SPAM, SPAM EVERYWHERE SPAM!!

WE ALL GET IT
A lot of people have asked me lately about internet spam.  You know the kind of thing.  Unsolicited emails offering all kinds of dubious merchandise from organic extensions to life enhancing drugs to sure fire financial investments.  And don't forget the infamous Nigerian Banking scam.  Several people have answered that one (believe it or not) and lost their entire bank balance.

NAME THE SHAME
It costs spammers (the originators of the spam emails - most are from the US, Russia and the Far East) very little - except the risk of getting caught. Spam can take up to 50% of the world's total internet bandwidth.  Let's hope that they all get caught one day.  And we know some of their names.

NOT A FOOD
The term spam is derived from the Monty Python SPAM sketch set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes SPAM luncheon meat. Believe it or not the first reported spam email was sent in 1978!

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
There are many anti-spam programs on the market at the moment.  They all work after a fashion but the problem is that the spammers are always one step ahead. Another danger of using an anti-spam program for your email is that you might lose a genuine email by mistake.  My advice?  Live with it.  Start the day by hitting the delete button on all the obvious spam titles.

But there are two things you can do. You can't do much harm by actually opening a spam email except those that show images.  If you see an image in a spam email it may be possible for a hacker to determine your internet location.  You can prevent images appearing in your emails unless you give permission.  In Outlook Express go to Tools/Options/Security and check "Block images and other external content in HTML email."

The other action NOT to take is NEVER DOUBLE CLICK ON AN EMAIL ATTACHMENT WHEN YOU DON'T  KNOW THE SENDER.   This can run a dangerous vandalise program that could permanently damage your computer or data - or both! Lastly, this equally applies to Windows AND MAC computers.

If you want your email program set up safely give us a call and we'll come and do it for you.

BACKUP YOUR DATA NOW!

Someone said that losing the data on your computer is like getting your house burned down. It really is not nice at all. And that awful feeling can be avoided. There are several options you can use.

1 Back up your important documents on a floppy disk - still the cheapest. You can get one and a half million characters on a floppy disk.

2 Back up all your documents and photographs on a CD or a DVD. CD blanks are very cheap now so there's no excuse.


3 Or try this. It's an external hard drive that can be plugged into a desktop or laptop computer. What's more it's portable so you can use it to take files from one place to another. And Windows OneCare backs up all your data whilst you work. Neat?

If you want us to set up any of the above backup options call us and we'll come and make your data safe.

020 7435 2384
07976 517 367