more prone to spam, because your e-mail address is out there. To control the spam inflow there are several options. One of the easier options is to login to your ISP website,and adjust your spam filter settings to delete the e-mails identified as spam, before they are downloaded to your computer. This holds a risk. If your ISP misidentifies an e-mail from a friend as spam, you’ll never know that it was deleted; until your friend calls you to give you a hard time for not replying to his e-mail.

There's no such thing as a free lunch

Should you bite at the offer of a free meal from eComTrainers? In 2004 we warned about the Utah-based company StoresOnline. It was selling overpriced website development and hosting, mainly to small New Zealand businesses. A similar scheme is currently being promoted by eComTrainers and Internet Marketing Conference around the North Island. It appears that the company behind StoresOnline is also behind the latest seminars. The pitch is the well worn offer of a free lunch and bag of goodies if you attend a presentation. Don't be swayed by a free lunch. Things to watch: * The cost of the purchase of a website. If the price is above $2,000 forget it - you're likely to be able to get a better deal from a local web developer. * The cost of the ongoing support and its availability. Ask the hard questions and insist on unambiguous responses. * The annual hosting fee. You don't have to pay thousands to an overseas company - there is an excellent range of home grown web hosting companies charging moderate fees that are in line with the service you are buying. Because of the close association with StoresOnline, a company that has disappointed many New Zealand consumers in the past, we strongly recommend you have nothing to do with eComTrainers and Internet Marketing Conference. Similar schemes may also be offered under other names. We urge caution.

Another Cool Keyboard Shortcut:

you are on the internet and you need to type in a website address such as www.skype.com. Instead of typing the www and the .com just type skype and the hold the Ctrl key and tap the Enter key. And the www and .com will automatically be put in! Or if you want to be bold and you use Mozilla Firefox type in skype and press Enter! Mozilla Firefox will search for skype and assume you mean www.skype.com. Internet Explorer will search for possible web sites with skype as part of them and then show you the search results.

Speaking of Skype (again): In a few previous columns I wrote about VoIP technology and Skype. One other service that I wanted to point out was the ability to call any standard phone through the internet. If you have signed up for a Skype account, www.skype.com, you can also sign up for “Skype Account”. Very similar to purchasing a phone card, you would purchase calling credit with SkypeOut, then click on the Dial tab and click in the phone number you wish to dial in the following format: "+" + "country code" + "number". You can also use "00" or "011" before the country code. One of the troubles I ran into was how to dial the required + in front of the number. To get the + in the number click and hold down your left mouse button over the "0 +" button for 2 seconds to get the "+" symbol. For example: to dial a number within New Zealand +64(area code - do not include the -0-)(phone number); or to dial the States: +(areacode)(phone number) no spaces or dashes.

Skype! What is all the hype about Skype!

According to ComputerWorld (Feb 15, 2006)

“According to Telecom monitoring, Skype has 40,000 users in New Zealand”, says company spokesman Nick Brown. That figure amounts to a third of all Telecom broadband users; but, despite that, Brown says Skype’s impact is not significant yet.” The Skype website says: “Skype is a little program for making free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has Skype. It’s free and easy to download and use, and works with most computers.”
Skype requires:* PC running Windows 2000 or XP. (The new video feature requires Windows XP.) * Internet connection (broadband is best, GPRS is not supported for voice calls, and results may vary on a satellite connection). * Speakers and microphone — built-in or separate. * A webcam, if you want to make video calls. * They also recommend that you have at least 400 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM and 15 MB free disk space on your hard drive.
Skype may work with Windows 98 (Win98)or ME but they cannot yet guarantee compatibility.If you have the above specifications, you can download Skype from www.skype.com.