Please Get a Clue

How often have you seen people bitching about either receiving unsolicited emails or phone calls?

From my point of view, these very same people don't hesitate to post their actual email addresses or phone numbers on a public forum. On top of that, they don't refrain from posting the personal information of others.

What part of this picture do we not get? Post email addresses, phone numbers, addresses on a public forum and guess what, it subjects people to unwanted contact!

Like a throw away wallet I have throw away email addresses. They want your
email address at some store give em the hotmail/yahoo/gmail account. If it
gets too wierd walk away and create another. Protect your personal email
account. You can also make many email mailers to forward the mail from a
throw away account to your real account. Things get wierd stop the forward
and create a new account. You can still have a life and be generous with your
email address just use a throw away account which makes it easier to stop
unwanted communications without messing with your main account. Like
Al Gore I was involved in the creation of the internet :-) :-) well actually no
but I have used it from the beginning when only government education and
corporate dilberts had Email. I have learned these things from experience.

Z

Not so bad on this forum and many more offenses on TOB. However, I see people advertising items for sale and they throw out phone numbers, addresses and email addresses for all to see. Whether it is their own or someone they are helping out, the negative consequences can all be the same! Technology can be wonderful but there are plenty of people out there wishing to take advantage.

Take the example of a "moving sale" where phone number, address and maybe email address is provided. Phone number = opportunity for extortion calls. Address = opportunity or indication that cash is on the premises for a break in. Email = Phishing scams or unwanted email contact. "Z", you may have throwaway email addresses but there are so many still using Yahoo, Hotmail or AOL dinosaur accounts and bumbling along without a clue!

CheenaGringo...I watched one of the computer scientists at the company I
worked for break into my hotmail account in about 10 minutes. Scary! I
switched to a UNIX (HPUX) box for my mail. Gmail seems more secure but
Hotmail, Yahoo, or AOL are all questionable in my opinion security wise. I
lost a botttle of booze on that bet that he could break into my hotmail
account but I learned a great lesson with no damage.

Z

Since you're an admitted techie, Zed, can you tell us what in the %$%$$ is going on with the prodigy.net.mx service? For the last week or so, it's not receiving mail but sending long error messages to the senders. When I try to test it by sending myself an email from my yahoo.com account, it goes through, but nobody else who sends me a message is getting through. Several others, at least, are having the same problem. I always liked the prodigy service since it wasn't in "the cloud" like Yahoo.........but now it's just plain unreliable.

My spouse, a techie in a former life, says he thinks it could be something Yahoo is perpetrating.
What do you think?

We have all seen bashing of Prodigy through the years but they don't hold a candle to the current state of affairs at Yahoo! Once one of the Tech Industry giants, it is currently a rudderless ship. Back in 2008, Microsoft offered to purchase Yahoo for $33/share and it is worth less than half of that today. There are new rumors that both Microsoft and Google are looking at a possible purchase but they are mainly after the ad revenue and have probably zero interest in Yahoo mail, Yahoo message boards, Flickr and some of the other products marketed by Yahoo.

Admittedly they are on my "you know what list" after failing to renew my Flickr Premium account about a year ago. This was after AMEX approved payment five different times and their processing wouldn't recognize it. Try to find a phone number for Customer Service when you have a problem and you will find it isn't in their corporate dictionary. I would bet that all of your problems may stem from Yahoo as I know of others having similar problems. At some point, you may be forced to bail on Yahoo mail and you may want to think about making a change before you are forced to do so! Granted it is a PITA but easier to do when you can take time to do it.

You have a good point, CG. So, if Hotmail is un-secure and Yahoo is falling apart and Prodigy is lost in the cornflakes...............which other would you recommend as being reliable?

Not that I know much but we have five different GMAIL accounts for various purposes and knock on wood, we have had virtually no problems. One of the things I personally like with Gmail is that you rarely experience problems related to excessive attachments. I receive numerous emails from various suppliers with photos attached of new product. I have received emails with between 30 and 50 photos attached with no issues. I rarely see spam get through their filters and even those that go to the spam box are few and far between. I use the Google Document function quite frequently and after my fiasco with Yahoo Flickr, I now have all 26,000+ of our photos stored on Picasa.

I should add that many of our Mexico suppliers use Hotmail and we frequently have problems with attachments headed in their direction.

Thanks. Time to look into getting GMail.

When changing email accounts, your contacts are one of the most important things to you. This link provides an explanation of just how to do it: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=12118&topic=1669027#yahoo

In the past when changing, I imported our contacts into Gmail and then sent out a broadcast to all of our contacts that we were switching providers. I left the old account in place until such time as everyone got the message and started using the new address. Naturally there were some that needed reminders but when I was comfortable, I just abandoned the old account.

Thanks. I figured the biggest PITA would be getting my contacts "trained" to use a different address. Not surprising.

gringal wrote:Since you're an admitted techie, Zed, can you tell us what in the %$%$$ is going on with the prodigy.net.mx service? For the last week or so, it's not receiving mail but sending long error messages to the senders. When I try to test it by sending myself an email from my yahoo.com account, it goes through, but nobody else who sends me a message is getting through. Several others, at least, are having the same problem. I always liked the prodigy service since it wasn't in "the cloud" like Yahoo.........but now it's just plain unreliable.

My spouse, a techie in a former life, says he thinks it could be something Yahoo is perpetrating.
What do you think?

To be frank....Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL all are underfunded dying enterprises so it really is time to move on. Google
(at least at this time, it could change) with gmail seems much more reliable. I am guessing they are running better
software and have more money for support. I don't know prodigy other than the stuff which came with my DSL
connection which I ignored but if a vendor is messing with non performance get rid of them. If you want your
mail local on your PC find a mail vendor with exchange servers and run Outlook in local mode which keeps your
mail on your PC hardrive. Outlook can also work with your data on an external server. Be sure to back up your
computer if you have local mail on it and also keep a copy at a friends house (not your neighbor) in case your
computer gets flooded or whatever.

I have two mail accounts. I use Gmail for one real address and a second for giving to stores and such. If it gets
hit I just delete it and make another while my real gmail account is still around. I also have a UNIX machine up
north and a web brouser mailer that I use for my family and friends mail. Pretty much best security is with a
UNIX box and a competant system manager which is my sister who works for Boeing as a computer security
person.

To be honest and you need to read this any of the free services take liberties with your information you give them.
If you read all that small print many contracts (yes it is a contract maybe not a binding one but it is one) say they
can do anything they want with your data. They can read it LEGALLY. You gave them permission. Also others
view your mail as great fun to break into and use your account for illigal stuff like sending out viruses/trojans, and
whatever. Not trying to panic you folks but I use Gmail which has the least intrusive contract and assume anything
I send or recieve can be read by numerous folks. If I want privacy I encrypt the data but that might attract the
government you know why would you be encrypting the data if you didn't have anything to hide. We live in strange
times and freedoms are going fast in the name of war (yes we are at war). For real secure email go to a private
mail service that you pay for that has UNIX or LINUX boxes and read the contract. You will find having technical
support is worth the money and your data will be secure and backed up. I use a service in Seattle that my sister
has contracted with and my whole family uses it and it is secure. Remember what you paid for with these free
services and read the contract. You might be shocked. I was.

Z

Well... we have had no problems at all with the Yahoo! account.
Howsomever, our G-mail was hacked last year and our (almost empty) mailbox was used for scurrilous purposes.
Very annoying... but that's what happens when one has lazy "friends" who neglect to use the BCC when sending out multiples. Lizzy

bobnliz wrote:Well... we have had no problems at all with the Yahoo! account.
Howsomever, our G-mail was hacked last year and our (almost empty) mailbox was used for scurrilous purposes.
Very annoying... but that's what happens when one has lazy "friends" who neglect to use the BCC when sending out multiples. Lizzy

Your friend may be responsible for your email address to be stolen but they also got the password somehow to
take over your account. You could have had a weak password (like 123abc) or they caught your account and password
with a keystroke recording program or device. Your friend might be responsible for more spam or ads but I don't see
how your password can be lost that way.

Z