In 1936, canned meat pioneer Jay C. Hormel sponsored a contest to find a name for his company’s new spiced ham product. The winner of the grand prize of $100 was Kenneth Daigneau (brother of the company’s vice president), who combined the “sp-” from “spiced” and the “-am” from ham (cf. turducken).

In 1970, an episode of the BBC show Monty Python’s Flying Circus included a skit in which every item on a Viking cafe’s menu included this same spiced ham product. During the skit, the establishment’s patrons broke into a song whose refrain was a seemingly endless repetition of the product’s name.

In the 1980s, history is foggy but it seems that proto-chat rooms saw the lyrics of the Monty Python song posted in full, repeatedly. For computer geeks (most of the people using proto-chat rooms in the 1980s) the name of the spiced ham product became synonymous with mass repetition. Programmers took to using the term to mean overrunning a computer’s memory with too much data.

In 1994, lawyer Larry Canter flooded early Internet message boards with an advertising message in what was reportedly the first use of the Internet for mass marketing. One angry recipient supposedly posted a message suggesting that every recipient of the ad send a can of a certain spiced meat product to Canter in protest.

In 2008, people are resigned to receiving a ton of unwanted email. However, there are ways to get rid of spam… for the most part. Here’s how….

1. Don’t just give away your email address to everyone! Please don’t sign up for the email foreclosure listing with your real email address. No, No, NO. Use a spam email address. Just go to gmail or yahoo and sign up. Don’t know how? Better buy the bundle to learn it all now. (selfless bundle plug). Anyway, just use that email address to sign up with unknown online vendors, ecards, etc. Or get yourself a new email address and start with a nice spam-free fresh slate.
2. Use the Antispam feature on your email service to flag things as spam and help us all. You flag it as spam on email, I flag it as spam, Jim in Canada flags it as spam… pretty soon the tool learns that it’s spam and Julie in Seattle doesn’t ever get the spam. Make sense? You can also just flag it on your own email software (like Outlook or Thunderbird) Outlook has a “junk mail” feature that is ok, but we like Thunderbird better. It has a great “learn” tool that pretty much eliminates spam after you teach it for awhile. Download it and then check out the spam tool how to here or here. (or buy our bundleJ ).
3. Unplug your computer, move to Hawaii, and eat lots of spam (they really like spam over there). That will solve your spam problem but might create some other ones.P.S. Todd likes spiced ham luncheon meat … and old radio jingles promoting it:
   http://www.spam.com/assets/it/au/jingle.au

Last Links

• Gmail email sign up page here. We like gmail, nice as a secondary spam email for all those shady signups too.
• PC Magazine AntiSpam section (lots of good software but it may be harder to use than the steps above.
• Thunderbird- It’s free, fast as a bird, with a thunderous personality… actually not really, but we do like it!
• Best Sushi in Hawaii (for when you get tired of the spam) Kintaro, in Kapaa, Kauai. Or the Kilauea Fish Market if you’re up in Kilauea… oh yummy.

]]> http://www.noparentleftbehind.net/2008/11/eliminate-spam-from-your-email/feed/ 1 http://www.noparentleftbehind.net/2008/09/get-your-cup-o-tech-filled-soon/ http://www.noparentleftbehind.net/2008/09/get-your-cup-o-tech-filled-soon/#comments Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:12:46 +0000 schreiberm http://www.noparentleftbehind.net/?p=33 Well, as you can see the site is still taking shape. We are very excited to be able to give you the best and most current information in each of 3 categories + 1 extra special one to boot!

The first Category is “Protect Your Kids”. Articles written in this area will have to do with topics that help you do just that, protect your kids. General info, software that can help, and the best practices of the nitty-gritty “how to” of it all will be wrapped up in this important category.

Category #2, entitled “Protect Your Computer” is once again simply that, info on how to protect your computer. Spy-ware, Ad-Ware, Bloat-Ware… and what every other type of “ware” they might think up will be covered in depth with way to fight against these programs and keep your computer safe. Viruses, Trojan Horses, Firewalls and other things that you never thought you would want to learn about, but now need to, will all be covered along with “how to” sections to keep your computer safe.

Category 3, one of our least favorite topics but also one of our most valuable. How do you “Protect Your Info” anyway? Why do you need to? What crooks are trying to get it from you and what are some of the easy ways to keep from having your info snatched. Phishing Phil… who is he? Well check it out and see.

Category 4, what is it you ask? Well our most fun category to date of course! Once you have gotten your fill of knowledge to keep your kids, your computer, and your info safe then hop on over here and start to have some fun! Become a Power User! Learn the Teen Tech Trends and learn some new exciting things to impress your friends and make your life easier too. You might even learn some cool tech that you can be the first to show your kids and their friends too! Wouldn’t that be a fun role reversal!

So, stay tuned. You keep your cup handy and we’ll keep it full of all the tech that you need to know… and maybe a drop or two more!

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**** new dec download link 1***************

New Link 2*************

newest

Sometimes I wonder if I have enough time for all of this. I bet you wonder the same thing, and that’s why we are here. To Help You Out! Yep you.

How?— By giving you -Simple, quick, and effective advice on keeping your techno-world safe.

You bring the questions and we’ll bring the answers! What a deal huh.

Let’s get started–

There are 3 basic things you need to protect your computer, especially if you have it plugged into an Internet connection 24/7.

1. A Firewall.

A Firewall is just a piece of software that you load on your machine to keep people out. Think of your computer as a big house with lots of doors and windows. Now some of these doors and windows need to be open so that you can see outside your house, maybe check the weather, and so on. You also need a mail slot that allows mail to come in, maybe a doggie door for your pouch and so on. Computers are similar. They need places open too, email, website traffic, and the like. Each one of these “openings”, these virtual doors and windows, has a number associated with it called a port. Port 25 = sending mail, port 110 = receiving mail, port 80 = web traffic.

• Simply put, firewalls close up and lock down all the extra ports that you don’t use so that people can’t gain unauthorized “entry” into your safe little computer house. Make sense? Good.

2. Anti-Virus software

• Nobody wants a virus especially if it makes your computer sick. Basically there are a lot of reasons people write viruses. The biggest ones are to challenge themselves and then gain a reputation. There are rare cases when they get financial gain from a virus (one that harvests info from your computer that is then sold) but most of the time it is just to say that they did it.
• What to do? Get a good antivirus software that doesn’t slow down your computer.

3. A knowledge of good and evil (in the techo-world)

• This one is tougher. How are you suppose to know what is good and bad?
• First of all, be slow to click and quick to research.
• Be a little paranoid for now but don’t stay that way.
• Learn from this site and others how to be net-savvy.

Resources: My favs as of 2008

1. Firewall: Comodo Pro http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/

2. Antivirus: Bit Defender

http://www.bitdefender.com/site/Products/showSolutions/1/

3…Knowledge: This site. For faster knowledge check out the bundles. They’ll get you up to speed quick!

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