While it’s true that email is a revolution for the electronic age it’s all so true that spam is a very big issue for us all. Spam, in our poll, came in a very close second and therefore proves what a bighead ache it is for us all.

Some people struggle with email from the word go, they find the settings that are required for their email client confusing and once it’s set up they don’t like to change it – which is why so many companies have a proper website but use an email address given to them by their broadband supplier. Regardless of what this poll says – email for a lot of people is a nightmare.

But we can’t ignore the poll, the top result was ‘I Lurve Email!’ which is encoraging for me because the more people that can get their head around email, the easier my job becomes when I do their websites. Spam came in second in the vote and without doubt it affects every single email user in the world. There is light at the end of the tunnel though in the shape of Spam Filters.

Managing Spam

A spam filter is a method of automatically checking the contents of an email for trigger words, phrases or attachments. Certain words are given a score and if the total score of all the words in the email reaches a certain level, the email is classed as spam and is dumped in your Junk Folder. When you activate your spam filter for the first time you will normally find that spam will still manage to get through to your inbox, this is because you need to train your filter and fine tune its decision making process. My spam filter for instance (SpamSieve) gives me a two options: Train BAD and Train GOOD. If a piece of spam gets into my inbox, I simply right click on it and choose Train BAD, the words in that email are then given a higher score and the sender is added to my Black list. The words having a higher score means next time round email offering me the same ‘content’ will be junked more readily and any new email from the Black listed sender will automatically be junked as well.

I can also do the reverse, if the spam filter gets a little over zealous and junks an email I need, choosing Train GOOD, lowers the word score and adds the sender to my White list enabling them to email me again without compromise.

Spam filters are very, very useful things and I urge you to get one. Spam contains viruses and phishing traps so the less you are exposed to them the better.

Here are the two apps that I have used that work very well:

Mac: SpamSieve

PC: SpamFighter

Can Spam be cut off before it gets into my inbox?

Yes, and very effectively too. The hosting provider I use has an excellent feature called SpamTitan, be default it’s off, but activating it gives you a spam filter within your mailbox on the mailserver. This means that spam is filtered off before you login and pick up your mail.

I bought myself an iPod Touch so I could check my mail while I am away from my desk. The amount of spam I was getting coupled with some other daily regular email made the task of checking email into a chore. So I enabled SpamTitan so see how that would work out, I also adjusted my receive procedure so I wouldn’t pick up the regular mail on my iPod. The change was dramatic, I went from sorting through 30+ emails to just 4 or 5 all of which were client related and no spam.

Now occasionally spam gets through, and occasionally expected emails get trashed but you can tickle your settings accordingly and on the whole I have to say my spam measures are working well.

SpamTitan is easy to turn on and easy to turn off if you think it’s getting too much in the way, but in my opinion it’s worth while taking a look at. Contact your hosting provider, or login to your website admin panel and see if you have the facility.

Other email issues

The poll highlighted that bounced messages and the inability to receive were also issues for people. These two areas of annoyance are usually linked and can normally be traced back to a full mailbox at the server. A lot of people like to manage their mail via webmail and sometimes more than one user needs to access the same account. People solve this by checking the box in their mail client that says ‘leave messages on server’. This is fine, but after time the mailbox becomes clogged with old mail and runs over quota and when that happens the mailserver starts to reject incoming mail.

The simplest solution is to always mange your mail using an email client on your computer (such as: Outlook, Entourage, Thunderbird etc) but if you can’t and you have to leave email on the server, then you have to find a way to manage your email archive and delete all non-essential mail, then at some point look at increasing your mailbox quota with your hosting provider.

Final words

Email is a big part of our lives now and online communication is only going to get more important and integrated. It’s far to easy to take it for granted and let our guard down, so please take an hour out of your day today and make sure you have spam protection in place, and of course if you need help you can always contact us at Design Conscious or via twitter

It was good to see a better turn out at the Design Conscious virtual ballot box for this vote, the numbers still weren’t high but I thank all of you that did vote.

Is email the bane of your life?

Email is a godsend, no more scribbled letters, no more paper or stamps or running after the post van at 5pm. Heaven isn’t it? For some it’s not, so lets hear your opinion.

You may choose up to 3 answers

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.