E-Musings Mon Immorata

Is MyDoom Yours Too? Virus scourge continues, but Freeloader previews a free POP3 client that's Hotmail-, Yahoo- and Rediff-compatible This week sees an other increase in the number of MyDoom-generated email I've received. Of course, all I have to do is program my mail server's spam filter to segregate messages with .Zip attachments. In the viral trawl a few genuine file attachments too are swept up. But you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, now can you? Of course, the spam filter is quite intelligent. It re-directs so-infected mail into a separate folder in a different email account I configured to avoid primary Inbox overload. All those 31 kB attachments can add up to lots of MB when they arrive in droves. Since I guess few readers have advanced spam filtering, not to mention email servers at their disposal, use the Outlook Auto-Preview trick. And this would be a great time to download and install my favorite Outlook plug-in: Pocketknife Peek. This lets you view a message's contents without launching any scripts or runtime attachments. Of course if you have Outlook Express, all you can do is pray (a lot) as MyDoom seems to excel in sending infected copies of itself as .Zip files which aren't trapped by OE's built-in attachment controls! This is therefore a good time to recommend Thunderbird; the Mozilla project's mail and news client. Although Thunderbird features message preview it doesn't depend on leaky, vulnerable, Windows libraries. Instead, Thunderbird reinvents the wheel. You do need to be careful about Thunderbird glomming onto all available system resources including CPU utilization of 70-85% when opening and sending a message or when polling a mailbox. You also need to configure an SMTP server for each account and disable the default SMTP server, or you will have mail sending problems for servers that block relaying -- typical with ISP mail servers who need you to be using a specific ISP when sending email. For a change readers are writing in; if only because they're looking for a cure to Yahoo's POP mail blues. Well, I have just the tool for you: ePrompter. This free application is now available in both v1.0 and v2.0 SR1 Beta 9 (January 31, 2003) releases. And having used both, the new Beta version is certainly faster and doesn't insist on installing a new screen saver. ePrompter can connect to convention POP3 and IMAP mail servers, as well as to AltaVista, AOL, eMail.com, Excite, Go.com,. Juno, Hotmail, Lycos, MyWay.com, Netscape, OneBox, Switchboard, Usa.net, Yahoo and even Rediff.com! Web-based mail service providers supporting POP3 access typically restrict this to paying customers only. As for the alternate free Yahoo-only POP3 Yahoo!POPs, I notice it has 4 critical flaws to survive in a firewalled world. To begin with this needs to be configured as a (local) mail server. Then it needs you, the user, to remember names of any custom folders. It downloads the Bulk Mail folder content by default. And most importantly is horribly slow to connect. If you use dial-up access don't even consider it. And even DSL/Broadband users with less than 256 kbps bandwidth, get something good to read while you wait, and wait, and wait. To connect to Yahoo then download and view your mail. I also found a neat little Outlook Express Tweaker. This software open a new multi-tabbed dialog to reveal "secret" OE settings that otherwise can only be customized using Windows Registry-level editing. The now-modifiable settings include permanently disabling Messenger integration with OE, as well as removing the start-up splash screen. You can also choose to hide certain mail accounts from specific users and even add a New Mail context menu shortcut to Windows Explorer. In these MyDoom'ed times, Tweaker's ability to block executable attachment including .Zip files is a Godsend. As is its ability to define a custom folder to save mail attachments to. You can also configure a basic Blocked Senders (black) list to filter out potential spammers. Although this feature is nowhere as advanced or dynamic as that available in anti-spam software like SpamPal but helps block messages from select users who've added you to their address books and send you chain email and other annoyances. The developer also offers a free clock screen saver that displays the time in green on a black background. You can choose between 2 digital -- segment or text -- modes, as well as an analog clock display with a separate settings dialog. That's it for now. Remember to stay safe and not open any executable attachments without cross checking the email's message body first. Click Here to Email Me