TGIF | Winners Announced | Etc.

Folks, I am pleased to announce the winners of my latest software license giveaway drawing.

The folks at SPAMFighter have  donated 5 licenses for SPAMFighter Pro to me, to award to my readers. SPAMFighter is a community-based spam filtering tool for Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Thunderbird that automatically and efficiently filters spam and phishing fraud – keeping it out of your Inbox.

When a new e-mail arrives, it is automatically tested by SPAMfighter. If it’s spam, it will be instantly moved to your SPAMfighter folder. If you receive a spam mail that is not detected, click on a single button, and the spam mail is removed from the rest of the 7,258,856 7,264,984 SPAMfighters in 228 countries in seconds.

“Overall, SPAMfighter is a very simple to use product, especially for the novice. It can be setup and run with little to no user intervention and simply begins working on its own. I currently run this as my spam program and have given it an Editors Pick due to its simplicity, effectiveness and ability to keep a free version.” ~ Tim Tibbetts, review on MajorGeeks. Rating = 5/5 Stars

Benefits:

• Award winning technology to block spam
• Protects all the email accounts on your PC
• Protects against “phishing”, identity theft, and other email frauds
• Privacy Guaranteed – we don’t see any of your email
• Blacklist and block domains and emails
• Spam abuse reporting with one click – Get revenge now!
• Unique language filtering tool – Stop emails in languages you don’t understand

SPAMFighter Standard is free for personal use, but the program adds a SPAMfighter footer to your outgoing e-mails, and also displays small text advertisements in its toolbar. Purchase SPAMfighter Pro (retail $29/yr) and you get rid of the ads and footer. You also gain the ability to blacklist or whitelist unlimited domains and addresses (the free edition is limited to 100). The Pro edition can block messages written in specific foreign languages.

And the lucky winners are:

Winners, congratulations! Check your e-mail for your license key. Again, I thank the folks at SPAMFighter for making this giveaway possible. If you use an e-mail client, try it out yourself. You can get started by downloading the trial, here. (It will revert to the free version after 30 days.)

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Well, that was a nice “Friday thing”. Upbeat. Light-hearted. Kinda fun. A couple of readers have written in and asked me why I didn’t post my usual Sunday Beauty images recently.. so, I will put one up here, now, as more Friday Fun.

Today’s free download: Internet Explorer 9 (beta)
Reviewed by: Seth Rosenblatt on September 16, 2010

“First Take: After several months of teasing Internet Explorer’s upgrade with a series of feature-free developer’s previews, Microsoft has unleashed on the world an Internet Explorer 9 beta (32-bit Windows 7; 64-bit Windows 7; 32-bit Windows Vista; 64-bit Windows Vista) with some impressive new features. Like any properly named beta, though, there are also some bugs to be ironed out.

This is the biggest overhaul to the browser since Internet Explorer 7 landed. The changes to the interface are enormous, the browser’s overall usability has greatly improved, it’s more secure, and it’s significantly faster and more standards compliant.”

I hope you all have a marvelous weekend, and thanks for stopping by.

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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Software License Giveaway Drawing: SPAMFighter Pro

Folks, I am pleased to announce my latest software license giveaway drawing.

The folks at SPAMFighter have generously donated 5 licenses for SPAMFighter Pro to me, to award to my readers. I sincerely thank them for that. So I am going to do a random drawing¹ contest from folks who “enter” by posting a comment (below). The drawing will close midnight (Pacific) Thursday, Sept. 17th, and the winners announced Friday.

SPAMFighter is a community-based spam filtering tool for Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Thunderbird that automatically and efficiently filters spam and phishing fraud – keeping it out of your Inbox.

When a new e-mail arrives, it is automatically tested by SPAMfighter. If it’s spam, it will be instantly moved to your SPAMfighter folder. If you receive a spam mail that is not detected, click on a single button, and the spam mail is removed from the rest of the 7,258,856 SPAMfighters in 228 countries in seconds.

“Overall, SPAMfighter is a very simple to use product, especially for the novice. It can be setup and run with little to no user intervention and simply begins working on its own. I currently run this as my spam program and have given it an Editors Pick due to its simplicity, effectiveness and ability to keep a free version.” ~ Tim Tibbetts, review on MajorGeeks. 5/5 Stars

“Blocks most spam. Almost no false positives. Filters any e-mail account in supported clients.” ~ Neil J. Rubenking, review in PC Magazine.

Benefits:

• Award winning technology to block spam
• Protects all the email accounts on your PC
• Protects against “phishing”, identity theft, and other email frauds
• Privacy Guaranteed – we don’t see any of your email
• Blacklist and block domains and emails
• Spam abuse reporting with one click – Get revenge now!
• Unique language filtering tool – Stop emails in languages you don’t understand

SPAMfighter requires:
Operating System – Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7 (32 and 64bit)
Email client – Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2010 (32bit). Outlook Express 5.5 (and later).
Windows Mail (Only 32bit) and Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0, 3.0 and 3.1.

SPAMFighter Standard is free for personal use, but the program adds a SPAMfighter footer to your outgoing e-mails, and also displays small text advertisements in its toolbar. Purchase SPAMfighter Pro (retail $29/yr) and you get rid of the ads and footer. You also gain the ability to blacklist or whitelist unlimited domains and addresses (the free edition is limited to 100). The Pro edition can block messages written in specific foreign languages.

How to enter? Residents of the US and Canada may enter the drawing by simply clicking on “comment”, and entering a name and a valid e-mail (so I can send you the key) in the form. Actually commenting is optional. And, I shouldn’t have to say this, but multiple entries will result in disqualification.

Again, I thank the folks at SPAMFighter for making this giveaway possible. Try it out yourself. (And then leave a comment. You may just win an activation key..) You can get started by downloading the trial, here. (It will revert to the free version after 30 days.)

¹ All entrants will be placed into Random.org’s “randomizer”, and the top 5 results will be the winners.

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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Gmail — Automated Phishing Detection

Google’s Gmail is currently testing a service designed to alert Gmail users to messages that appear to be phishing attacks.

These phishing alerts operate automatically, much like spam filtering. Gmail’s spam filters automatically divert messages that are suspected of being unwanted messages into ‘Spam’. Similarly, Gmail’s phishing alerts automatically display warnings with messages we suspect are phishing attacks so you know to exercise caution before providing any personal information. (for more details, click here)

Important: You should always be wary of any message that asks for your personal information, or messages that refer you to a webpage asking for personal information.

(You might want to think about how Gmail could do this ‘detecting’…)

If you aren’t quite sure what to look for when you suspect an e-mail might be one of these cybercrime ploys, this brief video can help.

To Detect Phishing

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Webmail Link Protection | Survey Results

One of the greatest dangers on the Internet today is links sent in e-mail — called “embedded links”. A click on a link sent by a cyber-criminal can infect your machine, direct you to a bogus website which infects your machine and/or asks you to enter your private information (ID Theft) in a scheme known as “phishing”.
It is reported that cyber-criminals duped 9 million Americans last year (we’re so trusting and.. naive.).

I have advised my readers, never click the link. But .. people still do. So, I advise enabling a phishing filter. Currently, it is my humble opinion that the free tool from Web Of Trust (WOT) is the simplest to understand and easiest to use.

Today, the good folks at WOT alerted me that they are now integrated with Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail– better protection for us. Here’s a short video showing how it works.

And if video is not your thing, Fellow blogger Bill Mullins has an excellent write up on the new WOT, here.

Change of subject dept: (aka Survey Results!)
Earlier this week I posted a six question survey. I regret to confess that there were “trick” questions in there where more than one answer was ‘right’… and nobody (I don’t think) picked it up.

For just one example, I asked “What does 11101 equate to?” and the answers 29, eleven thousand one hundred and one, and Zip code were ‘correct’. (Albany, NY.) Yes. All three answers.
This being a “tech” site, I’m glad to report that 29 was by far and away the most popular answer. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_numeral_system)

I also asked two questions about Microsoft Word, and I must say the answers I got fit pretty well with my preconceived notions and inherent prejudices.
Only one person though Office 2007 brought “much needed improvements”; the majority said Word was required for work/school (and they would stick w/Word 2003); and that in today’s day and age, Word is largely irrelevant.. I think it is the younger set that is picking up on this fact, and the older you are, the more likely you were to reply “must have”. I could be wrong, of course. But I think it is the way we were ‘trained’. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloatware)

I won’t go through the reader responses line for line, but I will say that the general tone showed much more tech-savvy than it would have ten years ago. And it was clear that (my readers, anyway) people are spending a lot of time online.. and making an effort to stay “hip” (to use some California lingo).

That makes sense. Broadband and mobile devices have made the Internet pretty much available to everyone, everywhere, any time. And so I would like to remind you that the Internet is a dangerous place, and not some well-policed Disneyland.

Be alert. Be wary. Be protected. And get WOT.

(Hey, pretty good how I tied that together, eh?)

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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What Is Going On With Hotmail?

[Attn: This is an older article. There is an Internet problem today (probably hacker-caused), and Hotmail is one of the domains affected. It should clear itself up soon.]

Yes Folks, you weren’t hallucinating; and no, you haven’t been ‘hijacked’– the good folks at Hotmail Command have just revamped the UI and now it looks different… They’ve given Hotmail a makeover.

Supposedly, it is more “streamlined” and will be “faster”.

But — this is a case of fiddling while Rome burns. There was nothing wrong with Hotmail’s look that a good ad blocker didn’t cure AND, for some reason, in the last couple of weeks Hotmail has been allowing patently obvious spam through to my Inbox.

Which my recent reader survey seems to indicate is a prevalent and pervasive trend. (I think some of the “no” responses came from trolls.)

What I am saying is that Hotmail used to know that “earn at home” and “Rolex watches” in the Subject line = Spam/Junk, but now doesn’t. The filter has lost significant IQ points. (A head injury?)

With Google’s Gmail having such an excellent reputation for spam-catching, combined with the fact that Google has Microsoft dead in its sights (and is winning. see Google’s Dominance Is Your Reward) you would think that Hotmail would strive to do better. Instead, they’re putting lipstick on a bleeding patient.

Tip of the day: I offer up this idea for folks who have both Hotmail and Gmail– forward your Hotmail to the Gmail, and access your mail from there. Gmail’s spam catcher not only works, it’s Best of Breed.

Today’s free download: It used to be that you had to get an “invite” to sign up for Google’s webmail service, but not any more. Click here, and find out why Gmail is hard to beat. (Or, click here, and see what’s new in Gmail {it might surprise you}).

oh.. and by the way Hotmail Command, I don’t like people changing my stuff without my permission.
And I prefer the way it was. I doubt I’m alone in these feelings. Provide a “No Thanks” button, or lose me.
Genius.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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A Collection of Tips for E-mail

One of the very first things I do in the process of starting my day is I check my e-mail Inbox(es). It is as much a part of my routine as my morning cup of coffee. This morning, it struck me that you do not have to be a computer geek to realize and appreciate that electronic communication has become an important — if not vital — part of our lives. And that it has changed the way we live.

If you will pardon a little self-indulgent reminiscing, I would like to tell you in a before-and-after manner, that I am old enough to well-remember what it was like in the days before email, Instant Messaging, and cellphones. In my High School years there simply were no such things. (There were no ATM machines either, if you can imagine that.)

When I wanted to find out what my friends were up to, I picked up a Slimline telephone (with cord) and tried to catch them before they left, but I usually had to track them down by “making the rounds”, in person, of our ‘hangouts’…which put a lot of miles on my 10-speed bike. (No obesity here.)

Besides ‘Ma’ Bell, the other method of communicating was the mail, now known as “snail mail”. How we ever got along back then is beyond me.

Today the speed at which I transmit written correspondence is limited only by how frequently the recipient checks their Inbox. My pals answer their phones no matter where they are (or their voicemail does) or what they’re doing.. who doesn’t carry a cellphone? I not only talk to my neice and nephew out on the East Coast, but I can see them via “videoconferencing” (free). Or I can “chat” with IM, no matter the miles of separation (also free).

But of all these modern methods, I rely the most on email. Email is the main way I stay informed and in contact with my friends and kinfolk, and the same is probably true for you.
(For kicks, I challenge you to a little test: how long can you ignore your Inbox before it irritates? Could you take a week’s vacation… and never check it?)

Because I am an “email guy”, I am perhaps overly aware of the negatives of email. I am peeved by spam, alarmed by phishing, nervous about privacy, and paranoid about hackers and e-criminals. I have written a few articles on these ‘negatives’ and how to combat them, and my “Tip of the day” today is; if you have not read them, to consider clicking on the following links.
Managing your email: eliminating the junk
Managing junk mail in Outlook/Thunderbird
They ARE reading your mail
How to block ads
Simple e-mail encryption

It is my hope that the knowledge you find there will make using the modern miracle of electronic communication a safer and more pleasant experience.

Today’s free download: If you are considering building your own website, or are interested in free WYSIWYG web-authoring tools, a nice tool is the free version of Web Easy Professional, by V-Comm.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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