This blog uses built in WordPress tools to ensure that I don’t see any spam posted in the comments but keeping control of my mail client’s filters isn’t quite so easy – I should say wasn’t quite so easy!

All my registered domains have spam filtering on their mail servers but increasingly this doesn’t always catch the latest rubbish, that still makes its way through to my desktop and, in my case, Outlook. The inbuilt Microsoft filter isn’t that bright and for some years now I have relied on a little add-in called SpamBayes which is an Open Source solution to the problem using Baysian filters to “score” each message and filter it accordingly. All fine and dandy then? Well no, not really. Unfortunately updates to SpamBayes have been few and far between over the last 2 or 3 years and the project seems to have stalled. This means that recent updates to Windows and Outlook have started causing proiblems with it.

I have noticed that Outlook often doesn’t fully quit when I shut it down. That means that when I restart it, I actually get two copies, 1 hidden from the previous session and 1 for the latest startup, this causes resource problems by the end of each day as I have seen 5 or 6 Outlook sessions running in Task Manager. There are various add-ons to cure this but so far I haven’t found one without its own problems.

Enter SpamFighter! I came across this when I decided to ditch SpamBayes for something more up-to-date and have been using it for the last few weeks. It works a treat and doesn’t interfere with Outlook at all, so I decided to lash out the £17 for a years subscription to the system. After a very simple download/install, I now have aclean inbox again.

SpamFighter works as an add-in to Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird and for the main part operates as a basic spam filter, putting all bad mail into its own folder and marking it. The clever bit is that it is user supported and anything it misses which makes its way through to the inbox can simply be marked by me as spam and that action is relayed to several million other SpamFighter users who systems will also mark that message in the same way. Of course they do the same for my inbox! In addition to the “community” rules I can also add my own white or blacklist for senders and the software uses those rules to override the community ones if needbe.

There’s a free, fully functional, 30 day trial available at the website. Download SPAMfighter today.

9:27 am Retraction on Steve Jobs comment…we don’t know how that got in our feed.
9:26 am Showing a “pumpkin patch” event with no geotag. Starts typing name, and iPhoto assists using its database of locations.
9:25 am Hovering over a pin at Aspen. Click an arrow and go straight to all Aspen photos, even across multiple events.
9:24 am STEVE JOBS JUST DIED :
9:24 am Now demoing Places.
9:24 am Can also group people in sidebar…smart albums. Showing “Our Family”…automatically contains and updates all members of the family.

Still monitoring it now at http://www.macrumorslive.com/ and more hacks are being added….

Update: Feed has been suspended…..

MR. FRANCIS JOHNSON
TELE:234-7031622282
FINAL NOTIFICATION

GOOD DAY,
- I AM WRITING TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR OUT STANDING PAYMENT OF $10.5 HAS BEEN APPROVED FOR PAYMENT AND WILL BE RELEASE TO YOU AS SOON AS YOU RESPOND TO THIS LETTER, KINDLY REPLY WITH YOUR NAME INFULL, TELE/FAX, CONTACT ADDRESS, YOUR AGE AND OCCUPATION, SEX, AS SOON AS I HEAR FROM YOU I WILL GET BACK TO YOU WITH THE CERTIFICATE OF OWNERSHIP TO ENABLE YOU HAVE YOUR FUND, FOR MORE INFORMATION YOU ARE ASK TO CALL ME IMMEDIATELY YOU RECEIVE THIS LETTER, HERE IS MY DIRECT TELEPHONE NUMBER: 234-7031622282, FEEL FREE WHILE CALLING AND YOU ARE ASK TO CALL FOR MORE INFORMATION, BEST REGARD MR. FRANCIS JOHNSON

I may need $10.5 one day but not just yet eh?

This mail arrived this morning and is the first personalised one of its type I have seen:

YANG LIM & ASSOCIATES
SOLICITOR AND ADVOCATES
NO. 101, JALAN PUDU RAYA,
TAMAN DESA RAYA
MALAYSIA
TEL: +60122473440
Email: barryanglim@XXXXXX.XXX
I am Yang Lim, an attorney at law. A deceased client of mine, Mr. Andrew  Curd, that shares the same last name as yours, died as the result of a heart-related condition on March 12th 2005. His heart condition was due to the death of all the members of his family in the tsunami disaster on the 26th December 2004 in Sumatra Indonesia.
I  can be reached on barryanglim@XXXXXX.XXX for more information.My late Client has a deposit of Nineteen Million Dollars (US$19 Million Dollars) left behind.
Best regards,
Yang Lim
Attorney at Law

Perhaps I’ll be rich in 2009 after all! Somehow I suspect not…..

If you want the internet to remain the relatively open and free place it is today and you want your browsing habits to remain personal, I suggest you read it and visit the links in his post.

A little further investigation reveals that there seems to be no method, other than banning all user registrations, to stop it happening so that’s what I’ve done. I suspect it’ll make little or no difference to the normal operation of the blog as there is no need to register to read it anyway!

If you hadn’t already guessed, the terms “people” and “They” in this case refer to a spammer using  software to automatically and falsely register users on the site with the hope of destroying it by some means in the future.

Hopefully the total ban on user registrations will stop the problem, but I look forward to the good folks at WordPress coming up with a more elegant solution. Meantime if you see anything strange happening, please let me know via the usual email route.

I have now switched to another system and am hoping it won’t be such an “open target”, we’ll see..

Check it out at www.curdfamily.com/bbs.

Paul Marek has written about the problem and seems to have found an answer via the SABRE plugin, I’ll give it a try later and let you know how things progress – Thanks Paul.

• Total spam reaching my inbox = 3336
• Daily average = 33.36
• Worst day = Tuesday 27 March with 67
• Daily Breakdown:
  Mon 479, Tue 549, Wed 495, Thu 585, Fri 488, Sat 423, Sun 317