As I cruise around the internet I have noticed a lot of people using some funky email addresses. For example, me (at) domain (dot) com. This just doesn't cut it...When you do this the spammers have won, and we can't have that.

My buddy Alain showed me a good way to hide your email using javascript. This formats your email address behind the scenes but still provide a maito link that allows the public to click on it, and send you an email.

Here is the javascript:

If you don't know anything about javascript... what this code does is rearrange the beginning of your email, and ending of your email. If you use this code and view the source from a webpage you will see that the spam harvesters can't find any valid email address. Just cut and paste the code into you webpages. Of course change the username and domain to your proper email.

If you do not want to add code your website, and you use wordpress, you can install a little sidebar widget I made that adds your contact info. Download Spam Widget Here

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What do you do when you get a text message from a wrong number? I just got one, but I'm scared to respond because what if it is a spammer that sent out millions of text messages and waits for people to respond to get their number, then they sell the info the other companies?

I usually only get text messages from Verizon, telling me to upgrade my text messages to accept more text messages, or telling me that my bill is way over due...I'm a huge procrastinator.
But what if its not a spammer, and the text message really, really needs to make it to the desired location?

The message said, "Sam Don't forget physical fifth period".

What is Sam misses the physical and his life is ruined?
Then again, if I was a spammer and sent a text message, I would make it sound a lot more urgent, like "Sam I need that report ASAP or your ass is fired!"

dilemmas  of a high tech world...

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Found this post at condodomain:
http://www.condodomain.com/blog/realtors-against-realtor-spam-rars/
In my personal opinion, if you get a lot of spam, you don't have a good spam filter. No matter how many groups you start or complaints you make, spam is only going to get worse. Why, because you can make tons of money easily sending spam. Spam is now conducted by large international groups that compromise large number of computers and send millions of emails a day. 9 out of 10 emails are spam, up from 5 out of 10 only a couple years ago.
So, Get yourself a spam filter There are free ones out there and most hosting services that provide webspace provide a little tool called spamassassin. And most network admins keep it up-to-date and blocking the spam. Problem is nobody ever knows about it. All the hosting that we sell for blogs, comes with a very good control panel, called cpanel. This control panel lets you configure email, spam blockers, forwards, etc...

Here is a good free spam filter:
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

Just install it, and then train it. You train it by separating your good email from bad. Spambayes then figures out what you want and don't want, and then it will continually train itself as you get more spam. Just hide the folder and no more spam problem.

Now for the flipside, what happens when your emails get flagged as spam?

over the last couple weeks, my partners have been receiving my emails in their spam folders. I went to SORBS (Spam and Open-Relay Blocking System) and checked my IP number. Since I have a wireless network in my home, I had to log into my wireless router and get my "Real" IP. my real ip is used by the router to communicate to other computers on the internet and all the computers in my network get "hidden" IPs, 192.168.x.x. Anyhow, My real ip is issued from a DHCP server from Comcast. at Sorbs I enter my IP number and I get this to my surprise:

DHCP is way for an ISP to issue dynamic IPs to their customers, so your IP will change every so often. As you can see, this IP address that I'm using is flagged. I thought there was no way off this list, but a quick email to my buddy Alain, made me feel a lot better.

I thought Sorbs was the only spam blacklist, but there are more, many more. submit your IP here in their spam database and see how many spam databases your ip is in http://www.dnsstuff.com/. I also thought, Once blacklisted, you can't get off, but again I was wrong...

here are some other spam sites:
TQM-DYNAMIC (http://www.tqmcube.com/)

NOMOREFUNN (http://www.moensted.dk/spam/no-more-funn/)

DNSBLNETAUT1 (http://www.dnsbl.net.au/)

So I've requested the IP be removed from the database, and hopefully I can email my partners again.

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