Monkeypuzzle News - Jan 2004
News and advice from Araucaria
Computing
In this issue:
- Introduction
- Unsubscribe
info
- New anti-spam
legislation
- Dealing with
spam
- Windows 98
reprieved
- Alternatives
to Win 98
- Broadband grants
1. Introduction
Welcome to the new newsletter from
Araucaria Computing!
My plan is to bring out an issue every few months, with news, tips, information
and ideas on how to get the most from you computers. As always, I'll try and
gear the information to the needs of voluntary organisations and campaigning
groups. Do let me have any feedback, and tell me if there is anything you would
like to see included. I hope you find it useful. If you know of anyone else
who would like to get the newsletter, just get them to drop me an email and
I'll put them on the list.
2. Unsubscribing
Of course some of you are saying "not
another piece of mail to read"... So the first thing to say is that if you
don't want to receive mailings from Araucaria Computing, please just reply
to this message saying "unsubscribe", "get me off the list"
or words to that effect, and I will make sure you don't get any more. (You can
also phone, or write a letter - all the contact details are at the bottom of this
message.)
3. New
anti-spam legislation
If, like most people, your email mailbox
seems full of adverts for dodgy products claiming to augment various parts of
your anatomy and unlikely promises of untold wealth from former Nigerian dictators,
you will be glad to know that the government has recently produced legislation
to tackle the problem of unsolicited email (commonly known as "spam").
The new rules mean that if your organisation collects email addresses – either
on-line or on paper forms – you must provide an option for the individuals to
opt out of receiving marketing emails. Every email should also give instructions
on how to stop receiving further mailings, and must also carry the name and address
of the sender organisation. Of course, this is all good practice that you are
probably already following, but if you do send email to members or supporters,
it would be best to check that they meet the new regulations.
Existing email lists, compiled before the regulations came into force on December
11, 2003 can still be used, as long as messages include an option to opt out and
the sender's address.
Full details of the new rules can be found on the DTI website at: http://www.dti.gov.uk/industries/ecommunications/directive_on_privacy_electronic_communications_200258ec.html
While it's a good sign that the government is recognising the problem of spam,
it seems unlikely that the new regulations will have much actual effect on the
tide of electronic junk:
- the rules only apply to mailings
to individuals, not to business email addresses;
- most spam originates from well
outside the UK, so the senders are unlikely to be covered by these laws anyway;
- most spam doesn't include any
genuine address for the sender, making it very difficult to catch people who
break the rules;
- most spam already includes an
option to "opt out" - but if you reply to this, the spammers just
take it as confirmation that your address actually exists.
4. Dealing
with spam
So what can you usefully do to prevent
drowning under waves of junk mail?
The first principle is never to reply: as I said above, this just tells
the spammers that your address actually exists. In the unlikely event that you
actually want the product, buy it from somewhere else.
If you receive a particularly obnoxious email, you could try complaining to the
sender's Internet service provider. Most ISPs these days have strict anti-spam
policies in place, and will terminate the account of anyone found to be spamming.
Look on the ISP's website for details of how to complain. The difficulty with
this approach is that the address of the sender is forged on most spam - it can
be very difficult to track down where the message is really coming from.
Be careful where you give out your email address: you might consider setting up
a "disposable" address to use when registering on websites and so on.
You can get a free email address from various Internet sites: Yahoo (http://edit.europe.yahoo.com/config/mail?.intl=uk)
and Hotmail (https://registernet.passport.net/reg.srf?id=2&lc=1033&sl=1)
are two of the best known. (You'll also get some free advertising along with your
mail.)
Spammers commonly use address harvesting programs to gather email addresses from
web pages and online forums. A recent study by the US-based Center for Democracy
& Technology (http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.shtml)
found that the overwhelming majority of spam messages seem to use addresses harvested
from Internet newsgroups and websites. So if you take part in online forums or
newsgroups you should probably disguise your address in some way. If you have
a website, it may be worthwhile encoding the email address in some way: there
are various programs on the web which convert email addresses into codes which
may not be recognised by the harvester but are perfectly readable in the web browser
by humans. Try one of these:
The other main approach is to filter
you email in some way. Your ISP may have a program installed to filter mail for
you, or you can install a spam filter on you own computer. Unfortunately it's
no longer sufficient simply to look for obvious words in emails: you have probably
noticed that spammers use deliberate misspellings, or emails consisting entirely
of graphics. Another approach is to block messages from certain sources. But this
tends to be too indiscriminate: if the spam comes from somewhere@aol.com, blocking
aol.com will block messages from millions of innocent AOL users...
The best spam filter programs now use a statistical analysis of the whole message
to try to determine whether it is spam. The program then marks the message (perhaps
by adding "Spam" to the subject line), and you can then use the message
sorting facilities in you mail program to move the marked messages into a special
junk mail box. (All the commonly used email programs have the ability to sort
incoming messages automatically into different mailboxes, though the details vary:
Outlook and Outlook Express call this function "Message Rules", Eudora
calls it "Filters".)
It's best not to set up rules/filters to automatically delete messages which have
been flagged as spam. Even the best filters are not 100 percent accurate, so it
is a good idea to scan through the junk mail box before you delete stuff.
Which of the many filter programs to use?
5. Windows
98 reprieved
You may have heard the recent news
(http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=4116157§ion=news)
that Microsoft has decided not after all to end support for Windows 98.
Support was to have ended on January 16, but Microsoft has now decided to keep
Win 98 support running until June 30, 2006. It seems that this was partly at least
in response to pressure from users in developing countries who are understandably
reluctant to keep paying to upgrade their software. (There are plenty in the voluntary
sector in this country who are in a similar situation, of course...)
If you are one of the many whose computer is still happily running Windows 98,
it may come as a bit of a shock that the cutting edge operating system that you
proudly bought less than six years ago, was very nearly officially obsolete. Of
course there's no real need to worry: your copy of Win 98 isn't suddenly going
to stop working, and it will still be perfectly adequate for normal office tasks
like word processing and dealing with email. There is really no need to replace
it unless you are having problems.
6. Alternatives
to Windows 98
What are your options if you do decide
Windows 98 is due for retirement?
If you want to carry on using a Microsoft product, you will almost certainly be
looking at Windows XP. Most new computers that you can buy these days will come
with XP already installed, or you can upgrade your existing computer (but check
first that the hardware will support XP: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/evaluation/sysreqs.asp).
There are two versions of Windows XP: the Home Edition should be adequate for
anyone using a single computer or a small office network (the upgrade version
costs around £90). If you are on a larger network (with a dedicated server) you
will probably want the extra features that Professional Edition offers (it also
costs around £100 extra).
Once you get used to the new interface and some different ways of doing things,
you will probably appreciate the improvements in Windows XP: better networking
features, better support for multiple users, better security, and above all it's
much less prone to crash several times a day!
If your politics or morals (or simply your bank balance) are struggling with supporting
the Microsoft empire, you might like to consider the open source operating system,
Linux. Development of Linux has now reached the stage where it is becoming a serious
alternative to Windows for desktop machines (it has already been running happily
on plenty of servers for quite a while). Perhaps the main drawback is the learning
curve: if like most people you are used to Windows, you have to learn new programs
and new ways of working. But programs to perform all the usual office functions
are available, mostly free of charge (like Linux itself). The excellent OpenOffice
suite will even read and save Microsoft Office files without difficulty.
If you would like to give Linux a try, but don't want to have to install a new
operating system, there are now versions available which run completely from a
CD-ROM. Just restart your machine with a CD-ROM in the drive, and within a few
minutes you will have a fully-functioning Linux system to experiment with. The
best known of these distributions is called Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.com/),
but there is also Debian-NP, a distribution geared to the needs of nonprofit organisations
(http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-nonprofit/News/2003/20031129).
The latter includes OpenOffice, Evolution (similar to Outlook) and programs for
accounting, desktop publishing, editing web pages, etc. You can find both of these
on the web in a form ready to burn to a CD-ROM, but even with a broadband connection
the file will take several hours to download. If you'd rather not do this, drop
me a note and I will be glad to send you a copy of the disc to try.
7. Broadband
grants
If you are considering installing a
broadband Internet connection, you may be interested to know that the Scottish
Executive has introduced a Business Broadband Incentive. The scheme offers businesses
who are installing a new broadband connection grants of £300, which would cover
installation costs and at least part of the running cost in the first year. (If
you are in a more remote area where a satellite connection would be the only way
of receiving broadband, the grant could be up to £1200.) Note that you have to
apply for the grant before you install broadband. More details and the
application form can be found at: http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/sedotcom_home/services-to-business/broadband/broadband_incentive.htm.
The site also has lots of useful advice about broadband and its benefits.