Need I say more? Of course, I lived in fear for years that I wouldn't get able to get my Tab fix, back in the early 80s. Got over that, too. And now (I can't believe they still make Tab, but they do), Tab tastes like the waste material from some industrial process. On the other hand, I have lived for several days on Diet Coke, and will miss its Aspartame version, when it goes away. Not terribly technical, I know, but this is important stuff.
The training company with which I've worked for the past 12 years or so (http://www.appdev.com) is involved in a contest, and the winner will be announced based on votes. If you've ever seen any of AppDev's video content, (I hope) you know that it's professionally done (with yours truly blabbing for hours and hours). If you have a moment, please follow this link and cast your vote for AppDev (whether or not you've ever seen the product!):
http://www.msd2d.com/companyProducts_05.aspx?org=AppDev%20Training
Thanks. And don't forget, you can get free ASP.NET 2.0 training materials from AppDev, by clicking this link:
http://www.appdev.com/promo.asp?page=WR00018
MCW has a mail server sitting in a bunker somewhere in Los Angeles (see my previous post on security issues because of the server's remoteness) and spam has long been an issue. We tried Trend Micro's products. Don't even bother. We tried Microsoft's free Exchange add-in (Intelligent Message Filter), which basically works, but isn't really configurable and there's no easy solution for individual mailbox monitoring. I had read in various reviews that Postini was a highly regarded mail gateway solution, but small companies can't afford Postini, if they can even buy it. (A mail gateway, by the way, sits between the world and your mail server. It filters out spam and forwards the good stuff on to the real mail server.)
A close friend of mine bought his company's URL way, way back in the Pleistocene era of the Web, and it's a popular name, reminiscent of the beach resort city in which he lives. (The city wants his domain name.) It's a popular spam target, and at one point he was getting upwards of 100,000 spam messages per hour. His server and his internet connection simply couldn't keep up, so he seeked out the services of a email-gateway-for-hire. He ran across an excellent service, XSpam, which does exactly what he needs. XSpam catches all virus-laden email (this wasn't Doug's problem). XSpam catches all dictionary-generated email addresses (this WAS Doug's problem--he was getting tons and tons of email addressed to a, aa, aaa, aaaa, aaaaa, aaaaaa, aaaaaaa, ab, aab, aaab, aaaab, and so on through the entire alphabet, plus the usual "guessed" Donna, Jim, Mortimer, Ethel, and the rest). XSpam catches all email that isn't directed at a known email alias, so Doug's traffic went from hundreds of thousands of messages per hour to the expected 10 to 15 messages per hour. Blessed quiet. (Amazingly, at one point both Doug and I had ISDN connections, and paid for the usage by the KB. Imagine what the bills would have been in that scenario!)
Turns out that XSpam is actually a Postini reseller, and their business model is focused on customer service. They've been great to work with (we signed up, too, as you might surmise), and the product really works. I hate to sound like an infomercial, but since we've signed up, I see maybe 10 spam messages per day, and if I had the energy, I could instruct XSpam to block those, as well. They provide a simple-to-use Web interface so that each mailbox owner can investigate quarantined messages, tossing all but the few (very few) false positives.
For small business (up to 5 mailboxes) the fee is $25 for setup, and $25 per month (obviously, these fees can change at any time--don't hold me to them). The fees go up from there. As far as we can tell, it's worth every penny.
And, to sweeten the deal (the point of this posting) we get a month of free service with each referral. So, if you're interested, please contact me (through the link on the blog site) and we can set it up. Visit http://www.xspam.com for more information on their service. (But don't sign up without talking to me first!)
I've been doing three ASP.NET 2.0 talks for a few months now, dealing with Personalization, Membership, and the new GridView control. Originally, I wrote these demos back in the alpha days, then converted them to Beta 1, and finally, have them all working in Beta 2. If you have attended any conference session or WebCast I've done on these topics, and want the most current demos, please drop by our
forums to download the current demos. It's surprising the number of changes that occurred between the February CTP build and Beta 2, but all of the demos completely failed when I first brought them into Beta 2. All working now!