Spam filters block valid e-mails

If you haven’t heard of it, there is an open source spam anti spam software called Apache SpamAssassin. It’s engine is used by many ISPs to filter and alert them to spam e-mails. You may not realize it, but most ISPs will block and not deliver e-mails that they have identified as SPAM. If it’s “possible” or “probable”, they will mark it as such. A *LOT* of e-mails don’t ever get to your mailbox.

The problem comes in when the spam filters you use generate what are called “False Positives”. Perfectly good e-mails are identified as sapm and blocked. Normally, this is a very small number, but apparently, SpamAssassin had a coding error that resulted in e-mails dated 2010 and 2099 being given high scores and trapped as spam.

The fix was generated quickly, but ISPs may have been running the incorrect code for anywhere from minutes to days. Unfortunately, if you were affected, the only way you can know is if you have confirmation from others that your mails got through. The only thing you can if you were affected is to resend the e-mails.

SpamAssassin has posted some advice on its web site:

http://spamassassin.apache.org/

Firefox 3.5.7 Has been released

Mozilla has released another “Stability Issues'” fix. You should definitely either update form the app or download it

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.7 (Windows)

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.7 (Mac OSX)

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5.7 (Linux)

Details of what was changed are at

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.5.7/releasenotes/

 

Great deal on Quicken 2010

Intuit has a deal going on until 1/4/2010. You can get Quicken 2010 for 1/2 off! The web page may look like it’s for Quicken Premier, but scroll down and you can get the other versions for 50% off.

http://quicken.intuit.com/lp/qkn10/qlp17.jsp?priorityCode=6298762157&cid=em_18568_025_002

My e-mails are getting lost if I include my blog URL in my note

I've been having a problem lately with my e-mails getting lost if I include my blog URL. In fact, they get lost if I include ANY xxxxx.blogspot.com URL!

If anyone has any ideas or have seen and/or resolved this, please let me know. You can reach me at rasilon at aol.com.

TIA....

Have a Happy New Year’s Eve!

Here’s hoping everyone has a great new year’s eve and a better year in 2010. Enjoy it while you can. According to the Mayan calendar, the universe ends in 2012…   ;-)

Inventorying Network Printers

This is really for those of you who manage networks with multiple printers. It’s a nice little utility that will basically find and inventory network printers.

http://www.technibble.com/page-countster-repair-tool-of-the-week/

Problems uninstalling Security Software?

Previously, I mentioned a terrific program Revo Uninstaller that uninstalls programs and then finds all the “left-over” bits of Registry entries and files. I still find this to be the best one period. I almost never use the Add/Remove Programs (“Programs & Features” in W7) any more…

Here is a program specifically intended to remove Security software like Norton, Trend Micro, McAfee, Kaspersky, etc.. Some of these programs (especially Norton/Symantec & McAfee) don’t always do a complete job. On their web sites you will find utilities and manual processes specifically intended to remove these remnants.

Problem is that you shouldn’t have to do this and it is, frankly, beyond many folks’ ability to find and use. The net is full of folks with systems mucked up by a failed uninstall of an AV program.

I’ve come across a utility (thanks to MowGreen) called “AppRemover”. The name is a bit misleading since it is specifically targeting security software. It doesn’t remove other programs. I don’t have a lot of experience with it, but it looks good and I respect any utilities recommended by “MowGreen”… A very nice feature is the ability to search for remnants left over from a failed uninstall.

I think together with Revo Uninstaller, you’ve got all the bases covered.

http://www.appremover.com/

Microsoft AV software is “very fast”

First off, I hope you all had a great Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanza… We had our son David home from his group home for the weekend and it was great. Looking forward to a better new year…

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Back to business…..

An organization called AV-Comparatives.org has published a report on the speed of various anti-virus software. It’s important that you understand that they are talking about the impact on performance only. This report says nothing about the effectiveness of the vendors’ programs.

http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/performance-tests

While not the best (i.e., the least impact on performance), Microsoft Security Essentials did very well, especially compared to the various “free” programs. It finished higher than several retail programs (Avast, Symantec, ESET, McAfee, AVG)

To be honest, I don’t think it is the best solution out there. My personal preference these days is Kaspersky Internet Security 2010. However, for a lot of folks, paying $60+ is more than they want to pay. Assuming that the computer is running Vista or Windows 7, I’m comfortable setting the “average” end user with the built-in firewall and MS Security Essentials.

My reasoning is that most firewalls are just too complicated for the average person. More often than not, the alerts are just plain incomprehensible for most folks and they end up allowing the program the access requested. In effect, they are rendering the firewall worthless. So far, I’ve not seen any reports that the MS AV solution is not completely acceptable. What we need to monitor in the future is how quickly and effectively MS keeps up with the continually escalating ware with the malware programmers…

10 email scams to watch out for

These things happen all the time, but they are especially prevalent at the holidays. Here’s an article by Debra Littlejohn Shinder in TechRepublic that has a good list of the most common ones and how to avoid them.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1227&tag=nl.e042

Here’s one terrific site for Optimizing your XP or Vista installation…

Just ran across this one. I’ve briefly looked at it and it’s really amazing. There’s a TON of information here and from what I’ve seen, very useful. A lot of sites just say “Do this and things will be great.”. This guy goes to great lengths to explain what to do (with a lot of screen shots) and why you should do it.

http://www.optimizingpc.com/index.html

One caveat…. Before you do any changes you should:

1. Create a Restore Point
2. Back up your computer
3. Keep track of the changes you are making so that you can undo one or more if things get worse.

Everyone who gives advice on how to improve your system has a point of view and makes assumptions (yes, including me). There are so many variables on what software/hardware you can have as well as customizations, that it’s always possible for an “improvement” to actually degrade your performance or even make some software stop working…