General Tips & Info FAQ

Got more questions? Got a suggestion? Click on the comment link on any entry and tell me, if I know or can find the answer or info, I'll add it to this site.

-- texas critter

I use OE - I have a couple dozen pop email accounts that I monitor and it works best for me. BUT I make it safe thru these steps:

1. Tools > Options > Read tab > check the box for Read All Messages in Plain Text. This prevents html from showing up at all and prevents viruses from auto-executing when I open an email. Since I don't subscribe to a bunch of html newsletters and I prefer lists that use only plain text, this works great for me. None of that hot pink text on a yellow background. :) (Note that this feature is only available in the last version of OE, 6.00.28 - you must upgrade if you see anything less than that. But it's a good idea to upgrade anyway, get the latest and most secure version of OE and IE.)

2. Tools > Options > Security tab > select Restricted Sites zone. This helps protect you from some of the hazards of OE's integration with IE.

3. I use Avast's home edition anti-virus program which is free and automatically checks for updates at various times when I'm online in the background. It integrates with OE as well, running all incoming and outgoing mail thru it and alerts me when there's a virus in an email, flagging the subject line with a warning.

4. I have filters (message rules in OE) set up to automatically delete anything Avast flags as a virus. I also have filters set to put any email with an attachemtn OR that's over 30k in size into a folder labeled "ATTACHMENTS". When I look at that folder, I know to be careful, scan subject lines and if I don't recognize it, then I right click on the subject and select Properties, then click on the Details tab and then on the Message Source button to view the message safely without being infected by the virus. (I do this with spam too, that way any tracking html or images they have in the spam message don't phone home to the spammer.)

5. Tools > Options > Maintenance tab, select Empty Messages from the Deleted Items Folder on Exit. This dumps all viruses (and spam too) everytime I close OE so it's completely gone.

All of this is mostly automated and doesn't disrupt my use of OE or require any time from me on a regular basis. Avast catches most viruses and they go straight to trash which gets dumped at least daily. Occasionally a virus turns up in the ATTACHMENTS folder but since I scan subject lines carefully there and use the Properties option to view the messages, I see the virus safely and then delete it.

It does require paying attention and using the tools given, but OE can be run safely. If these kind of precautions are more hassle than OE is worth, then I recommend using another email program, Eudora, Thunderbird, most any email program other than OE will be safer than OE.

For Outlook users, you can follow some of these steps, I think #1 is only available in recent versions of Outlook tho and I'm not sure if Outlook has ever had #2. Avast however will integrate with Outlook as well and scan all email for viruses (it also works with virtually any pop email program). Steps #4 and #5 can be done in Outlook, although in some versions of Outlook, it's not possible to see the message source and so no way to safely view the message.

I have Outlook on my computer and for businesses, it is a great digital day planner and the ability to access global folders, other employees' schedules and projects is very useful. On a business network where the IT department can take other precautions to keep out viruses, it's a good thing to use. At home, I never use it for email tho, it's never allowed to connect to the internet. I use it only for keeping my Contacts and for synching with my Palm Pilot.

So for Outlook users, I suggest using something else to send and receive email instead of Outlook. If you use OE and set it up to run safely, you can then easily export your email into Outlook if you want to store it there along with Contacts and other stuff.

I don't normally make blanket statements like that, I'd rather have a choice and I like to let other people make their own choices too. But it just keeps getting worse and worse with IE, more and more criminals (hackers, phishers, spammers) keep finding more new ways to exploit all the problems in IE and it will only continue to get worse, not better.

What's prompted my urge to everyone to switch is the latest and most dangerous exploit - read this article at CNet.

Any site hosted on a server using Windows (2000, 2003, NT, etc.) can get infected. Sites hosted on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and other types of server O/S can't get infected.

There are a good chunk of large and reputable sites running on Windows servers. As the CNet articles notes, even bank sites are getting infected and then the site can infect their customers - even going to an https url is not safe, the virus can infect the user from a secure https url.

The big lesson here for users is: Don't use IE - except for going to the Windows Update website (and if you're on Windows XP, you don't even have to do that, the XP update feature will do it automatically and without going thru IE). For all browsing, other than the Windows Update site, here's safe alternatives that cannot be infected by this virus or other malicious adware, spyware or any other nasties that automatically install thru IE.

Links open in new windows - all of these browsers are free of charge and advertising except for Opera.

• Firefox (recommended for IE users)
• Mozilla (recommended for Netscape users)
• Opera (for Windows or Mac users, also note that this browser is not free, you can either pay in cash or pay thru having ads displayed at the top of the browser)
• Camino (for Mac OS X users)
• Safari (for Mac OS X users)

(While Mac users aren't affected by this virus, the IE version for Mac is not a great browser, imho, so I'm including alternatives for Mac users as well.)

There's also shorl which gives you a mnemonicised code (rather than the other two's alphanumerics) and a password. The password is used to access stats on how many people have visited your shorter URL (not for limiting who can visit your shorl).

Shorl has a nice bookmarklet feature, you save the bookmarklet in your bookrmarks or favorites, then when you're at a site with a really long url, just click on the bookmarklet and you'll get a popup window with the shorl url.

(Thanks to Iain Truskett for this info!)

Here are some resources for copyright information. Please note that most of these sites talk about US copyright law but much of this will apply to other countries if they signed on to the Berne Convention which requires each signing country to honor the other countries' copyrights.

10 Big Myths about Copyright Explained

What is Copyright Protection

Rights for Artists

Chapter 5 of the US Copyright Law

Graphic Artists Guild: U.S. Copyright Law

Graphic Artists Guild: Links

Here's a good website for looking up IP addresses and domain names:

Network-Tools

If you've got the IP address where a spam originated, you can plug in the IP address here to find out what ISP hosts that IP, then you can send a spam report to their abuse@ address.

It's also useful for tracking trolls and other bothersome types.

Now no-one can ever say they can't afford anti-virus or firewall software! Along with Avast, AVG and ZoneAlarm, here's more free options, courtesy of Melinda Meahan:

For virus protection, there is Antivir.

And for firewalls, there is also Agnitum Outpost, which I decided on after going through various freeware firewalls, as well as Kerio Personal Firewall, which a lot of people on alt.comp.freeware like but it kept crashing my computer. Kerio Personal Firewall can be found thru PricelessWare, the repository for listings of favorite freeware programs of all types recommended by the participants of the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup.

Thanks, Melinda!

There's another free anti-virus program, Avast Home Edition. I looked at it awhile ago, the cost was a bit high for me but now it's freeware, the only cost is registering with them (give them valid email address to get the registration key for the program but the rest of the info doesn't have to be too accurate ;)) and it has free automatic updates for up to fourteen months and then you just need to re-register to continue to get them free.

It was recommended by a sys admin on the technical anti-spam list I'm on and I've only started using it but one thing I really like better than AVG is the integration with Outlook Express. It will check both incoming and outbound mail quickly as it's being received or sent out.

AVG will also check OE mail but it works by scanning each folder in OE as you go to it. So even if there's no new mail, if you click on a folder of saved mail, it'll scan it first, then display the contents of the mailbox, resulting in rather long delays at times, especially if you have a lot of saved mail.

Avast does it like Norton and McAfee do, by changing the incoming mail settings to run incoming mail thru the virus scanner before putting it in your mail folders so there's no delay in vieing mail folders and no noticeable delay in receiving mail.

One big difference between Avast and Norton tho is that Avast does the scanning of incoming mail locally, checking it against its downloaded anti-virus database, whereas Norton would actually send it thru Norton's servers over the internet, then bring it to your computer. Whenever Norton's servers were overloaded, popping mail would timeout repeatedly and you'd have no mail. That's the main reason I quit using Norton, I got tired of never being able to download mail in the evenings because Norton's servers were overloaded.

I also like that it does automatic updates whenever you're connected to the net, unlike AVG which you have to set to a specific time and if your computer isn't on at that moment, then it won't check for an update until the next day. (I have my parents on Norton specifically because of this, their computer times are erratic and Norton also checks automatically whenever your computer is on, but if this program checks out, I will probably switch them over.)

Avast will also generated an "Virus Recovery Database" which aids in restoring infected files should you be unlucky enough to get infected.

All in all, it's a nifty program so far. The user interface is a bit daunting, but there's really not much to change in the default settings so it doesn't really matter. The mail wizard for reconfiguring your mail program and email accounts to scan them is very simple and the program works with OE, Outlook, Eudora, Pegasus, Mozilla Thunderbird and many other email programs as well. It is a Windows only program tho, I believe, but most viruses are written for Windows anyway.

The Government is setting up a virus alerts email list, here's an article about it at Wired.com and another one at PC World.

You can sign up for the virus alerts at the US-Cert (Cert = Computer Emergency Readiness Team), there's four lists with varying degrees of technical and non-technical info, plus you can visit that page for info on the latest viruses, for each one, you'll see a link to "technical info" and "non-technical info". The non-technical info page is written in plain English for everyday users, letting them know what to watch for, likely subject lines, etc. and tips to prevent virus infections, like running an anti-virus program and personal firewall.

Remember, the two most important things to prevent viruses:

1. Install an anti-virus program! Can't afford to buy one? Use AVG by Grisoft, it's free.

2. Get DAILY updates to your anti-virus programs! An anti-virus program is USELESS if you never update it! (If you're using AVG, you get free udpates as well.) Most popular virus programs, Norton, McAfee, AVG, etc., can be set to update at least once a day. And if you hear there's a new virus going around, go run the update manually to get any recently issued updates since the last automatic update.

Even advertising on reputable sites can contain tracking programs and bots to watch your movements around the internet. Most times this information is used to help you, by offering you ads and products geared towards your interests, based on where you've surfed. More malicious programs gather info about you and send it back to their creators for criiminal use.

To detect and remove both the benign and malicious ones, check out these two programs, Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. Both programs are free but don't forget to bookmark those sites and check for updates as the programs are revised to detect and remove newer spyware.

Some person with important sounding titles and a sob story wanting to share tens of millions of dollars with you? Don't believe it!

That's known as the Nigerian scam, and it has its variations and is also run out of Amsterdam as well as parts of Africa. It's also morphed recently into requests to buy lots of (various items) from you, the scam is that they'll send you a check or charge a (stolen) credit card for more than they owe you and then ask you to send them a refund of the excess...only then their check bounces or the credit card charge is revoked and you're out the refund you gave them. You should forward the email with full headers to the US Secret Service, they have a task force that is tracking down these people and arresting them in cooperation with the Nigerian and various other governments:

419.fcd@usss.treas.gov

Put a note in the subject of the email, NO LOSS if you didn't pay them anything and if you did pay them, put LOSS and then detail the loss in the body of the email.

For 419 spams to Canada, you can also use:

info@phonebusters.com

Phonebusters is a combined effort of the Ontario Provincial Police and
the RCMP initially set up to stop telemarketing fraud but, according to
the local RCMP Commercial Crime Division, they also handle 419 scams.

Other 419 links:

The Nigerian Watch

Links to Websites Fighting the Nigerian Scam

Quatloos! Nigerian 4-1-9 Scam
Help those wacky Nigerians get their money out of Nigeria and they will give you millions. But make sure you get the money first.

infoZine, Nixon Tracking Nigerian Scam Letter

Nigerian Scams, 419 Promoted

BBB-Advisories: Watch out for Nigerian letter scam

The Fraud Bureau

Nigerian letter scam update

Yahoo! Search Results for nigerian scam

Nigeria - The 419 Coalition Website

United States Secret Service Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud

Public Awareness Advisory 4-1-9 Fraud

(Links courtesy of Norman De Forest on the Spam-L list.)

Three spam filtering programs recommended by Spews (I don't care for their blocklist but their recommendations on filtering software are good :)).

SpamPal, according to its website: How does SpamPal work? SpamPal sits between your email program and your mailbox, checking your email as you retrieve it. Any email messages that SpamPal considers to be spam 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!

SpamEater, according to its website: SpamEater is an advanced spam filtering tool that will rid your mailbox of spam before you download it with your mail client software! SpamEater Pro uses a complex set of rules to catch even the most persistent spammers with a 90% or better hit rate! With the amount of spam being sent ever increasing, SpamEater Pro is a tool that you can't afford to be without! Don't fret over waiting for your mail to download with all the spam! Get SpamEater Pro and start stopping it today!

Email Express!, according to its website: The program is a liason between your email program and your POP3 and SMTP servers. The program becomes your email program's mail server. Email Express! can check an email's header information about its routing servers against an aggregate of RBLs, or Realtime Blackhole Lists. RBLs are special lists that contain information about various points of abuse in the email system used by spammers to inject their spam in to the system, and is updated constantly. If a server in the email headers is found in the RBLs then Email Express! can automatically delete them or sequestor them in to a special Access table. The RBLs are accessed by Email Express! in real time. This process is one of the layers of protection that Email Express! offers its users.

SpamPal, SpamEater and Email Express! are available for use at no charge, SpamEater is available in a shareware Pro version with extra features and Email Express! has also added a shareware Pro version. SpamPal also has the ability to include other people's Plugins as part of it's filtering process.

To clean up the >>>>s and properly word wrap emails that I forward post I use a shareware product that is available on both PCs and Macs called Smartwrap. I've used it for many years on all the PCs and Macs that I own. Being a shareware product you can download it and test it out to see if it works for you. It does save the hassle of cutting and pasting when all you want to do is re-format. It is a real time saver!!!

Thanks to Betty Fellows for posting this info to EL-M.

Enetbot for AOL users, read and send mail on an AOL account thru most pop3 email programs like Eudora, Outlook, Outlook Express, etc. and send real PLAIN-TEXT mail (no html part) from an AOL address.

Want to post something that someone else wrote? Want to forward something posted to a list, website, forum or elsewhere? Just because it's the Internet doesn't mean it's all free. Check out the ownership of those words before you run off with them. And just being outside the US doesn't change anything, most countries have signed on to the Berne Convention, an international copyright agreement.

Copyright protection of Usenet posts

10 Big Myths about copyright explained

Yahoo's copyright policy

The US Government Copyright Office

Links to pop email programs and email account checkers:

PocoMail

Active Email Monitor

Eudora

Pegasus

The Bat!

ePrompter
A free e-mail notification program that automatically checks up to sixteen password-protected e-mail accounts for many e-mail domains simultaneously.

ReconMail

Thanks to Bill Holmes for posting all these links to EL-M.

A way to hide yourself from spammers is to use disposable email addresses. These aren't suitable for mailing lists but they are great for contact addresses on websites or for registering at websites, if you start getting spam, you just drop the address and get a new one.

Sneakemail, free and pay versions
SpamGourmet, simple and advanced versions, both free

Thanks to Bill Holmes for posting the links on EL-M.

Some tips about creating a secure password:

1. Never use any word that can be found in any dictionary (even a foreign language dictionary).

2. Use a combination of letters and numbers with the numbers interspersed between the letters. You can use a word but break it up with numbers so that it's not a complete word anymore, for example:

d19ai72sy

So that's daisy 1972 but broken up so that someone can't use a dictionary program to hack it. The word and the number can be something easy to remember, a favorite pet's name and your birth year or the year you got married or whatever. Another idea would be to reverse the numbers, make it d27ai91sy or ys27ia91d or y2s7i9a1d or flip the syllables, sy19dai72, you get the idea, it's still a word and a date that you can remember but it's not recognizable to anyone else.

3. DON'T use the same password for *everything!* :-) Come with some easy to remember ones (but still combos of letters and numbers) and use those for certain things, come up with more difficult ones, a word that no-one else would know, something random and a random bunch of numbers interspersed for more important things like bank accounts and such. DON'T use your atm password for your online banking (unless your bank doesn't give you a choice).

I was once at a friend's house and he was showing me his new computer and it came up with the login screen and since I was sitting there he told me his password, but it was such a jumble of letters and numbers that had no meaning to me, I couldn't remember any of it ten seconds later even tho I'd typed it in, now that's a good password! (granted, if I'd had a photographic memory, I might have remembered it, but for the ordinary person, it worked.)

While this PC World article is from 2002, what it says is still relevant, the risk of viruses and worms being transmitted when you're IMing is still high.

Worms Crawl Toward Instant Messaging

Thanks to Bonnie for posting that link to EL-M.

Want to cut down on your browser's intake of cookies?

CookieWall

Thanks to Jen for posting the link to ListHelp.

Mozilla
Yes, it's a browser but it also gives you the option of blocking popups that you don't request. It works beautifully and since it's integrated into the browser, you don't have to install extra software that takes up more memory. (You can even add a skin for Mozilla that makes it look like IE ;-))

POW!

PopupStopper

PopupKiller

Note: Some of these programs may not work with all browsers.

If you're out of town and don't have your trusty computer or laptop with you, you can still check your pop email accounts with these two websites:

Mail2Web
MailStart

You can report Internet Fraud Schemes to the FBI, if you're in the US or the scam is traceable to the US, here:

IFCC

or check your local law enforcement websites if you're not in the US or the scam doesn't relate to the US.

To keep those cookies from piling up:

Using Windows Explorer (or the command line for those who prefer that route) navigate to the Netscape directory. Then to Users, then to Default (or the specific account) and find the cookies.txt file. Change the cookies.txt file to read-only (in Windows, right click on the file and check the box for read-only, or from the command line, use attrib +r cookies.txt, or there's probably a rmb option in explorer to do this). This gives websites the illusion that they are leaving cookies, and in fact the cookies are cached for the session, but disappear once you close Netscape.

(Caveat: This was posted originally for Netscape 4 users, it may also work for Netscape 6+ but I haven't verified that.)

Thanks to Julian Thomas for this tip!

In these times, it's absolutely essential that every computer running on Windows and receiving mail have an anti-virus program installed and kept up to date. That last bit is just as important as initially installing it. If the program's virus definitions are not up to date, then it lends a false sense of security while leaving the computer vulnerable to every new virus that comes out each day.

Links to a bunch of anti-virus programs:

Symantec/Norton

Sophos

McAfee

F-Secure

Grisoft AVG
Note: This is one is free with free updates too so you have no excuses!

A bunch of the anti-virus program creators run mailing lists where they send out notices about new viruses, if you're interested, check out these links:

Norton's Virus Alerts
Kaspersky VirusList
Sophos Anti-Virus
McAfee's Virus Alerts
Message Labs
Trend Micro
Antivirus.About.com

For Windows, security alerts to fix the bugs that viruses like to make use of, visit Microsoft Security. Then on the right of the page, click on the Register for TechNet Flash. This sends techhie notifications of security updates before same reaches Windows Update. If you sub to this, check that the security issue in the mailing does indeed cover your Windows set-up and Windows programs that you have installed and use.

Thanks to Marina for posting these links to the EL-M list.

This is mainly for those using an email program (as opposed to the webmail interfaces like Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN, etc.), programs to install on your computer which check your email, let you mark, block and delete spam before you download it in your email program, Outlook Express, Eudora, etc.

SpamNet from Cloudmark, integrates into Outlook, Outlook Express, Lotus Notes, MSN, Hotmail and more.

Mailwasher lets you view your mail safely, without fear of triggering viruses or alerting the spammer that you open spam mail. You can select various spam blocklists to filter on, delete spam, etc. Note: This program has a feature to do a fake bounce of the spam, give a message of "user unknown", the idea was to fake out the spammer and make him think your address is invalid so he'll stop spamming you, but these days, 99.9999% of all spam has a fake email address that has no relation to the spammer so if you use the bounce feature, you're simply spamming an innocent third party so I highly advise not using that bounce feature.

iHateSpam integrates with Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora and more, filtering spam to a quarantine folder. It's $20 with a 30 day free trial. Note: This program has the "bounce" feature like Mailwasher and for the same reasons I gave above, I urge people not to use that feature, otherwise, it looks like a decent program worth checking out. Marina posted these comments about IHateSpam on EL-M about why she preferred it over MailWasher:

SpamPal is similar to iHateSpam but it's totally free, no cost at all. It too integrates with Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora and quite a few others, it tags any email it classes as spam and then you set up a filter in your mail program to sort it all to a separate folder for your review. Paul Croft posted this on ListHelp:

McAfee's SpamKiller costs money but you can download a 30 day evaluation trial Mark Recktenwald posted a review of it on the EL-M list:

There are more spam filtering programs out there, check Google for more options. Thanks to Marina, Paul and Mark Recktenwald for their comments.

For Outlook and Outlook Express there's a nifty plugin called OE-QuoteFix that cleans up all those extra >>>>'s in quoted text and strips out quoted sigs and other nifty stuff. I can attest that the latest versions are very reliable and they're free too! :)

Outlook Express version

Outlook version

(and if those links ever don't work, try this one)

Everyone should practice safe surfing! The two biggest threats to you and your list members' computers are viruses and hackers. Anti-virus software such as Norton, McAfee or AVG can protect you from viruses but unless you're behind a network firewall, you need a personal firewall to protect you from hackers, from the bored 13 year olds with too much time on their hands and easy access to the computer, IRC, zombies and bots.

An excellent and informative website about hackers and firewalls is Steve Gibson's Shields Up! website. Check out his adventures with a 13 year old hacker named "Wicked" who knocked GRC.com off the net on a whim, employing the computers of innocent users all over the world. If you don't have a personal firewall on your computer, it could easily be used to attack other computers, especially if you're on a cable or DSL internet connection, hackers love those superfast connections!

And the good news is that you can get the best personal firewall software for free, Zone Alarm is highly recommended by a number of PC magazines and online websites like ZDNet, C|Net and Steve Gibson's Shields Up website. Just go to the Zone Alarm download page and scroll down past the Pro version (pay) to where it says "Zone Alarm" and there's a yellow button that says "Free Download". Click on that and then, on the next page, click on "Download" under Zone Alarm. You can pay for the Pro version, but the free version is plenty of protection from hackers.

Both Norton and McAfee sell a personal firewalls which comes well recommended. The one personal firewall that I have seen NOT recommended is Black Ice, both Steve Gibson and other PC magazines and online sites have said that Black Ice will let some hacking devices like zombies and bots thru when Zone Alarm will stop them. There's also a couple other programs that are well recommended but from all that I've read, Zone Alarm is the best and easiest to use. You generally don't even need to change any of the default settings, it works straight out of the box.

If you have any problems with it (each computer is different and some individual configurations may have problems with it), then look at one of the others, ZDNet and C|Net are good places to look for recommendations. Plus check out the Resource links on the right side of this page for links to personal firewalls. And if you have problems uninstalling Zone Alarm, the HackFix website has helpful info.

Besides the real viruses, there's also virus hoaxes out there, they tell you to that a certain file on your computer is a virus and to delete it, but the file isn't a virus, sometimes it's a necessary part of Windows or part of Java. If you get one of these hoaxes and then tell all your friends that you had a virus, it can be very embarrassing, so always check them out first!

• The Jdbgmgr.exe file hoax (aka the teddy bear virus)
• The SULFNBK.EXE Warning virus hoax

Also, here are some links to check out virus hoaxes, myths and urban legends:

• VMyths, extensive site, also has newsletters for alerts and info on latest hoaxes and myths.
• Hoaxbusters
• McAfee - Hoaxes
• Symantec - Hoax Center
• F-Secure
• HoaxInfo
• Stiller's Research Hoax Page
• About.com Urban Legends
• Snopes
• ScamBusters

-- contributed by Marina

Most times, when we're reading email, we simply click "Next" or we have our email program set to open the next message when we delete the last one. This can mean that we might accidentally open an email with a virus infected attachment even if we don't use the Preview Pane.

So, set up a filter or message rule and put it first in your filter/rule list to put *any* email with an attachment in a special "email with attachments" folder and then set it to "skip rest" or "stop processing". This will catch all emails with attachments and put them in a separate folder and you'll be alerted to be extra careful with those emails, review the From, To, Subject line, look at the full headers and make sure that your anti-virus software is updated before opening the email.

Some viruses won't appear as attachments tho, their virus infected file is encoded into the body of the email so to catch those, set up a second filter/rule to put any email over 50k in size into that "email with attachments" folder. This will catch some Yahoogroups digests so you could set the filter/rule to also check that the To field does *not* contain "@yahoogroups".

It's important to put these two filters/rules first in your list of filters or message rules so that the emails with attachments or large in size don't get moved to the regular list or private mail folders where it's easier to overlook the attachment or message size and open the email by mistake.

While what I've said here is mainly for Outlook Express and Eudora users, it can be applied to most any email program or webmail, most of them now have some sort of filtering or sorting method and even if they are safe from auto-executing viruses right now, you never know what those virus creating miscreants will come up with next. Better to double your protection than to take risks!

And of course, this doesn't replace having a good anti-virus program with update to date virus definitions! If you don't have anti-virus software, it's easy to get some, just click on the "Virus" category link on the right.

Creating shorter URLS for posting links on lists
Ever post a link to a great website, article or something and have it break all to pieces because it wrapped or got obscured behind a Yahoogroups ad? Then you'll love this website:

Tiny URL

Just paste in the long url that you want to post and it'll give you a short one to post instead. I do recommend also posting the longer link, like this:

The short of it:
(tiny url generated link here)

The long of it:
(original long link here)

because while the TinyURL people say that the shorter links will be good for a long time, it is a free service and as with anything like that, subject to change at any time.

There's also Make a Shorter Link which does the same thing but people clicking on the shorter link will be taken to the Make a Shorter Link website first, then redirected to the website you want them to see. There's no ads or anything but the TinyURL site is better (IMHO) since there's no in-between stop.

Here's a great web page with tips for WebTV users, about posting in plain text, leaving off pics and signature lines and how to quote text from the original email when replying.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/netmiser/webtv.htm

Since Yahoo changed the log in interface for Groups last December, I'm hearing more about problems with cookies, people trying to log in and Yahoo keeps showing "guest" or they log in and are working along in groups and suddenly Yahoo shows them as "guest" and they can't access anything.

Sometimes this is a temporary problem and limited to a particular browser, sometimes it's a problem with a corrupted cookie on the user's computer, sometimes it's just a Yahoo thing.

For the first case, always try a different browser. Using IE? Try Netscape or Opera or vice versa. IE, Netscape and Opera are free, you can download them here:

• Internet Explorer
• Netscape
• Netscape's Product Archive for earlier versions
• Mozilla, standards compliant, includes popup and ad blocking (this is the engine that Netscape runs on), available for most operating systems, Windows, Mac, Linux, OS/2
• Opera, smaller and lighter than IE or Netscape
• iCab, Mac only
• Konqueror, Linux KDE Desktop
• Galeon, Linux GNOME Desktop

All of these browsers are available for both Windows and Mac (unless noted otherwise) and some are available for other platforms like Linux, plus you can do a search on Google for browsers for other operating systems.

For the second case, try deleting all your cookies.

• For IE 4+, you can click on Tools > Internet Options and then click on the Delete Cookies button. IE also stores cookies in a folder called Cookies in the Windows folder, if going thru the Internet Options menu doesn't work, try deleting all the cookies in the Cookies folder.
• For Netscape 6+, click on Edit > Preferences, expand the Privacy option, then click on Cookies, then click on View Stored Cookies and there's a Remove All Cookies button.
• For Netscape 4, I don't have exact instructions but it's similar to Netscape 6+
• For Opera, click on File > Preferences, then click on the Privacy option and check the box for Throw Away Cookies on Exit, then close the browser. For all browsers, it may also help to reboot your computer.
• For other browsers, try poking around in Options or Preferences for a way to delete or locate the cookies.

For the third case, just a Yahoo thing, well, not much to be done there except wait and see, wait an hour and try again, wait till later in the day or night, wait till the next day...