Entries Tagged as 'Technology'

Looking for a decent spam filter

What can you recommend?

Here’s the scenario.  I have been using Spamarrest.com for several years quite happily, for a number of my domains.  But in the past twelve months I feel they’ve changed something in the system.  I was previously able to approve single messages sent from me (test newsletters for example) without a spate of spam also being delivered. Spammers love to use other people’s addresses, you know.  And then some email went missing. I checked with my webhost/mail server and the mail was leaving the server so presumably it was going through spamarrest’s system but not getting to me.  I checked that addresses weren’t blacklisted and were approved, but still nothing.

So I’ve been trying some other systems, with little satisfaction. I’ve tried a number of programs that you can install on your computer and use through Outlook but that means I end up with copious amounts of junk in my Outlook program that I have to delete. I like things to be tidy and it drives me nuts seeing it there. Then I tried another program that you can use for it to check all your email first before downloading it. This seemed good, but I had to process all email first and was spending (wasting) time processing email. If I’ve already approved people as friends or put them on the white list, I just want the email delivered when it arrives – not get holed up somewhere waiting for me to finish processing junk mail before clicking on ‘process mail’.

So, then I found another service that works entirely online and filters your email before delivery with 99.9% success rate (they say). I’ve seen that they work well for large corporates, telcos, banking institutions, etc. They would be perfect. BUT they charge per user and as I provide email accounts for many of my Virtual Assistant team they just priced themselves out of the bargain.  I’m a sole trader, single operating in a small business. But if I use this service that looks great they need to filter the entire domain – not just the email addresses I use.  That would add considerably to my expenses.

So, now it’s over to you. What can you recommend, remembering my criteria:

  • Needs to be web based – I don’t want it downloading to my computer first.
  • Needs to let me load a safe list (all my contacts) so that their email won’t get held up and I can go process the rest at my convenience.
  • Will deliver my email and not lose it.
  • Will allow for emails sent from me to me to be delivered without all the trash from spammers.

Any suggestions?

500 Internal Error Server message

Are you getting one of these messages?  One of my clients was too with her WordPress blog and nothing I did seemed to help the problem. Did lots of research, asked questions at forums and tried to restore her database once again – she’d already had it done previously.  Checked that the index.php file was in place.

We decided to set up a new webspace with a new domain elsewhere and download all the files via FTP and then upload them to the new webspace.  I was about 1/2 way through the upload when I discovered something.  The webspace I’d set up for her was almost full and I had heaps of files to go.

So I went back to her other webhost and had to do a search in her Account Management system to locate the information relating to her webhosting. Gotta love these hosts that don’t use cpanel for ease of use!  Anyway, I discovered that she had 296mb of files in what was supposed to be a 150mb allotment.  I think I found the problem!

I immediately filled out a support request to her host to find out if in fact I was correct and could they do a temporary disk space increase so we could do a full backup and run a database export.  I emailed my client and told her what I believed I’d found. She’d been told by her host that she’d been hacked and she better upgrade her WordPress.

When I thought about it I remembered an incident a year or two earlier where a small website I was working on (25mbs) gave the same error message when I was trying to switch to a new template I’d uploaded and it took me awhile to figure out why that was.  I should have remembered.

So, if you are experiencing that same error message – before anything else – check your webspace allotment.  If it’s full, get it increased and then rerun whatever it is you’re doing.

Please let me know if this post has helped you as I did a search extensively looking for help on this issue and did not come across the possiblity of the webspace being full – hopefully I can save you the hours I put in to eventually find this out!

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Tag Generator for blogging

If you’re like me, you like to add tags for your keywords when blogging. Firefox had a great add-on that worked but when they upgraded the plugin no longer worked. And Technorati have either stopped or shifted the tag generator they used to have on display when you logged in. But a bit of searching found me one that works a treat and has many facets to it.  Free Tag Generator and Social Bookmark Generator.

I use it often, it’s very easy to use and it’s bookmarked so I can find it all the time.  Thought I’d share the treasure I found with all my readers.

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Facebook virus – don’t click on the link!

For the second time in a month I’ve received a message on my wall at my Facebook page saying that my photo had been seen at a site.  The first time I clicked on it unawares and immediately my antivirus program (Trend Micro) warned me of a problem and wouldn’t let me view the page.  I went to the guy who posted a message on my wall and saw there were heaps of wall messages he’d left within a few minutes – a sure sign something was wrong. I left a message for him to say he had a virus and also sent a personal email to him.

I then removed the wall notice from my Facebook so that no-one else would click on it – important you do that!

This morning one of my clients left a similar message and I immediately contacted her and her VA support to advise that one of them had a virus and it had infected the Facebook profile.

I’ve researched articles on it but haven’t found any fixes – just best to keep your antivirus program updated every single day.

Internet News – Facebook Attack

Now Public – Facebook Virus Attacks Again

Reuters – Koobface Virus

And even UrbanLegend is confirming there is a virus.

Facebook has told members to delete contaminated e-mails and has posted directions at www.facebook.com/security on how to clean infected computers.

I have a free online virus scanner (owned by Trend Micro which is the program that saved me from grief) at my site at http://www.acs-webhosting.com/ in the bottom right-hand corner of the page.