Technology Advisor Blog

We've recently started upgrading our Spam filtering platform, so it's time to post some updated instructions.   These days Spam messages account for 80%-90% of all email sent worldwide, generating a lot of clutter and in some cases, security threats.  We strongly advise filtering mail before it gets to your mail server, and many of our clients have signed up for Spam filtering services with us.

At a recent industry event, I had the opportunity to share some "war stories" over lunch. One of the guys at the table told a tale of an email server crash on a Friday night that one of his techs rescued after many hours of effort late into the night.  The Microsoft Exchange server had crashed, and they ran recovery and clean up tools to get the mail running again.  Mission accomplished!

Many viruses are embedded in email attachments designed to get through even multiple layers of security.  CryptoLocker is one of the worst viruses seen in years and it only takes ONE message to get through to cause a lot of damage, and the “bad guys” have developed sophisticated techniques to get around your antivirus protection. 

One of the services we provide to our clients is spam filtering.  The goal is to stop the spam BEFORE it gets to the mail server so it doesn't wind up on the users' desktop, laptop, iPad, smart phone, etc....  Each month when we do the reporting and roll up the numbers, it's amazing how much volume there is. Overall, around 80% of all email traffic is flagged as spam.  For some of our clients, this means blocking out tens of thousands of messages a month.  I looked at our own domain yesterday, and in February, over 10,000 messages were blocked or quarantined, including 348 emails containing viruses.  

Whenever there's a mystery regarding a "missing" email, the first thing we look at is if the email is sitting in a spam filter.  We always recommend just using one spam filter, preferably "in the cloud" so mail is filtered BEFORE it gets to your mail server, and distributed to your laptop, smartphone, iPad, and wherever else you read your mail.

In the first few weeks of using a spam filter, we know it's an inconvenience to have to approve senders when it would be obvious to anyone but a computer that it's mail that you want, but you'll be grateful to have the spam filter when you see all the clutter gone from your mailbox. Note that what appears in your quarantine is only the borderline spam content and that the rest of it is blocked in a "black hole". On average, across all the clients we actively manage, around 80% of all incoming mail is blocked or quarantined as spam!

Here's a question we hear a lot:  "Why doesn't my spam filter block ALL my spam?"  We typically implement Postini spam filtering for our clients (sometimes Barracuda), and when we examine the monthly reports, overall, about 80% of incoming mail is either blocked or quarantined as spam.  This is a HUGE amount of mail, and consistent with industry reports which typically track even higher in the 90% range.  The filters, though not perfect, keep a LOT of clutter out of your inbox and off your smart phone.

If you need to send an email to someone with a large file or perhaps with many smaller files, you can compress the files to save space and also save the hassle of attaching several files one by one by selecting a compressed folder.  The process is easy, and it doesn't require any extra software since the function is built right into Windows.  Simply find the file or folder you want to compress, right click on the file or folder and select Send To and then click Compressed (zipped) Folder.  The new file folder has a zipper on it to show its "zipped", and you can rename it to anything you want.

If your inbox is getting out of control with too many messages, it's time to start creating some "rules" to organize your mail. 

I was composing a new email and noticed the ruler across the top.  While the ruler is useful in some cases for advanced formatting (aligning text and images), it was a nuisance for me and I started searching the tool bar for how to get rid of it.  I must have toggled it "on" by accident, and now it was stuck there.