This is sick. Yet another confirmation that cigarette companies are completely evil.
how tobacco companies targeted gay and homeless customers in SF
Spam Filtering is tough work…
As I have written earlier, I am getting much more serious about getting the spam out. It seems to be a tough challenge on many levels and involves a few steps which make things more complicated than they should be.
Discussing SpamFire on the mailing list has been an interesting. It seems that I am far from alone in my desire to simplify the process a bit.
SpamFire works with your mail program but captures mail within its mailbox instead of tagging things for capture as they come into your mail program. This is OK, but not ideal since it means that you must actually check two places to make sure that all your mail is getting through. In a perfect world, (well my spam free world anyway) SpamFire would run in the background allowing it’s sophisticated filters to run, but flagging mail as it passed through. This would allow your existing mail rules to run, filtering normal messages where you want them but also capturing “tagged as spam” messages to your Junk folder.
If this was the case the time you need to take to work over and tweak certain rules would be much simpler. You would also be able to spend less time reviewing mail and more time corresponding.
End users are not the only ones faced with this challenge either. ISPs and corporations are trying to deal and take the load off users but it is not an easy task by any stretch.
AT&T WorldNet has to defuse a risky spam-filtering technique introduced only a day ago after subscribers discover they are losing legitimate e-mail.
Senate freezes Total Information Awareness
The Senate has voted to put the brakes on Total Information Awareness and the Dread Real Admiral Poindexter’s plan to spy on every American just in case someone does something suspicious. This is great news, and now we just need to make sure that the objections raised by the Senate stick.
By a voice vote, the Senate voted to ban funding for the Total Information Awareness program, under former national security adviser John Poindexter, until the Pentagon explains the program and assesses its impact on civil liberties.
(Thanks, Ren!)
SpamFire
I think I finally found the solution for fighting Spam.
While the Junk Mail filter in OS X Mail.app works quite well, the learning seems to reach a limit, at least with me. Prior to switching to Mail, I had actually purchased SpamFire to use but decided that I did not like having to use two apps in order to catch the buggers. Well for some reason that no longer bothers me and Wednesday SpamFire was updated to version 1.3.2 I decided I would try it again.
It works VERY well in conjunction with Mail, though would also work with Entourage as well as some other less used email apps.
You will want to run the updater once you have this running (Pro/Paid version only) which will download an install many (180+ in my case) rules for stopping spam. I am not sure yet what the period of time is between updates, i would guess weekly or monthly even.
In order to get going you have to set SpamFire up which is really pretty easy. One of the first things you do is import your addresses which immediately get added to the whitelist. You can set up several POP, IMAP or even Hotmail accounts to use which is quite nice. You can set the threshhold level (mine is on max!) and let it rip. You can have SpamFire check manually or on a timer, and after it runs, your email app of choice can then be set to check for new messages. I have mine set to check on a per minute basis and have placed Mail on manual check so that my pop servers do not run into already active sessions. Matterform actually recommends 5 minutes to avoid server collisions. I really have not had a problem with my set-up.
In the main window of SpamFire, you can work with the messages that have been held from your inbox. If you feel something has been held by mistake, it is very simple to add the sender to your friends list and then “Rescue” the mail. When your mail checks on the next run, the saved messages come right through. You can add mailing lists in addition to simple addresses which enhances the functionality quite a bit. Many mailing lists get sent to, or have a reply to set as the name of the list, and you can easily create a filter for them.
SpamFire provides a score for each message captured which is nice, because it allows you to get a better read on how this all works. You can even allow SpamFire to automatically delete messages from known spammers. I have yet to activate this feature, since I am not yet ready to allow for deletion without my review.
If Apple allowed for greater customization or more creative learning with the Junk mail rules, it would not be necessary to use 3rd party software, but until then I think I will be quite satisfied with SpamFire.
Stop complaining and look at Apple
Beyond the Safari Hype
Apple’s new Safari Web browser has taken off faster than a brushfire on the Serengeti Plain. Within 24 hours of its January 7th introduction, Apple counted more than 300,000 downloads. But how many people are actually using Safari for everyday Web browsing, and what do Mac community gurus think of it?
In terms of everyday use, The Mac Observer said Safari accounted for almost 21 percent of user traffic on its site in the first eight days after its release. Considering that Safari is still in beta form and works only with Jaguar, Apple’s latest version of OS X , that figure indicates an impressive rate of adoption.
Verizon to appeal in music download ID case
In a statement Sarah B Deutsch, VP and associate general counsel for Verizon said: “The court’s decision has troubling ramifications for consumers, service providers and the growth of the Internet.
“It opens the door for anyone who makes a mere allegation of copyright infringement to gain complete access to private subscriber information without the due process protections afforded by the courts.
“This case will have a chilling effect on private communications, such as e-mail, surfing the Internet or the sending of files between private parties.”
She said that Verizon was not attempting to shield customers who break copyright laws but sought to protect people’s right to privacy.
Recycling pay phones into Wifi stations
The possibilities of something like this could be world shifting…
Of course, pay phones represent an excellent solution. They can be upgraded with DSL technology. And they already are installed in high traffic public areas, like airports or hotel lobbies.
Hilary Rosen resigns
This is unreal news….
Hilary Rosen has resigned from the RIAA, citing her desire to take care of her kids. I’ve heard rumors that she’s been frustrated with the intransigence of her employers at the RIAA, their unwillingness to adapt to new circumstances — certainly, that sounds more plausible to me than “I want to take care of my kids.”Link
How is this possible?
Always On
The crew from Red Herring as well some “celebrity” business types have formed the AlwaysOn blog. Officially launches on Monday, but you can check it out now if you like.
The AO Proposition
In the next wave, media companies will have to share control with the audience they serve. eBay taught us the power and profitability of that idea in the first wave. But giving up control is a huge challenge for an old, crusty and entrenched industry. At AlwaysOn, we invite some of the smartest chiefs, geeks, investors, boosters and wonks to come play in our spontaneous and uncensored arena.The Inside Team
Sysop, Michael Perkins, June Sargent, Matthew Falzone,Tony Nash, Celia Nunez, Kathy Osweiler, Tony Perkins, Bonnie Powell, David ProckCelebrity Bloggers & Correspondents
Bruce Pasternack, Jonathan Medved, John Sculley, Timothy Draper, MARC BENIOFF, Leonard Brody, rajit gadh, Karl Jacob, Tom Jessiman, Brian Keating, Jamis MacNiven, Tony Nash, Joe Schoendorf, Mike Tatum
Porn to be major driver of 3G adoption
“In new technologies, adult services usually account for 80 percent of traffic. It has been so with video, the internet and DVD. It is natural to assume it will be the same with mobile internet,” Charles Prast told Reuters in an interview. Experience shows that the share of such content later falls to around 20 percent of the total, he said.
[PMN]
ISP must reveal name of subscriber accused of “sharing hundreds of songs”
Go Verizon! This does not bode well for the consumer if they are finally forced to give.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that in “a victory for entertainment companies,” a federal judge has ordered Verizon to disclose the name of an Internet service subscriber accused of illicit online music filesharing. Verizon has so far refused to comply. Link to WSJ story, (subscription required) Link to Reuters story, Discuss.
UPDATE: Declan McCullagh has posted the court docs here (PDF), and his CNET news story is now online here.
Hectic Day for me and Mail.app
Wow – Today in the midst of keeping up with a array of work responsibilities, my email got completely messed up. Apparently Mail can get a bit finicky if you transfer messages back to the inbox from other folders.
I created a new rule to filter messages based on a client domain and then inadvertently released the track-pad Mail to Transfer again to a folder with my entire inbox selected. Every message was sent to the sub-folder and when I Transferred them back to the inbox they disappeared. No longer visable in my inbox (for any account of 4) or in the transferred folder, I started to panic as I had about 150 messages remaining in my inbox to file at the appropriate time.
I did a search on the Apple boards and came up with seemingly an exact instance of my situation, though the person who posted the problem had gotten there from a different path. I tried a solution there which involved changing the Open with… properties of an Mbox file and importing it into Entourage, to then import it back to Mail. No luck for me. The import in Entourage did not work at all! It did seem to want to import, but no messages ever came in.
I killed the prefs in Mail. This caused me to have to re-create all of my accounts other than my .Mac account which seems to stay (I guess from Internet Prefs). After I did that my solution was to then try and import my messages from the actual existing Mail folders. These are found at User Home/Library/Mail a folder exists for each account and you can import things back to Mail. My problem was that since I had taken some time to arrive at this point (damn panic!) I had already received some new mail in my newly created accounts. In order to maintain the messages I had previously I duplicated the new inbox files and the moved the old files into my new folders. This brought back my history of messages and then I was able to import the copies I had made to bring my newer mail back in.
I should mention one more detail. I also did an import from the root level of my Mail folders in the finder. This caused all BUT the inbox to come back in. Thanks, Apple. Not sure what the inbox folders from previous prefs are the only ones not brought back in, but it is the case. Fortunately I had my wits (at that point anyway) to remember the finder folder structure.
aigh.
Hirschfeld dies at age 99
I used to search for the Ninas every weekend as a kid. Amazingly he was still working in such detail right up to his death at the age of 99.
Abbey Road
Damn, it’s been a really long time since I rocked out to some classic rock – if I can even call The Beatles classic rock since they still sound fresh and ahead of the curve.
blogged to The Beatles “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”#l[7:47]#l from Abbey Road (1969).
Sprint PCS subscribers able to rate Superbowl Ads
Sprint is working with mobile developer Openwave, professional services firm Proteus and web hosting specialist FatCow to enable subscribers to rate Superbowl advertisements. The operator also worked with McKee Wallwork Henderson Advertising to create the ADBOWL system which will be used to track responses.
Users who sign-up to the service will be sent a text message inviting them to rate the Superbowl advertisements on a scale of 1 – 5.
[PMN]
safari multipage view mockup
Not the first time I have seen this idea… I think this is a bit cleaner and perhaps easier to deal with than the previous iteration which followed the look and feel of Preview. [anil dash’s daily links]
Apple Web site recognizes Safari users
A small Safari icon appears in the top-left corner of Apple.com with the message “Welcome Safari user” when visiting the site with Safari. The icon does not appear when viewing the site with any other browsers.
Kung Tunes
I finally got the Kung Tunes kinks worked out thanks to some expert help from Adriaan Tijsseling, the developer.
Through the magic of email, we (actually just Adriaan) were able to troubleshoot the messy CSS I had running down the right side of the page. Now things look and work great! Thanks again Adriaan!
blogged while listening to Spiritualized “You Know It’s True/If I Were with Her Now/I Want You”#l[13:10]#l from Lazer Guided Melodies .