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CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Our support area is filled with small instructional documents, and answers to questions we've been asked in the past. If you cannot find an answer here, we encourage you to send us feedback, or give us a call. Check back often, as this area is updated continually.
If you are a customer of Micro Computer Service and would like access to the Customers Area, please sign-up (the bottom of the menu), or leave us a Comment with:
- your name
- your desired username
- password
- e-mail address
We will email you when your account is set-up.
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| Let's Fight Spam! |
Spam is an email plague that force messages on people who would not otherwise choose to receive them. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or questionable services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.
Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, searching the Web for addresses, or by spyware used to harvest email addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with a metered phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.
Basic rules to avoid and minimize spam
- Spammers use special programs that extract email addresses from Web sites
and Usenet postings. To avoid ending on a spammer's mailing list when you post
to a Web forum or a newsgroup, you can obscure your email address by inserting
something obvious into it. If my email address is johndoe@yahoo.com, I modify it to read johndoe
yah oo.com - Since spyware/malware can harvest email addresses, and services such as Incredimail-type products, it is best to keep your computer clean of spyware, and never install programs that offer too much free stuff (smileys, wallpapers, ...) - nothing is free - you are paying for this software by allowing your email address to be harvested.
- Never reply to spam messages, even when they entice you to reply to "remove" you from their mailing lists. Often the instructions are either bogus, or a way to collect more addresses. Replying confirms to the spammers that your e-mail address is active, and you may receive even more junk mail
- Remove your email address from your website's pages and provide a web based mail form instead. This way spammers can't send robots to your page to harvest email addresses and put them on their mailing lists. A simple Internet search can provide you with such a script free of charge
- If you insist on forwarding email to everybody in your address book, at least have the decency to remove everything that is not the main body of the message you are about to send. This includes all the taglines, email addresses, emoticons at the bottom, ....
- NEVER participate in the "add your email address and pass this on" type emails. Harvesters are just waiting for one vulnerable computer to capture the entire list. If somebody was proposing a new tax on breathing air, or taxing you $1.00 every day the sky is blue - you'd hear about it on CNN - you don't need your email buddies to tell you.
- When sending a mass email, NEVER use CC:, instead, use BCC: Also, use your own email address in the To: field. This way none of your friend's email addresses will be exposed. With Thunderbird I don't even use the To: field, I just put everybody in the BCC: field - this way all the destination email will show up as To: Local Recipient.
How to report Spam
Report spamming by sending the message plus the full header information to one of the services listed at the end of this document. To be sure you are sending the correct information, always Copy & Paste the header information and message body. You may have to look in your email software for a place to display a full header. A full header looks something like this:
Subject: Hoodia -Burn cal0ries
From: "Mngr. velvetaugy"
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 07:41:10 -0500
To: bill@xxxxxxxx.com
X-Account-Key: account2
X-UIDL: 4423f64000000001
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
Return-Path:
Received: from 432ADED0 (83-159-13-242.dsl.tiscali.fr [83.159.13.242]) by qqq3.supersed.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) with SMTP id k2ODaK0b027480 for
X-Apparently-To: bill@xxxxxxxx.com
X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2
Received: from pullover.deportation.pochta.ru ([unix socket]) by prodigy.middlesex.pochta.ru (Cyrus v2.2.6) with LMTPA; Fri, 24 Mar 2006 15:37:10 +0300
Message-ID:
X-Accept-Language: en,zh-TW,zh-CN,zh,ja,ko,tr,ru
X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.91/32.564
Use the followong urls to report spam:
Spamcop.net - http://www.spamcop.net/
Network Abuse Clearinghouse - http://abuse.net/
Last updated by Administrator (admin) on Jun 29 2006 at 16:54
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