This week has been a fabulous week for email. After years of increasing problems with getting way, way too much unwanted email, we finally did something about it. I signed up with a challenge-response system called Spam Arrest.
In the past, the systems, I’ve looked into never really interested me because we have so many email accounts. However, this one protects our entire domain. I emailed the company and asked a few questions about their “enterprise” version and was pleasantly surprised by their tech support.
After setting up all our accounts and importing my address book, suddenly there was great email silence. All those loathsome solicitations I’ve been receiving about my home, money, and physical state are all gone, banished to some digital dumpster far, far away from my hard disk.
This development is huge because it means I no longer have to worry about getting so much junk mail that it could crash our mail server. Sadly, this situation was starting to be an issue, especially when we went on vacation. On vacation, having to check my email just to clean out the drek was really, really annoying.
The new system actually intercepts the mail before it gets to our mail server and traps the bad stuff. After 7 days, it’s nuked permanently. I’ve checked the web site to make sure it hasn’t trapped anything I want, and so far, it’s been great.
Another side effect of this change for Logical Tips readers is that if you reply to the email newsletter, I will never get your reply. For almost 7 years, it has said at the top of the message, NOT to reply to the Logical Tips email, yet inevitably people do. Realistically, in the past I did get those missives and often would respond (especially to family members or other people I know).
Now I won’t because I set up the new system to automatically delete anything that is not a notification of someone joining or leaving the Logical Tips list. In other words, a reply is nuked long before it gets to me. However, if you want to get in touch with me, it’s still easy. Just use our contact form instead. Those emails always get to me.