Anyone who uses email knows what Spam is!

It’s annoying and time consuming to wade through volumes of fraud, con and obscene emails to filter out the really important ones. And I am sure you are affected by this menace in some form or other.

How do we reduce this intolerable amounts of junk?

Here are 5 Zero-Cost tools to prevent junk cluttering your mail box. (You can access them all from a single source and the info is given at the end of this article.)

–* For the Average Email User *–

1. 0spam.com, - For the POP3 Mail user.

By far this is the easiest and effective solution for anyone with a POP3 email ID. For e.g. you@aol.com.

0Spam.com is a web based service that retrieves all your email for you and sends you only the emails from email ID’s that are pre-authenticated by you. This means, no one can send you an email unless you give prior permission.

This service is very effective - let me tell you that.

2. SpamPal, - The Desktop Solution

SpamPal is a program that sits between your email client and your mailbox, checking your email as you retrieve it.

Any email messages that SpamPal considers to be junk will be "tagged" with a special header; you simply configure your email client to filter anything with this header into a separate folder and your Spam won’t be mixed up with the rest of your email anymore!

–* For the Website Owner *–

Posting your email address on your website is a sure way to attract junk. (e.g. support@yoursite.com)

In case you are not aware, there exists special software’s that harvest anything with an @ in between. This means, your posted emails are sitting ducks for an avalanche of junk.

1. Enkoder Form 6.0, - A Simple Solution for the Webmaster

One way to protect yourself is to "encode" your address, The Enkoder Form will encrypt your Email address and convert it to a JavaScript, hiding it from Email harvesting robots which crawl the web for exposed addresses.

Simply copy this JavaScript and paste it into your Web page where you want the email to appear.

2. Master SpamBot Buster, - A Thorough CGI Solution

Master Spambot Buster stops robots harvesting email addresses from your web pages. But the script does more than that! It completely stops harvesting your email address from:

-Newsletters, -Newsgroup postings, -Discussion list postings, -Instant messages, -Print ads, -Or any other document

Instead of publishing your email address, you use the Master Spambot Buster method so that your email address is protected from everywhere and from all documents.

This is a great software released by willmaster.com

3. NATATA Anti-Spam Encoder, - Desktop Solution

This program searches for email addresses either from all your web pages or a single page and encodes them all in minutes automatically. Its pure HTML encoding and no Java used.

You do not have to be technically savvy to use this one as it automatically inserts the codes into your web pages. In 2 minutes you can entirely encrypt all your web pages.

This is by far, the best software that I came across

You may access all the 5 tools given above from here: http://www.learnhomebusiness.com/bonuses/spamtools.htm

I hope, these resources will help you to reduce the junk clogging your mail box.

5 Zero-Cost Spam Prevention Tools For All Situations! (C) S. Kumar 2004 http://www.learnhomebusiness.com

S. Kumar is the author of 3 eBooks:

"Become A Global Homebusiness Pro…" "Sales Letters That Get you Immediate Results" "Sales Doubler" - The New Smart Free Sales Tool

Download All 3 Of Them For FREE From His Site: http://www.learnhomebusiness.com

If you are buried in SPAM then you’re not alone. It’s been suggested that as much as 50% to 75% of the e-mail traffic on any given day is SPAM. Reading through SPAM is a waste of your time and it subjects you to potential viruses, trojan horses, and sexual material which can be quite offensive. Here are some tips on how to win the SPAM war:

1. Use a throwaway email address when posting to public news groups and chat rooms and for your Yahoo or MS Messenger Chat accounts. You can get free email addresses at Yahoo, HotMail and other places. Use your personal ISP-provided email address only to communicate with trusted sources. If you are an AOL user then set up an additional email account to use for public posting purposes. When your free or spare email account starts getting abused just close it and open another.

2. Take the time to set up different email addresses for different purposes. Have one for business communications, another for personal and another one for shopping online. That way you can avoid the risk of exposing one e-mail address to all of your contacts.

3. If you own your own web site then the chances are that your hosting account comes with the ability to create new e-mail addresses on the fly. These are addresses that will automatically forward to your main address. If you have that capability then use a unique address for each web site or mailing list that you choose to join. For example, if your site name is abc.com and you decide to join the mailing list located at xyz.com, you would join using the address xyz@abc.com. If you start getting SPAM to this address then you know that the people who run xyz.com are responsible. You can complain to them and their ISP and you can easily delete that email address.

4. Don’t list your email address on your own web site in plain html or as a link to a contact form. Spammers use automated robots to capture these addresses and add them to SPAM databases. Instead use an email cloaking script whenever you need to show your email address. You can search at Google.com using the phrase "email cloaking" and come up with a lot of options. Just pick the one that works best for your particular needs.

5. Do not buy anything from a company that sends you SPAM. Not only might the company or offer be a scam but you are jumping right into the fire by letting spammers know that your email address is active and that you buy from spammers. Your address will be sold to thousands of other spammers.

6. Never reply to a spammer or click the "remove my address" link. That only lets them know that your address is good.

7. If your email service or email client comes with SPAM filters use them.

8. You might want to think about subscribing to a SPAM prevention service. Search on Google.com for "SPAM prevention service" and review your options.

Following these simple tips could cut your SPAM down by as much as 90%. Wouldn’t that be great!

Copyright © 2004 Cavyl Stewart. Discover 52 Ways To Do More With Software by signing up for my exclusive Free ecourse. Get resources, tips, reviews and recommendations you can use right now to help you achieve more, easier, and cheaper! 100% Original content. Visit: http://www.find-small-business-software.com/52ways.html

Even being as careful as possible with my email address, I still used to receive more than 100 email messages a day, which is no exaggeration. Only about 10% of those emails were from people that I knew and the rest of the messages were unwanted email…”spam”. And I’m sure you can relate to my frustration. It is estimated that over seventy-six billion unwanted email messages were delivered in 2003, costing companies more than $10 billion each year.

So How Do They Get Our Email Addresses?

In making online purchases, you should always realize that your email address could be given or sold, regardless of what the merchant’s privacy policy may state. Even filling out an online survey or registering your email address to become a member of a web site is subject to having your email address given away. Also, there are spider programs that spammers use that search the web and “harvest” email addresses, much like search engine spiders do when they acquire web site information.

Tips To Avoid Getting Spam

1. Don’t Click "Unsubscribe": On the bottom of some spam emails you will find an “Unsubscribe” link. Some of these are legitimate links, while others are tools to indicate that your email address is valid. Unsubscribing could actually result in getting more unwanted email.

2. Spam Filtering: Some ISPs or domain services carry spam filtering options, and there are filters and rules you can use in some email programs (i.e. Microsoft Outlook, Eudora and Apple’s Mail OSX). While no spam filtering program can eliminate spam completely, it can greatly reduce the amount of spam you receive. But you must be careful in using any sort of spam filtering mechanism, as you may ultimately filter out some of your wanted email.

3. Get Two Email Addresses: Use your primary email address for business or personal use, and the other for making online purchases and for filling out web site registration information.

4. Update Your Web Site: The best overall solution is to have people contact you through a form on your web site, as your email address is not so easily revealed. If you must have direct links to your email address on your site, consider having a link that simply reads "email" or "contact" instead of spelling it out on a web page.

There are many simple methods that you can use to help reduce the amount of spam coming through to your business. By using these tips, you will not only save yourself time and money, but you will ultimately send a strong message to the people send unwanted email.

About The Author

Edward Robirds is a success-driven artist and interactive media developer based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since 1996, Edward has been building business relationships with several association and commercial clients around the world. Founder of www.DreamseaArtworks.com, Edward uses his artistic skills, expertise and passion to design and develop web sites, interactive CD-ROMs, and print media for his clients.

mail@dreamseaartworks.com

If you’re anything like me, you’re pretty sick of it, and just want it to stop. What? Spam, of course. This article gives you a solution to radically, and quickly, reduce the amount of spam messages you receive to a bare minimum.

Personally, I get hundreds of unsolicited spam emails every single day, inviting me to enlarge this, reduce that, pay off my debt with another debt (how does that work?)… you know the type.

I’m also subscribed to dozens of ezines as part of continuing research and keeping my ‘finger on the pulse’ - and apart from those that stand out from the crowd and offer really valuable information, I’ve mostly forgotten which ones I’m subscribed to, and which ones are unsolicited.

The danger is of course that by clicking the unsubscribe link on pure spam messages, you’re often just confirming your existence to the spammer. So unless I’m really sure it’s a genuine unsubscribe link, I steer well clear, which of course doesn’t help my email levels.

The issue is really about email messages I want to read, versus those I don’t - and what to do with those that I don’t want to read.

Sorting through them manually would take hours every day, which for most people is clearly impractical - so I looked for solutions that would help me out, and came across one that works very well for me.

As a result, I now get just a few relevant emails that I actually want, or need, to read, ready and waiting for me in my Inbox - with the rest already deleted off in my ‘Deleted’ folder.

So, what’s the solution?

The secret is to use Artificial Intelligence. No, not robots and sci-fi warriors, but the artificial intelligence of your very own PC. Sounds crazy? No, it’s very real, and very effective.

In fact, it’s your very own Spam-Sniffing Cyber-Pet, that stops spam in its tracks - you don’t have to feed, water or walk it, you just need to spend a bit of time training it to distinguish between the messages you do, and don’t, want to read.

It can take a couple hours at first, and then you’ll start noticing your spam dropping rapidly. Take a few minutes a day for a week or so, and I can practically guarantee your spam will have dropped by 98-99%. That’s what I call an excellent investment of your time.

After that, you’ll only need to spend a few minutes every now and again to keep your Spam-Sniffer’s training up to date. For example, if you get a message in the wrong place, just tell your Cyber-Pet, and it should filter it correctly next time.

Most of the time, this filtering is over 95% accurate - the more consistently you train it, the higher this accuracy level is. In fact, I can now go weeks without doing a thing - and my spam levels stay the same, i.e. exceedingly low.

The good news is that this solution is one-hundred percent free, and works on pretty much any operating system. According to New Scientist magazine, it "…does a wonderful job".

All you need is a modicum of technical knowledge to set it up, and the patience to let it work its magic on your Inbox.

Here’s the URL: http://popfile.sourceforge.net/.

It’s a free download, and for once, after months of using it, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of ‘catch’.

What’s more, it’s literally saved me hundreds of hours over the past year, and is well worth the small investment of time and effort up front.

About The Author

Steve Shaw is the developer of PopUpMaster Pro, which allows you to add unblockable popups to your web site quickly and easily, specifically designed to sign up subscribers to your list, and fast. => http://popupmaster.com.

Steve has been marketing full-time online since March 2002, developing software products and systems for e-marketing, including PopUpMaster Pro, the Click Bank Toolkit, and most recently, the free list building system at ListInferno.com.

Are you getting too much spam? We all are, but if you’re a webmaster the word spam takes on a whole new meaning.

It’s not uncommon for the luckiest of email users to receive a dozen or so spam messages each day, while those of us who aren’t so fortunate receive hundreds.

The casual home user tends to be more fortunate, so this article is devoted to those of us with one or more website because webmasters are getting hit by spam … and hit hard.

The reason … a website doesn’t do you much good if you don’t give potential customers a way to contact you, and that normally means posting an email address on your website, where it is vulnerable to email address harvesting tools used by spammers. Domain registration records are also a common source used by spammers.

In order to conduct business online you now need to sift through the endless barrage of offers for herbal viagra, pornography, pyramid schemes, and so on.

With such a large volume of spam to contend with, it’s likely you’ve lost sales due to missing important emails that simply floated away in this sea of spam. And there’s no way to really calculate the cost of that lost business. If you’ve missed email then how can you ever know how much business you’ve lost?

If you want to solve the problem, you need to be proactive because the sad reality is that if you do nothing, it will only get worse until finally it reaches the point where your email account has become totally and completely unmanageable. Fortunately there are a few options available to you.

Securing Your Domain Registration Against Spammers

First let’s address the whois database, which is a publicly accessible database in which your domain registration record is listed … and that includes your email address. It’s not uncommon now for people to be spammed at a brand new email address within hours of registering a new domain.

Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com is a domain registrar that now offers private domain registrations. At the time of writing this article, they are the only registrar who currently offers this service. Hopefully in time, other registrars will pick up on this idea and offer the service too.

With a private domain registration, which costs only a few dollars more than a regular registration, your contact information including your email address will not be publicly accessible in the whois database.

That’s guaranteed to cut down on spam quite significantly as this very important source of addresses that spammers use, will no longer provide your address to them.

If you don’t wish to obtain a private domain registration, then there is another option that will be equally effective. Set up a new email address that you use only for the purpose of providing registration information for your domain name. You can easily scan email sent to that address for messages from your registrar, and delete the rest without having to read it.

Securing Your Website Against Spammers

The other major source, and by far the biggest source of email addresses for spammers is of course the mailto links on your own website. Email address harvesting or extraction software as it’s known is cheap, easy to use, and readily available … and it’s very effective. That means there are a lot of spammers out there with easy access to your email address.

Chances are hundreds or even thousands of spammers using such software have already harvested your address. And what can you do about this? You need to provide a way for your customers to reach you by email, or you’ll lose business. There are steps you can take to prevent your email address from being harvested and used by spammers though, while still providing legitimate visitors to your site with a way to email you.

One solution is to make all the mailto links on your site point to a form instead, which will still provide a means for people to send you email. Provided you use a CGI script that doesn’t require the address to be embedded within the form itself, you can shield your address from email address extractors.

If you don’t want to require people to fill out a form to email you from your website, then you can get a little more creative. It is possible to put a mailto link on your site that when clicked will still launch the sender’s email program, and start a new message with your address in the To field … but without having to embed your email address in the mailto link where spam software can snatch it. Click below to see an example of how it works.

http://thewebhostcompany.com/cgi-local/email.cgi

It looks like a normal URL, and there’s clearly no email address anywhere in the link, but when clicked, instead of loading a web page in your browser as you may have expected, your email program opens up.

How’s that possible you might ask? Simple. A little magic with CGI using Perl or PHP will do the trick. A free copy of a script that does this is bundled with Postmaster Pro, available at http://www.postmasterpro.com which is discussed below.

What About Spammers Who Already Have My Address?

So far we’ve discussed a few fairly simple techniques designed to prevent spammers from obtaining your email address in the first place. But, how do you deal with the spam you’re already getting? Your address is already out there. The solution is to either block or filter.

For either, you’ll need software. For blocking, I recommend Postmaster Pro. If you prefer to filter then Spam Assassin is highly recommended. Both run on the server, so there is no need to download spam before filtering it out. That’s a huge time saver if you’re not yet on a high-speed connection. It also makes it a bit less likely you’ll end up downloading a virus since email from untrusted senders, i.e. spammers will be significantly reduced.

Spam Blocking Software

Postmaster Pro which is available at http://www.postmasterpro.com takes a novel approach to blocking spam. It only allows email to be delivered after people who’ve sent you email have been placed on an approved sender list. But the interesting thing is that people who send you email can put themselves on your approved list. This is done simply by clicking a link in an email that automatically gets sent to them the first time they send email to you, which is perfect for those of us who don’t know in advance whom we should put on the approved list, i.e. if you’re running a business online. It also makes building and maintaining such a list very simple.

Given the fact that spammers normally use invalid return addresses, and those who do use valid return addresses seldom read email that’s sent there, let alone respond to it (they receive thousands of failed delivery notifications, complaints, remove requests, and autoresponder messages every time they do a mailing) … it’s a very effective technique with no chance of blocking legitimate email, as is the case with filtering.

Spam Filtering Software

For those who would prefer to filter … Spam Assassin is perhaps the best option. It is available at http://www.spamassassin.org. Once you have Spam Assassin installed, it will provide you with very powerful and flexible filtering tools. Spam Assassin is a mature product, having been around for quite some time. If you’re going to filter, Spam Assassin is about as good as it gets.

As with any filter though, you do run the risk of missing legitimate email from time to time. There really isn’t a good way to tell how often this is happening unless you want to read all the email that gets filtered out, which negates the whole point of filtering. If you set your filters permissively enough though, you should be reasonably safe. For the first month or so after installing any filter, you should continue to read every single email in order to make sure it isn’t set too restrictively to allow legitimate email through.

By using the techniques mentioned in this article, you can take back your mailbox, and dramatically reduce, if not eliminate spam.

About The Author

Sean Proske is the CEO and founding partner of thewebhostcompany.com which has provided reliable and affordable hosting since 1996.

sproske@thewebhostcompany.com

You must be one of them experiencing a lot of unwanted emails flooding into your mail box every day. It is annoying, and a "daily" problem for many.

How do the spammers find your email? They can find your email address either in the text of a web page or in a mailto link. The spammers enjoy harvesting the emails and ultimately those emails are spammed with junk mails.

I came to know about some simple methods to protect our email IDs from spammers, which I hope may be of some help to you too.

1. While leaving your email address on the web page or on a text message or on a discussion board, write like this - username @ domainname. com (Please note the space in between). Then during the harvesting process it won’t work easily.

2. Write your email like this - username (at the) domainname.com or net, or edu, whatever it may be.

3. Use a web form. Those who genuinely want to contact you will fill the form with their details and get in touch with you. So you know who is contacting you.

4. Never reply to a spam email. Many advise that replying to a spam email confirms your email address to the spammer.

5. While leaving your email address for filling up a form to get more information please check with their privacy policy, to ensure that they won’t misuse your email for any other purpose, other than the one you’ve requested.

6. Make use of your email provider’s filtering facility to reduce spam.

Lakshmi Menon is an internet marketer and her website is http://www.net4homeincome.com

With SPAM being such a problem it might seem the right thing to do is never give anyone your email address. As a strategy that’s not bad but it misses one rather important point; the purpose of having an email address is to be able to exchange emails, both with friends and also as a means to receive eZines from online forums and information sites. In theory any one of these sources could share your email address with a spammer (perhaps by listing it on a public site) and before you know it your email box is full of emails you don’t want and can’t stop… note, we do not do this, your address is safe with us.

Therefore what you need would seem to be a list of separate email addresses, all of which are yours, that you allocate out to the different email lists and online forums you have. That way if one of the addresses gets picked up by the spammers you can just drop and block that one address (and perhaps the list it was subscribed to) and continue in your low or no-SPAM world.

So how do we do this?

What we’re going to do is use one "real" email account (ideally with a hard to guess name) and then a set of forwarded email addresses, all of which are different, but all point back to the real email address. Typically your ISP (Internet Service Provider) provides a small number of email-boxes for you (normally called "POP3" mailboxes). Choose one of these to be your "real" email address and point your email client to it (follow the instruction in your email client such as Outlook Express and ISP to do this). Then we need to register a domain name which will allow us to have lots of forwarded email addresses. 123-Reg.com are an example of a company that provides an inexpensive high-quality service to do this, so we’ll use them as an example. Create an account, it’s free to do this, and give them your real email address. Then you should register a domain name with them; obviously you need to think of a domain name which you would like as part of your "public face." Choosing a name you like can take a little thought, but don’t take too long, domain names are being registered at the rate of one every two seconds, so get in to secure yours as soon as you can! The cost is very low, with .uk domains at around UK£3 / US$5 per year and .com/.net around UK£9 / US$15 per year (note, you should register for at least two years). Using the email forwarding option from the 123-reg.com control panel, set the catch-all address as your real email address. Then any emails sent to any name at your domain will be forwarded on to you automatically.

Here’s a worked example for Brenda Wyatt.

• Brenda’s ISP supplied POP3 email address is brenda@myisp.com
• She creates an account at 123-reg.com and registers the domain "WyattMail.net"
• She sets up email forwarding via the 123-reg control panel to forward all emails received to @wyattmail.net to brenda@myisp.com.

Now when Brenda signs up to a forum or email list she gives an email address which is individual to that list. Let’s say she registers with Amazon, she could register as ‘Amazon@wyattemail.net’. They will send emails to that address which will be forwarded to her brenda@myisp.com email address and she can read them as she wishes.

The nice thing about this system is that Brenda hasn’t had to go anywhere else to register the email address ‘Amazon@wyattemail.net’, 123-reg just sees the wyattemail.net part and sends it on for her.

So what happens if she finds one of her email addresses is being targeted by spammers? Let’s assume this happens to her "dodgylist@wyattemail.net" email address. She then goes to 123-reg.com, logs in and goes to the control panel. She selects the email forwarding page, adds a fresh line with ‘dodgylist@wyattemail.net’ in it, clicks the ‘return to sender’ checkbox and clicks ‘update’. Now any email to this address will be returned to whence it came. Nice, eh?

©2005 Paul Quirk & Mark Quirk. Article taken from CareOfWindowsXP.com.

Paul Quirk & Mark Quirk are both IT professionals with a combined 35 years of experience in the IT industry. Find out more about keeping your computer under your control at http://www.CareOfWindowsXP.com.

Spam filter is the solution that most people resort when they try to steam the flood of junk mails and spam.

However, there is a problem!

First: Some spam will still get through.
Second: Some legitimate mails will be stopped as spam.

And that legitimate messages get caught in the spam filters is a big problem. It is a big problem for both the sender and for the receiver. If you use POP accounts on your ISP or use free email accounts like Hotmail you will sometimes be forced to use their spam filters. You are often not even told that legitimate messages may be deleted.

Why will they get stopped?
There are several reasons!

Spam filters may give red flag to an email simply because it contains words which the filters also find in spam messages.

Often newsletters you sign up to get blocked because too many messages are sent out at the same time or some subscriber have complained accusing the sender of spamming. The rules of the spam filters changes over time as this is an ever going arms race between the spammers and the anti spam filter manufacturer.

So how can you stop the flood of spam hitting your email account?

Simple, you have to go stealth!

Look at email spamming as a war.

Using spam filters is like putting on armor. It gives you protection, but it will also cost you and give you less flexibility.

The spam sending gangs, there are estimated to be fewer than hundred worldwide, machine gun bombard only email accounts which they can find.
This means that if they can’t find your email address they can’t spam you.

So how do they find you?
Contrary to popular beliefs they don’t find your email address because you sign up to a newsletter or to legal product information.

Instead they collect or harvest email from web sites using spam boots. The spam boots works in a similar way as web content collecting search engine spiders except they only collect email addresses. They also collect email address from address books found inside email software like Outlook or Eudora. They do this by using viruses and spywares.

Your solution to avoid getting on their lists is to go stealth and become invisible to the spammers!
What do I mean by that?
Simple you hide your email address or addresses from the email harvesting spam boots. But at the same time if you have your own web site you want your viewers to be able to read or click on your contact email.

One common solution is to rewrite the email address on the web site.
Let’s say you email is: info@mysite.com
You can rewrite the address as info@REMOVEmysite.com, info @ mysite.com, infoATmysite.com or something similar. The email address is then readable by human viewers, not by the spammers. The downside of this method is that the email address is not clickable from your web site.

Another method which is preferred by commercial web sites is to use a contact form that also hides the address from the spammers.

One solution which I use and have found to work well is to hide the address from the spam boots with java script. The address then becomes clickable for the viewers. You can learn how to use java script and hide your email addresses from the spammers at http://www.data-backup-and-storage.com/stop-spam.html

You should also use firewall and anti virus software as a protection so that spammers don’t get access to the email addresses from within your computer. As an extra precaution you should also use spyware removal software. This will remove possible spyware from your computer. All this measures should protect you from spammers and their spying eyes.

However, be careful! With this method in order to work you should adopt a strict email discipline and limit the number of people with access to your email addresses and not spread them around.

But, what if your emails already have been spread into the spammers mailing lists?

It is important to understand that the spammers want new and fresh email addresses.
Therefore they continuously harvest the Internet for addresses.

The answer is, use Google!
With Google you will find the web pages on which your email addresses are located. Just perform consecutive searches using Google typing in one of your email address in the search box.

You can then contact the owners of those sites and ask them to remove the email address.

Result:
The spam will not stop immediately, but after a couple of months the flow will start to recede.

Copyright 2004 Per Strandberg

About The Author

Per Strandberg works with computer security and he also manage an information site dealing with data backup technology. Learn working data backup strategies at ==> http://www.data-backup-and-storage.com/computer-backup.html

Discover different ways to get rid of spam at ==> http://www.data-backup-and-storage.com/stop-spam.html

RSS is the answer to the Spam epidemic of the past. Spam, any mass distribution of material across the Internet, can cause systems to back up and crash with unwanted and unsolicited material. Some of this material may be offensive to the people who visit your website and drive away potential viewers or customers.

Spam clogs networks and takes the place of real news and interesting articles. To effectively fight Spam, utilize RSS technology to ensure your website is at the height of its game. This technology screens and sorts material so you only get what you specifically want.

RSS technology utilizes an editor or reader to sort through data. RSS feeds are often one line of text that details the title of the article and gives a brief explanation of the kind of information given in the article. RSS readers often distinguish between Spam and real content by recognizing mass distribution or carbon copies.

This function ensures you are not receiving Spam that has been mass emailed out, but are receiving legitimate news from legitimate services you subscribe to. RSS readers can be downloaded from sites, and often are associated with specific and well-known news services.

This technology has been supported by Microsoft, and is being touted as the new wave in information distribution over the Internet. RSS readers can be set to screen fro certain titles, certain content, certain origins, and certain carbon copies. You can tailor your RSS to your specific site, or leave your specifications broad to get a general idea of the news of the day.

As this technology takes of, web sites are springing up that allow individuals to create their own RSS system that serves as a sort of home page with the news they are interest in reading. This technology offers an opportunity to further tailor your news offerings and saves you large quantities of time formerly spent sifting through Spam.

RSS feeds provide you an opportunity to tailor the time you spend on the Internet to your exact news needs. RSS editors can be used also to create your own RSS. An RSS format ensures your information will be treated seriously and will not be handled as Spam. Using an RSS editor is simple to learn, and will save a lot of time and energy.

RSS marketing can help you target specific RSS sites and to earn screen time on reputed web sites. With RSS marketing, your information is taken seriously and treated as news rather than Spam.

This marketing approach provides your product information to a large audience without the aggravation causing mass email approach that many companies try and fail with. RSS technology is a wave of the future, and offers you an opportunity to get the best news as well as earn a spot on websites that matter.

Gunnar Berglund has been a "internet- hardworker" for the last five years He publishes The meonit Gazette http://gazette.meonit.com and run http://www.meonit.com and http://www.visualxmleditor.com

Spam is out of control! I guess that would be the understatement of the year. Like any other annoying fact of life, you let it drive you crazy or you deal with it.

In the age of cyber communication, "Spam" has become the main way to get the message out to the masses. But if you think about it, I guess "spam" has always been with us. Before the Internet, when it came in our mailbox, we called it "junk mail". On TV, we call it an "infomercial". Over the telephone, it’s "telemarketing.

The determined marketer will always find an annoying way to try to get his message to the people, whether they want it or not. But to me those other methods always seemed more controllable.

"Junk mail", a quick look and chuck it in the trash. I guess it was a lesser volume of mail because the advertiser was paying for it? You know, postage and real paper.

The TV "infomercial", just turn off the Telly or change the channel. This form of bombardment is costly to the advertiser also.

Now "telemarketing" is a whole other animal. It doesn’t seem to matter what the cost to the advertiser is, the return is greater. The deterrents, like the national "don’t call me" doesn’t really work. My solution. Caller ID and don’t answer the phone if no name and/or phone number comes up. Oh yea! and an answering machine to catch the strays is helpful.

As an Internet marketer, with a web site, I get upwards of 500 emails in my inbox daily. What used to take minutes to sift through them now takes me hours.

When I am done and close my email client, a little window pops up and asks me if I am sure I want to delete the 450 emails in the trash? Over 450 of the approximately 500 emails I get daily are trash. That’s ludicrous!

You might say to yourself, why doesn’t he use a spam filtering program to get rid of the spam? Well so far all the spam filter software I have tried seems to throw out the baby with the bath water. I would rather trust my own internal spam filter, called common sense; and the "delete" key to get the job done.

None of the filters I have tried, no matter how fine tuned, doesn’t throw out the good email with the bad. In fact they are so fine tuned, that in trying to out smart the spammer they include many legitimate words or phrases in their list of no-no’s. So you still have to scan it.

The spam filters are even contributing to the amount of emails we get. Many legitimate Internet marketers have resorted to sending out a second email in case a spam filter stopped their first email from reaching you.

In fact, just mentioning the word "spam" in this article would probably keep it from being read by millions of people.

So what can we do about it? If I had a definitive answer to that question, I probably would get the Nobel Prize for Solving an Annoying World Problem. Do they have a Nobel Prize for solving an annoying world problem?

Anyway. Here is my humble offering in an attempt to rid the world of this cursed menace!

The best way, of course, would be not to buy any product or service offered by a spammer. If they don’t make any money as a result of their spamming, they eventually will get the message and stop. However, this solution would have to be undertaken on a global scale to be effective and there must be plenty of people who are reading and acting on the spammer’s message to prevent this from happening. Although I can’t for the life of me figure out why!

Another solution that you and I, as individuals, can do is delete the email and more importantly not buy from the spammer. Like trashing "junk mail", turning off the "informercial" on TV or not answering the phone when it’s a "telemarketer". You can take an individual stand.

Like the great actor Peter Finch, in his Oscar winning performance in Network (1976), tell the world your "mad as hell and your not going to take it anymore!"

About the Author —- Jim Capobianco, the author of "10 Steps to Your Own Home-Based Business", has been self-employed for over 25 years, both on and off line. At his web site, Cap-Tech.com and in his newsletter, The Cap-Tech Times, he shares his experience and expertise when it comes to owning your own business. Come pay a visit at: http://www.cap-tech.com