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Regarding the unwanted emails - another source of junk mail is the automated senders that some senders use. Once they know the "@asdf.com" part of anyone's address, they have a program that just tries one name after another, like [email protected], [email protected] etc. They don't pay "postage" for those that don't get delivered, so they don't care how many are invalid.
Also, regardless of the "privacy policy" on web sites, many privately maintained sites share addresses with others. It only takes one time...and it might be months before your email troubles stop. :mad:
You probably will never know why you are getting the junk mail... The timing of signing up with PetTalk and getting junk is probably just a coincidence. Unfortunately it is a peril of this amazing tool - The Internet!
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Anti-Pam-
I always thought it was just one of those automatic ones addressers, too, that just mathematically makes up any combination of letters and then adds the more common @ domains. But when Ruthie mentioned it, too, I started wondering. I thought then it was one of those outfits that goes on bulletin boards trolling for email addresses. But if no one else is getting them, it probably is just coincidence.
Logan - I know what you mean about that Flow-Go stuff - sign up for one newsletter and next thing you know your mail box is crammed with "special offers"! I finally had to unsubscribe to the newsletter and block future mail!
One time an unsolicited copy of TV Guide came, along with a bill thanking me for my order! I don't watch enough TV to warrant subscribing to TV Guide, and the few times I need to know what's on I can check the newspaper. I think that was from that Flow-Go thing too! In fact, I would blame all the junk email on them, except they started before that.
The only other newsletters I get are from places that I trust, like Internet for Christians. But who knows, maybe IFC is selling my email address to someone who wants to send me naked pictures of Cindy Crawford! Ha ha!
Anyway, thanks everyone, for letting me know it's not everyone here having that problem.
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Just one more comment about unwanted email: You might notice that the sender's address ends with something other than .com or .net. If it is a 2-letter combination, for instance .uk or .de, it is coming from a Non-USA country. Even if it is written in English, they may not have the same restrictions or email "manners".
And quite honestly, there are plenty of people from all countries who don't really care if you want to hear from them. It is their job to send out advertising, regardless... Sometimes asking to be unsubscribed does not even help. :mad:
You can also report abusive or unwanted x-rated mail to your Internet provider. In some cases of abuse, the provider will stop ALL email from a sender.
Ok, I'll stay off my soapbox - for a while anyway! Here's hoping our mailboxes are filled with sweet thoughts and loving fur faces from friends! :)
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I must say also that I never got any abnoxious e-mail because the address is in my profile at POTD. I don't know if it is because I have Spaminator from Earthlink and Netbarrier with a firewall. I heard that if you have DSL service, it is more likely that you will get spam because the computer is connected all the time. Maybe the experts in the field can say whether or not this is true. :confused:
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Albea-I think you're thinking of hackers. The IP address is static. Also, we don't leave our computer on all the time. I'm really not sure where the thinking "all the time connected" started, because I connect and disconnect and turn my computer on and off when needed, just like anyone using voice phone lines, cable, etc. Lastly, since I use hotmail, my computer doesn't even enter into the equation. My ISP email address never gets spam - and now that I think of it, it probably works just like hotmail because I still have to "sign on" to get my email. So, anyway, I don't think it's because of the DSL line. But I'm not an expert, either! Incidentally, between my son and me, we have 8 email addresses, and this is the only one getting spam. I'm sure I have given out my email address somewhere, and it has been sold, resold, and sold again. I have not seen Ruthie (roopooroo) since she started this thread, but we both used to work at the same place. Neither one of us do now. But I remember that when signing up for various benenfits, there were blanks for email address. Never dreaming that giving Aetna, VALIC, etc my email address would be dangerous, I gave it. Now the spam. I'll bet Ruthie did, too, and that's how all this got started. It really won't be that big of a deal now. I have an email filter, too, but I still checked it daily to make sure someone I had never corresponded with wasn't sending me and email for the first time - specifically, someone at Pettalk! But with the pm, and with my email address no longer on my profile, that won't be happening, so I can now just ignore the junk mail folder and the items will be deleted without me ever having to look at them.
[ August 19, 2001: Message edited by: 4 feline house ]
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I don't know how to put this delicately, so I'll just blurt it out. Your name could be translated to invite porn users. Could it be that?
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I can state that, before we even started Pet of the Day, I have always received plenty of spam. All it takes is one company getting and releasing your email address, and it gets sold forever by bulk email companies - I often get offers to sell me "15 million sure-fire email addresses!" Why they think I'd want to annoy others like they annoy me is unfathomable!
We have never sold our users email addresses to anyone.
Users of "free" email programs, or big companies like AOL, are particularly susceptible. If you REALLY hate getting them, you'd have to change your email address and NEVER give it to anyone but friends, and never post it anywhere in a newsgroup or on a website. If you're on AOL, you can block all non-AOL mail, but then any message I sent you, for example, would also be blocked!
Spam is the thorn in the rosebush of the Internet. The quickest thing to do is "delete and move on," I've found. And we have "Internet via cable" which means that whenever my computer is on, I'm connected to the Internet. It has not increased the percentage of junk mail I get, I just get it faster than if I had a modem dial-up.
But hey, in my email, I get all the pet nominations - one pet picture makes up for 100 awful spams, and the percentage is way less than that! :) :) :)
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This might just be net-lore, but several of my friends vouch for it's accuracy...
Apparently there are some companies that collect e-mail addresses that are returned to them with 'reject/remove' messages. They don't resend to them, but do sell them to other companies! :mad: Since I've learned this I just hit 'delete' rather than sending a 'remove' response. It might be coincidence, but my spam receipt is down slightly.
Note: I do get spam on all my accounts to some extent, but the main one that gets it is one not posted here (my WORK account, arrrrgh!).
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Another question for the experts!
I have my "preferences" set in such a way that cookies go back only to the sites I visit. May this be the reason why I don't get spam? Not that I'm complaining about it ;) I just wonder if that could be a way to reduce spam. Sorry if this sounds silly, but asking questions is a good way to learn ;)
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mruffruff-well, maybe, but all my email addresses are my first and second initial with my full last name plus the domain name, and only the one is spammed. All my life I've never heard of anyone snickering over my name, maybe there is some double entendre in it, but I certainly don't see it and can't figure it out. Sometimes people laugh at my three initials because it can remind you of "legs", but with my last name instead of initial I don't think even that's obvious. But, who knows, maybe there's some new slang out there that makes my name nasty now! Hehe! :o
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I, too, have Earthlink's Spaminator and it is doing a wonderful job of snagging most of the spam! :)
Albea, I was wondering how you set your browser to accept cookies ONLY from sites you have visited . . . normally I disable ALL cookies, but have to remember to enable cookies in order to post on POTD with this new format . . . no biggie, now that I'm used to it.
Speaking of the new format, I wish there was a way I could tell at a glance what topics I have posted to, and if there were any replies since my post. Showing what topics I have merely visited is not as important; I may not have posted to them. Maybe I am missing something, and there already is an indicator of this sort?
I agree with Spencer; hiding our email addresses from public view is a worthy consideration. In the meantime, I will make mine private (if I can) to offset the possible predicament that 4 Feline has been experiencing. Spam Stinks! :mad:
[ August 21, 2001: Message edited by: AvaJoy ]
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Exactly how does Spaminator work, and does Earthlink have to be your ISP to be able to use it? In other words, is it only usable on your @earthlink (or whatever) mail? Hotmail has what they call inbox protector, but it's fallible in that you tell it what email addresses you do want to receive mail from. Therefore, if there is a possibility that you will be getting email from anyone whose email address you do not know, such as anyone on this site who might be sending me an email for the first time, or when I was still looking for a job, someone responding to my resume. That means I still have to check the junk mail folder to make sure I'm not accidenlty deleting mail I would like to get. But I'm no longer looking for a job, and the board now has the private message, so like I said a few posts back, it's not really going to be a big deal in the future.
Also - how in the world could you get a cookie from a site you've never visited? Maybe I'm not understanding what y'all mean there.
[ August 21, 2001: Message edited by: 4 feline house ]
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I have Netscape Communicator 4.78. In Messenger, preferences, advanced, is where I set cookies to "accept only cookies that get sent back to the originating server". Other options are; "accept all cookies", "disable cookies", Warn me before accepting a cookie". Leah, if you have the "warn me" option, that might help show where the cookies come from.
When Earthlink merged with Mindspring, Spaminator came with it. It collects most of my spam, estimate 20 a week, but not all of it. Never stopped a message I wanted.
In Messenger,edit,Message filters, I set up two filters. If the message "contains" my email address, it goes in one folder. If it "doesn't contain" my email address it goes in my "Supertrash" folder. (I couldn't find "doesn't" in trying to setup on Internet Explorer.) It's a little more complicated than that to set up, but worth it to me. Weekly Supertrash averages three spam and one I want to keep.That's easy to sort.
Paul and Karen, sorry we kind of digressed from the original topic.
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Thank you Freckles for answering the question about Spaminator and "cookies" and yes, you have to subscribe to Earthlink to get that service. I've done the same thing about "cookies." only the ones that are returned to the site I visit are accepted. If some of you can't do that, it may be time to change from Microsoft Explorer to Netscape ;) I don't know how you can get cookies from sites you don't visit, but you do, believe me :mad: That's why I changed the preferences in my browser.
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4 Feline ~ Maybe mruffruff was going on the premise that "Feline House" was your email address . . . if so, I can see the porn potential since the term "cat house" used to be slang for bordello or house of ill repute. :eek: But that was back in the old days and probably outdated, so it would be a stretch. I had to chuckle, though!
I guess that being MIE users, we don't have the cookie flexibility that Netscape offers. Someone else already answered this, but yes; Spaminator is exclusive to Earthlink, which I regard as a fine ISP without all the annoying bells and whistles to wade through. I am quite content with their no nonsense format. :)
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I tried v6. It had some nice features, but it looked and acted too much like Internet Explorer. There were some things missing, like printer page formatting, etc., so I went back to 4.xx. Maybe v6 is better now.
[ August 23, 2001: Message edited by: Freckles ]
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Will SEARCH be returning soon? I use it a lot.
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Freckles, I just emailed you on that topic ...
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NO SEARCH!!! I didn't notice! I just used it a few days ago! Is it coming back?
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Maybe Karen could post and tell us all what's up (or down :() with the search feature?
But there IS another way to find things on Pet Talk, IF you know who posted the article you're looking for:
Find any posting the person has made; it does not have to be a very current posting. Go to the posting, made by the author you're interested in, and click on that author's profile button. Just above the author's Profile Box is a click line saying "View Recent Posts / Send New Private Message".
Now *click* on the words View Recent Posts. You'll be presented with a listing of That Author's 50 most recent posts; arranged top to bottom, most recent on top, oldest at the bottom. The post titles are all *clickable* - and give a number indicating how far down from the top of that subject your author's reply is. If it says "Post #0" it means your author was the originator of that subject. Click on a post title and you'll be taken to that post; scroll down the indicated number of replys, and Oh, Wow! you've arrived at that author's post.
Sounds a lot more complicated than it is - try it for yourself. If you can't remember where you've left all your own pearls of wisdom on the board, you can find your own posts the same way. Just start with something you've written or replied to and click on the Profile button on your own post. Note: the "my profile" button at the very top of a page is NOT the one to use.
I'd better quit before I confuse myself! :rolleyes: /s/ Phred, the Kidz "Dad"
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Dear Phred,
Thank you for that explanation of how to find ? (uh, memory lapse here, 'most recent messages', maybe??) I'd seen others reference this and was intrigued, but couldn't figure out how to access it. Thank you!
AL and the furbabies
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Yes, Phred, I have found that feature useful in the past, too, but find search to be much more useful because there is no way I can remember who posted to a subject, say, six months ago. I can't even alway remember if I posted to it. And if it is a six month old post, chances are it won't show up in the "last 50 posts". But, oh well, I can certainly live without it.
If there was one feature I would nix, it would be that useless, irritating "this message was edited by soandso on Feb. 31, 1903", not the search! :D :rolleyes:
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Don't you dare remove "message edited by"...
I work with Dog/general/ Name/PetsList and Cat/General/Stealing another idea.. I ask people to edit their original posts, not add new posts with additional information. (sometimes this works, sometimes not).When I'm ready to start revising the list, I go to one of the topics, go to Netscape, edit, find, and type in "message edited by". Then I just F3 my way down, and it stops at that phrase. I then check to see if it's a new date. If so, I check what changes have been made since my last revision. Love this feature. Incidentally, if you ARE editing, it's ok to delete all those "edited by" lines. When you are finished, there will always be one new Message edited line, but, I agree, the multi "edited lines" are wasted space and make it appear you keep changing your mind. (Remember, I can only edit my own posts, so you can see where, and why, I learned this technique).
