I checked out the Nestle site...a Canadian one, and oh my...lots of goodies on there. Go to contests and see all the Canadian contests you can enter. For safe browsing practices, after you fill in any info, go to your Internet Explorer tool bar, and select Tools and then Internet Options,then to Delete Browsing History. Once there, choose "Delete Files,and Delete history". This eliminates your browsing history and protects you somewhat,after you have filled in forms, or done on-line banking. Back to the website:
In addition to all of the contests, there are useful pages regarding healthy nutrition for adults and children, as well as a Food Tracker you can sign up for, much like the weight watchers site. Track what you eat...AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHGHGHGHGHGGHHH...as I sit and have a sample of the QUality Street candies I bought.
There must be some nutrition in them.
"The Creator"
Friday, December 15, 2006
Mailwasher Pro
Are you still receiving tons of Spam everyday? With a program, such as Mailwasher ( the free one) or Mailwasher Pro ( Demo here) installed, it automatically filters out Spam and shows you which emails are to be deleated before the rest of the emails go to your inbox. In otherwords, you are deleting them at the server level, instead of at your inbox . This program has a learning mode that allows you to "teach" it who are your friends, and those that aren't. Tonight, the makers of the program...Firetrust, sent out an informative newsletter that I thought was well worth passing along on how to make the program operate better for you, and also an option to add another feature called First Alert, which sends a report of your Spam and thus, with many current reports, it has one of the highset security measures against spam and all the problems that come with unwanted emails entering your computer. Mailwasher is free, and Mailwasher Pro which now comes with First Alert ,($37.00 US can be paid by PayPal), but it gives you peace of mind and only the emails you want, coming into your Inbox.
Read through the letter I recieved on how to better utilize Mailwasher and also a little update on Spam and Antivirus. Lots to digest,but worth your while to learn a little more about these two computing menaces.
FIRETRUST NEWSLETTER
Hi,
As you may have noticed, over the past couple of months spam has got a lot worse. So I thought it's probably a good time to send you some tips and ideas to get around the ever increasing flood of spam.
First of all, I'll cover how you can use MailWasher better to trap spam and then discuss some other steps you should take to reduce spam getting to you. Lastly I'll talk about how spam works and why we're still getting it.
Contents
Use filtering properly
Use how to use your learning filters - this really helps
Filter at the server first
Get rid of your catch-all account
Use an Anti-virus - this one is free
The current state of spam
1. Use filtering properly
Since Mailwasher works by filtering your email before it gets to your computer, you should take the time to make sure it's doing a good job of telling the difference between spam and your good email. We'll keep this simple.
Click on the 'Spam Tools' button on the front screen of Mailwasher.
Friends list:
People on your Friends List always get through and are clearly marked green. If you haven't taken the time to add your contacts to the Friends List, take 5 minutes and do it. It will make a big difference.
FirstAlert!:
This service is getting better and better all the time and it helps with training your filters to recognise spam. Turn it on.
Learning:
Training your filters to recognise spam and good email is really effective and ensures a high degree of accuracy. You don't need to do anything here as I'll come back to this in the next section.
Origin of spam:
This works by blocking spam based on its point of origin. Two very reliable, accurate and well-known services are ORDB and Spamhaus. Make sure you have these ticked as working. If you don't see them, click on 'Add' then
Name (for your benefit): ORDBDomain (to validate with): relays.ordb.org
Name (for your benefit): SpamhausDomain (to validate with): sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org
Click 'OK' each time to enter these.
These will help to catch a lot of spam.
Some points to note:
Did you know you can auto-delete most of the spam so you never see it in Mailwasher?
First of all, make sure you have all your contacts listed in your friends list - these must always get through. Then for FirstAlert! and Origin of Spam, select:
Perform the action:and select 'Automatically (without notification)'.
If you do accidentally lose good email with this, you can rescue any email in Tools>>Statistics>>Mail Log.
Another good idea is to hide your friends' emails from view. See Spam Tools>>My Friends list>>Action>>Hide the email. This has the effect of displaying only the spam in your email account. You can then quickly check, then process and download only your friends email to your email program.
How to use your learning filters - this really helps
No one else gets the same email as you, so you need to teach Mailwasher how to treat your email for you. It doesn't take much time and, once you know how to use it, it will make a huge difference to how well MailWasher recognises your spam.
On the left of your screen when using MailWasher you will see a 'Learning' column.
One day when you're checking your email with MailWasher, quickly spend a minute or two ticking either the 'Trash bin' icon for spam (marks with an X), or the 'envelope'(marks with a tick) for your good email.
It learns and adapts, and it will start to do the work for you - very quickly and accurately. So make sure you categorise your email whenever you check it. Every time you do, MailWasher's filters get more accurate.
Here's a demo you can watch to see how to do this.
http://www.firetrust.com/download/filters.htm You can skip the part 'How to set up' as Mailwasher comes with it turned on by default.
3. Filter at the server first
An effective way to filter through Mailwasher is to make sure your internet provider is filtering your email first (and doing a good job) - before it gets to you. Some providers are better than others at this, but as long as you're not losing your good email they should be filtering out 90-95% of the spam before it gets to you.
Some businesses will run their own email systems and to effectively do this, they need to filter out most of their employees' spam but, at the same time, make sure good email always gets through or is retrievable.
At Firetrust we have available a very popular free open-source anti-spam solution for businesses who run their own email server. If you're interested in the technical details, it plugs into Microsoft Exchange, Sendmail and Qmail or runs as a gateway. It runs on Windows, Linux or Solaris. Information and download here :
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mailwasher/
4. Get rid of your catch-all account
We've had a number of people writing to us this last month saying they get around 2,000-3,000 emails a day. And you thought you had it bad!
Anyway, after speaking to these people it turns out, they own their own domain name, e.g. @company.com.
Now spammers have little regard to who they send their spam to, so they will try any address at the domain name you own.
So, instead of just getting email to their own named email address, they were getting email sent to anyone at the domain name they owned. Eg. If they had an email address bob@company.com they were also receiving email addressed to mary@company.com, simon@company.com, mark@company.com, house@company.com, car@company.com, boat@company.com, anything@company.com, xhfrngy@company.com ... (you get the picture) ...
Once we told them to call their internet provider and to change their email account from a 'catch-all' account to only getting email addressed to their email address, they experienced a huge reduction in spam.
This was only for people who get email to their own domain name, so don't annoy your internet provider if you don't have one.
5. Use an Anti-virus - this one is free
If you didn't know it already, the majority of spam is sent by people who have viruses on their computers. Not only do people not know they have a virus on their computer, they don't know they are sending spam.
This is how it happens. A person doesn't have antivirus installed and gets a virus. The virus is the type which turns the computer into a zombie, that is, the virus allows the spammer to control the computer and use it to send out spam.
Of course it is very difficult to track and stop spam from these computers as one spammer may control around 50,000 computers to send out their spam.
So, INSTALL ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER! And tell your friends to do too, and they can tell their friends etc.
If your current antivirus subscription has run out, then it's not working for you any more. Either pay for another year or download AVG antivirus which is completely free to use and works very well. Get it here - http://www.grisoft.com/doc/products-avg-anti-virus-free-edition/lng/us/tpl/t pl01
6. The current state of spam
A few years ago, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates predicted that spam would be eradiacated by 2006 but if anything, it's getting worse. As you've probably realised, fighting spam is a bit of an arms race. We block something, they get around it and so on....
The main problem of spam is that it's an economic problem. If it wasn't profitable to send spam, it would almost certainly stop.
So what can we all do to stop the flood of junk email?
The answer is simple :DON'T EVER EVER BUY ANYTHING ADVERTISED IN A SPAM EMAIL!
Of course you should never buy something featured in a spam email, no matter how good it looks. Even if you don't get defrauded out of your money, you're encouraging the spammer to keep sending his junk messages.
This latest spam outbreak is proving harder and harder to block. Either it uses lots of unrelated words together or is composed of an image, with random noise to avoid detection. We are busy working on solutions to better detect this type of spam and we'll be rolling out a new product in the near future.
Until then, make sure you follow the guidelines I've laid down for you.
Thank you to all of you who send us your comments and suggestions. We enjoy hearing from you - please keep in touch.
And feel free to forward this newsletter on to your friends and family.
Have a great day!Nick Bolton and the team at Firetrust
www.firetrust.com
"The Creator"
Read through the letter I recieved on how to better utilize Mailwasher and also a little update on Spam and Antivirus. Lots to digest,but worth your while to learn a little more about these two computing menaces.
FIRETRUST NEWSLETTER
Hi,
As you may have noticed, over the past couple of months spam has got a lot worse. So I thought it's probably a good time to send you some tips and ideas to get around the ever increasing flood of spam.
First of all, I'll cover how you can use MailWasher better to trap spam and then discuss some other steps you should take to reduce spam getting to you. Lastly I'll talk about how spam works and why we're still getting it.
Contents
Use filtering properly
Use how to use your learning filters - this really helps
Filter at the server first
Get rid of your catch-all account
Use an Anti-virus - this one is free
The current state of spam
1. Use filtering properly
Since Mailwasher works by filtering your email before it gets to your computer, you should take the time to make sure it's doing a good job of telling the difference between spam and your good email. We'll keep this simple.
Click on the 'Spam Tools' button on the front screen of Mailwasher.
Friends list:
People on your Friends List always get through and are clearly marked green. If you haven't taken the time to add your contacts to the Friends List, take 5 minutes and do it. It will make a big difference.
FirstAlert!:
This service is getting better and better all the time and it helps with training your filters to recognise spam. Turn it on.
Learning:
Training your filters to recognise spam and good email is really effective and ensures a high degree of accuracy. You don't need to do anything here as I'll come back to this in the next section.
Origin of spam:
This works by blocking spam based on its point of origin. Two very reliable, accurate and well-known services are ORDB and Spamhaus. Make sure you have these ticked as working. If you don't see them, click on 'Add' then
Name (for your benefit): ORDBDomain (to validate with): relays.ordb.org
Name (for your benefit): SpamhausDomain (to validate with): sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org
Click 'OK' each time to enter these.
These will help to catch a lot of spam.
Some points to note:
Did you know you can auto-delete most of the spam so you never see it in Mailwasher?
First of all, make sure you have all your contacts listed in your friends list - these must always get through. Then for FirstAlert! and Origin of Spam, select:
Perform the action:and select 'Automatically (without notification)'.
If you do accidentally lose good email with this, you can rescue any email in Tools>>Statistics>>Mail Log.
Another good idea is to hide your friends' emails from view. See Spam Tools>>My Friends list>>Action>>Hide the email. This has the effect of displaying only the spam in your email account. You can then quickly check, then process and download only your friends email to your email program.
How to use your learning filters - this really helps
No one else gets the same email as you, so you need to teach Mailwasher how to treat your email for you. It doesn't take much time and, once you know how to use it, it will make a huge difference to how well MailWasher recognises your spam.
On the left of your screen when using MailWasher you will see a 'Learning' column.
One day when you're checking your email with MailWasher, quickly spend a minute or two ticking either the 'Trash bin' icon for spam (marks with an X), or the 'envelope'(marks with a tick) for your good email.
It learns and adapts, and it will start to do the work for you - very quickly and accurately. So make sure you categorise your email whenever you check it. Every time you do, MailWasher's filters get more accurate.
Here's a demo you can watch to see how to do this.
http://www.firetrust.com/download/filters.htm You can skip the part 'How to set up' as Mailwasher comes with it turned on by default.
3. Filter at the server first
An effective way to filter through Mailwasher is to make sure your internet provider is filtering your email first (and doing a good job) - before it gets to you. Some providers are better than others at this, but as long as you're not losing your good email they should be filtering out 90-95% of the spam before it gets to you.
Some businesses will run their own email systems and to effectively do this, they need to filter out most of their employees' spam but, at the same time, make sure good email always gets through or is retrievable.
At Firetrust we have available a very popular free open-source anti-spam solution for businesses who run their own email server. If you're interested in the technical details, it plugs into Microsoft Exchange, Sendmail and Qmail or runs as a gateway. It runs on Windows, Linux or Solaris. Information and download here :
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mailwasher/
4. Get rid of your catch-all account
We've had a number of people writing to us this last month saying they get around 2,000-3,000 emails a day. And you thought you had it bad!
Anyway, after speaking to these people it turns out, they own their own domain name, e.g. @company.com.
Now spammers have little regard to who they send their spam to, so they will try any address at the domain name you own.
So, instead of just getting email to their own named email address, they were getting email sent to anyone at the domain name they owned. Eg. If they had an email address bob@company.com they were also receiving email addressed to mary@company.com, simon@company.com, mark@company.com, house@company.com, car@company.com, boat@company.com, anything@company.com, xhfrngy@company.com ... (you get the picture) ...
Once we told them to call their internet provider and to change their email account from a 'catch-all' account to only getting email addressed to their email address, they experienced a huge reduction in spam.
This was only for people who get email to their own domain name, so don't annoy your internet provider if you don't have one.
5. Use an Anti-virus - this one is free
If you didn't know it already, the majority of spam is sent by people who have viruses on their computers. Not only do people not know they have a virus on their computer, they don't know they are sending spam.
This is how it happens. A person doesn't have antivirus installed and gets a virus. The virus is the type which turns the computer into a zombie, that is, the virus allows the spammer to control the computer and use it to send out spam.
Of course it is very difficult to track and stop spam from these computers as one spammer may control around 50,000 computers to send out their spam.
So, INSTALL ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER! And tell your friends to do too, and they can tell their friends etc.
If your current antivirus subscription has run out, then it's not working for you any more. Either pay for another year or download AVG antivirus which is completely free to use and works very well. Get it here - http://www.grisoft.com/doc/products-avg-anti-virus-free-edition/lng/us/tpl/t pl01
6. The current state of spam
A few years ago, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates predicted that spam would be eradiacated by 2006 but if anything, it's getting worse. As you've probably realised, fighting spam is a bit of an arms race. We block something, they get around it and so on....
The main problem of spam is that it's an economic problem. If it wasn't profitable to send spam, it would almost certainly stop.
So what can we all do to stop the flood of junk email?
The answer is simple :DON'T EVER EVER BUY ANYTHING ADVERTISED IN A SPAM EMAIL!
Of course you should never buy something featured in a spam email, no matter how good it looks. Even if you don't get defrauded out of your money, you're encouraging the spammer to keep sending his junk messages.
This latest spam outbreak is proving harder and harder to block. Either it uses lots of unrelated words together or is composed of an image, with random noise to avoid detection. We are busy working on solutions to better detect this type of spam and we'll be rolling out a new product in the near future.
Until then, make sure you follow the guidelines I've laid down for you.
Thank you to all of you who send us your comments and suggestions. We enjoy hearing from you - please keep in touch.
And feel free to forward this newsletter on to your friends and family.
Have a great day!Nick Bolton and the team at Firetrust
www.firetrust.com
"The Creator"
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Go Fetch...
If you are visiting Vancouver and have your pet in mind...this is the spot for you...Go Fetch it!
"The Creator"
"The Creator"
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Nudder night
Well, here is a funny website called headlines if you want to check it out for a good laugh... Thanks Chris...made my night! Note that if you are using Explorer, you have to Okay Popups to open underlined links. That is located on your Google toolbar .
Ooh...I received many Christmas cards today. Thank-you to all and to all of those you took time to send them out. You may have to wait a while before you recieve mine...something about a mail delay in Harroponia...nothing till after the week-end!
Jami also sent me a link to a website showing off her paintings. Check them out and give her a vote of ten on each one of them. This link brings you to her home page of paintings at Artfaceoff. She is doing wonderfully well in her art career in Portland Oregon, by the looks of her very terrific paintings! You can see by the photos of the city that many bridges cross the Willamette River, hence all the bridge references in Jami's delightful paintings.
Ok, I have just finished trying to scare off the coyotes, by shaking my pop-can with pennies in it. It makes a ton of noise, but all my shaking in the world didn't seem to faze them one bit. They are howling their heads off somewhere very much too close by...like under the Willow tree or on the beach...calling to my little doggy and big kitty cat..."Come for dinner-Come for dinner -Come be my dinner!"
Either that, or, "Send down the females, so we can mate all night long!"
Silky can hear them long before me, and both tonight and (last night at one in the morning), she let out a series of alarming barks. Glad Emil was home or I'd have been afraid, for sure. Last thing I need is 3 or 4 yotes staking out my pets. Maybe I'll go check out that Trappers site a little more closely:-)
Ok, time to hit the hay...I hear something beeping....could be Emil's phone about to expire! Nope, it is mine!
"The Creator"
Ooh...I received many Christmas cards today. Thank-you to all and to all of those you took time to send them out. You may have to wait a while before you recieve mine...something about a mail delay in Harroponia...nothing till after the week-end!
Jami also sent me a link to a website showing off her paintings. Check them out and give her a vote of ten on each one of them. This link brings you to her home page of paintings at Artfaceoff. She is doing wonderfully well in her art career in Portland Oregon, by the looks of her very terrific paintings! You can see by the photos of the city that many bridges cross the Willamette River, hence all the bridge references in Jami's delightful paintings.
Ok, I have just finished trying to scare off the coyotes, by shaking my pop-can with pennies in it. It makes a ton of noise, but all my shaking in the world didn't seem to faze them one bit. They are howling their heads off somewhere very much too close by...like under the Willow tree or on the beach...calling to my little doggy and big kitty cat..."Come for dinner-Come for dinner -Come be my dinner!"
Either that, or, "Send down the females, so we can mate all night long!"
Silky can hear them long before me, and both tonight and (last night at one in the morning), she let out a series of alarming barks. Glad Emil was home or I'd have been afraid, for sure. Last thing I need is 3 or 4 yotes staking out my pets. Maybe I'll go check out that Trappers site a little more closely:-)
Ok, time to hit the hay...I hear something beeping....could be Emil's phone about to expire! Nope, it is mine!
"The Creator"
Monday, December 11, 2006
Here are my Grand Sweeties and Spike
Sonia sent me these pics yesterday of the kids and the new puppy...all are so cute..makes me want to be there, and it makes me sad not to be spending Xmas with them this year. The good news tho, is that I had to get my doo-doo together and send their parcels away. I did that at Grey hound today. No line ups, no hassle. On the other hand, I did have to mail things for Carolyne at the post office this afternoon. I was #ten in line. Three clerks were on, andt hen one packed it up and left. A few minutes later a fellow replaced her, bringing it back to three posties again and the line began to once again speed up. However by 3:35, the line up was over twenty long and going right out to the door and around to the other part of the post office. My reccomendation is to try for earlier rather than later. At nine this am, there were three people waiting for Shoppers to open,and all had arm loads of parcels to be mailed away...all except one guy...he had a shopping buggy full of small parcels...probably drugs going to the USA. That is a fast growing business in Nelson. all in all, I was glad to be using Grey Hound today.
"The Creator"
Ginger-Bread House Deluxe...
I'd like to be the owner of this wonderful creation, but alas, it tis not me. Sounds liek Correna spent the week-end building this great feat of architecture! Way to go, C. , and the added touch of the little skaters and the Dicken's folks skooting around, makes it one sweet Christmas scene. The roofing material is quite interesting...New Mexico adobe tiles? Just joking! I commend you for being so brave as to tackle a gingerbread house.
I have unfond memories of making more and more Royal Icing to add yet another layer of stick-um to the joints every time a wall would quietly start to peel away from the rest of the house. It was the first time I recall buying merengue powder to mix up , instead of using egg whites. A little 250 gram carton of powder didn't go too far when the house was about 2400 sq. feet...(make that inches!) It was pretty tall, like Correnas, but had a quirky roof that belonged on a troll house. We bought out the candy section at the Warfield store and plastered on about twenty pounds of everything from licorice to jube-jubes. In the end, I could hardly lift the damn thing....and no-one could even break off a candy, cause the royal icing with all of the merengue powder in it, has solidified into white stone. To top it off, the royal icing apparently found its way onto everything I ever touched. It solidified all over my little Warfield kitchen and was a Royal mess to clean up.
Poor Sonia and Annette, sometime after New Years day, eventually gave up trying to chew off the candy and the whole thing had to hit the ditch. Besides, neither of them like giungerbread too much)
Congrats to C. for building and sharing her masterpiece and good luck to all who undertake the building of such a fun Christmas project. ( Warning: Have plenty of icing sugar on hand and lots of hot water to wipe off the goo as it cementifies!)
"The Creator"
Back to the party at Anne's
Emil and AnneI had this all written out once, but apparently it didn't post to my blog, so here we go again. I just wanted to mention how smart Anne is to make those nice shrimp cocktails to have before dinner. The shrimp are interspersed with lemon wedges and the bottom of the glass holds a quarter cup or so of shredded lettuce topped with a dollop of seafood sauce. She has done them in wine goblets before, for an equally nice touch. That little appetizer suffices for a salad and she goes right on to the main course which was all prepared ahead of time...
Mashed Potatoes topped cheddar cheese, and baked in an 8x8 Pyrex cake pan. Asparagus precooked and waiting to be served...in another pyrex dish in the oven. Then she had the most colourful dish... baked stuffed tomatoes. I don't know what was in the stuffing, but it was light and fluffy and didn't taste too strongly of any flavour.
For another vegetable dish, Dick made these vegetable sticks, comprised of zuccini, red and orange peppers, and carrots...all cut to about four and a half inches long, then made into little bundles that were then wrapped in a slice or two of bacon! These were baked on a cookie sheet until the veggies were cooked through and the bacon was crisp on top. What a neat idea. ( she may have marinated them in some olive oil ahead of time) She made about two bundles per person. Her main entree was roasted pork with applesauce ,and then gravy to top off everything. I nearly forgot the cheese scones...now those were very good...about the size of a baking powder biscuit, so everyone ate at least two of them!
She wound up the dinner with a beautiful cheese cake topped with a raspberry topping and whipped cream... Yum. We all filled our bellies with goodness and wine and had to come home to go to beddy byes.
So I thought I'd pass on those dinner ideas, now that Christmas parties are happening every week.
We are planning to have Gord and Janice and Ed and Linda over, next Sunday...for some Mexican food. I think I'll do a soup, fahitas, natchos, and coleslaw, and Janice is bringing a trifle for desert. It won't be too complicated, that is for sure.
have a great one...
"The Creator"
Mashed Potatoes topped cheddar cheese, and baked in an 8x8 Pyrex cake pan. Asparagus precooked and waiting to be served...in another pyrex dish in the oven. Then she had the most colourful dish... baked stuffed tomatoes. I don't know what was in the stuffing, but it was light and fluffy and didn't taste too strongly of any flavour.
For another vegetable dish, Dick made these vegetable sticks, comprised of zuccini, red and orange peppers, and carrots...all cut to about four and a half inches long, then made into little bundles that were then wrapped in a slice or two of bacon! These were baked on a cookie sheet until the veggies were cooked through and the bacon was crisp on top. What a neat idea. ( she may have marinated them in some olive oil ahead of time) She made about two bundles per person. Her main entree was roasted pork with applesauce ,and then gravy to top off everything. I nearly forgot the cheese scones...now those were very good...about the size of a baking powder biscuit, so everyone ate at least two of them!
She wound up the dinner with a beautiful cheese cake topped with a raspberry topping and whipped cream... Yum. We all filled our bellies with goodness and wine and had to come home to go to beddy byes.
So I thought I'd pass on those dinner ideas, now that Christmas parties are happening every week.
We are planning to have Gord and Janice and Ed and Linda over, next Sunday...for some Mexican food. I think I'll do a soup, fahitas, natchos, and coleslaw, and Janice is bringing a trifle for desert. It won't be too complicated, that is for sure.
have a great one...
"The Creator"
Dinner at Anne and Dick's
Lynn and Ursela
Must of been a good joke by Emil!
Emil and Anne with Barry and Ursela in the kitchen
And our Hostesses with the mostest! Anne and Dick
Note that delicious appetizer... I'll tell you how its done, tonight!
"The Creator"
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