Colin Meeks

Published in the Globe and Mail Newspaper 23 November 2006 Issue

Spamalot isn’t just the name of one of the latest hits on Broadway, it’s also one of the unfortunate side effects of having an e-mail address, attracting unsolicited mail touting unwanted products. The term spam, is widely believed to have come from a Monty Python sketch about the canned-meat product of the same name; the skit ended with an exasperated voice screaming “Shut-up”. If only the e-mail variety were that easy to silence.

Spam is the sending of unsolicited e-mail, usually advertising or scams to part you from your hard earned money. Initially spam was purely text based and straight to the point. As spam filtering surfaced, spammers were forced to more creative and devious way to fool the filters. One trick used is to insert lots of totally innocuous text, usually prose or reference material to confuse the filters. This method is called “hash busting”. Filters deploy complex rules to determine whether or not an e-mail is spam, which includes looking for certain key words and phrases. This “hash busted” text is carefully weighted, to ensure the filters red flags are not raised.

Spammers, never ones to stand still, now have a more effective method, which is proving a lot more difficult to detect and the scourge of e-mail everywhere. An image containing their real spam message is created. This image is inserted in the “hash busted” text. Current filtering software is unable to determine what’s contained in the image and has the compounded problem of the “hash busted” text.

An additional trick to harvest valid e-mail addresses is to include an embedded image, measuring 1 pixel by 1 pixel in a spam message. This image is downloaded from the spammers website when the e-mail is viewed. The image has a unique name which is linked to your e-mail address. When you open the e-mail, the spammer will know meaning your address is a valid, as he can tell when the unique image file has been viewed and can cross reference to the e-mail address that’s just been validated. Resulting in even more spam from either the original spammer, or another spammer who’s bought your validated e-mail address. This last trick can be thwarted by switching off images in your e-mail software, so they do not display automatically.

The global organization Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), headquartered in San Francisco, USA, estimates that, based on a sampling of 100 million mail boxes in 2005, about 80 to 85 per cent of e-mail was junk. That translates to a terrific waste of bandwidth, time and indeed money. “Some estimates suggest that Internet users are paying their Internet providers an extra $60 a year because of the added security measures needed to combat spam,” says Neil Schwartzman, chairman of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE). “AOL for instance blocks upward of four billion e-mails a day”. he says.

The system for delivering e-mail is called SMTP, a protocol that’s as old as the Internet itself and has numerous flaws. The main flaw is you do not need to be authenticated i.e. prove who you are by entering a user name or password, to send an e-mail. This means that if you have the wherewithal, it’s easy to send an e-mail to a friend, associate or several million people at once and have the e-mail appear as if it’s been sent by anyone you desire.

Despite driving most consumers crazy, spamming is big business. A negligible amount of money can send out millions of unsolicited e-mails, which only need a minimal response to make it pay. “Sending spam is relatively inexpensive, especially when spammers use the resources of unsuspecting Internet users. Any income they do generate is virtually all profit” says Schwartzman. The resources in question are mail servers and even unsuspecting Internet users computers.

Several countries are trying to crack down on spammers and stem the flood of unwanted e-mail with new laws and regulations. Under Australia’s Spam Act 2003, for example, unsolicited commercial electronic messages must not be sent; such messages must include information about the individual or organization; must contain a functional unsubscribe facility; and address-harvesting software must not be supplied, acquired or used. The main remedies for breaches of the Act are civil penalties and injunctions. Other countries including Japan, New Zealand and the United States (Can Spam Act of 2003) have similar laws. CAUCE for one, is pushing the federal government to bring tough legal remedies to combat spam in this country. As yet however there is no definite timetable for an anti-spam bill to be brought before the commons. Although no new laws are forthcoming, recent efforts by Internet providers have resulted in Canada falling from their position of 10th to 16th of worst offending countries.

What can you do to prevent or at least filter out spam coming in to your e-mail and also make for a safer e-mail experience

1. Use e-mail software with good spam filtering.
2. Never open or reply to a piece of spam.
3. Turn off the display of images to prevent them being displayed automatically
4. Be wary of e-mail from unknown addresses
5. Do not open e-mails with attachments
6. Do not click on any links contained in a spam message, especially the “unsubscribe” links
7. Shroud e-mail address on your websites. For instance change fred@emailtesteremail.com to fred [AT] emailtesteremail DOT com. Spammers regularly check websites to harvest e-mail addresses
8. Be wary of entering your e-mail address in on-line web forms, unless you trust the website in question
9. Be sure if you sign up to a website, that your e-mail address will not be sold. Read their privacy statement

An edited version of this article was published in the Canadian Globe and Mail Newspaper 14 September 2006

Productivity applications are software packages that aid in making you more productive, whether creating letters, faxes, or spreadsheets helping you to forecast your companies finances. Office suites, bundle the most popular application types, like word processor, spreadsheet and presentation into a single package that is often more tightly integrated, allowing you to transfer data between them, more easily.

There’s no doubt that office productivity tools and suites are a necessity in everyday business. The likes of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Corel Word Perfect and Lotus 123 are indelibly etched into the business mind set. To a certain degree OpenOffice the freely available office suite has done a lot to eat into the big players market share, but now there’s new players in town and not only are they free or very reasonable priced, they are also available on reasonably modern computer with an Internet connection. This is all brought to you by the very latest in Internet technologies, including AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) and Flash, the web programming tool that launched a thousand on-line games and interactive advertising banners. Fortunately all this new power comes nicely wrapped in a user friendly interface that lets you worry about the job at hand, without requiring you to learn a gamut of jargon, buzzwords and complicated procedures.

Whilst on-line productivity application are by no means a new thing, they have only recently begun to mature into the feature packed and stable systems they are today. Being able to run a word processor or spreadsheet anywhere you have an Internet connection is a huge benefit, allowing you to work on any computer, anywhere that has an Internet connection, using the tools you are familiar with. However there is also another huge benefit of using Internet based tools and that is the ability to collaborate with other users. Traditionally collaboration meant passing a file to a colleague, them working on it and then passing it back to you. With the Internet however and the right tool, users can now work on the same document at the same time.

All of the new services available will allow you to save the file to your own computer in one of the genre standard file formats, i.e. .DOC for word processing, .XLS for spreadsheet, etc. A few of the services will allow you to store the resultant file on their own servers, allowing you to access the file in the same way you access the service, with a web browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer, from anywhere you have Internet connectivity. Obviously this is preferable if you are using the service at an Internet café or a computer with restrictive access, but being able to save the document to a file that you can open in any capable word processor, spreadsheet, etc. is also very beneficial. especially for backup purposes, or if you need to give a physical copy to someone else.

Most of the companies offering productivity tools, have found a particular niche and do it very well. This was originally how Writely began, before being purchased by Google. Google now offers many productivity tools, including the Writely word processor, a spreadsheet, calender and not forgetting the best in email services, Gmail. There are many more things planned at Google I’m sure. Although all of their offerings seem to remain in perpetual beta, they are updated often and at times add a whole raft of new features.

The other company offering a range of services is headed by Michael Robertson. If you remember the original MP3.com music repository, then you are already aware of forward thinking. MP3.com was sold to CNET many moons ago, but ever the technical evangelist, Robertson is now probably better known for his mp3Tunes.com, Gizmo the voice over IP, Skype competitor and Linspire, formally Lindows, the Windows lookalike Linux based operating system. All of the tools available from Robertson’s company Ajax 13 are non hosted, which means that although you can create and edit documents, you have to ultimately save them on your own computer.

Another company offering a suite of productivity tools is Think Free, who have a complete Java based office suite, comprising of a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation elements, which looks and functions almost exactly like Microsoft Office. This offering is a slight cheat as each element required, loads from their server, which means that the first time you use each tool, there is an extensive delay until you can actually begin work. All subsequent times however load relatively quickly as the application is cached (stored on the users computer).

The final suite offering is from gOffice, a relatively new service to me. They offer fully hosted files, like the Google services and are the only company to also offer a desktop publishing module. There’s many other productivity providers, who have chosen a specific niche to concentrate on. Because they are focused on a particular application, they tend to implement their chosen area, particularly well. Some of the other providers, in no specific order are:

Gliffy – This killer Visio lookalike, diagramming tool, has a great user interface with all the familiar features. Whilst not as powerful as the real thing, for many users the features offered are more than adequate, especially for creating things like flowcharts, floor layouts and organizational charts..

DabbleDB -This is the only on-line database I’ve seen so far. It’s not free, but has some great features and is relatively inexpensive for a small number of databases, allowing you to store data of all kinds.

Box.Net – A file storage service which enables you to store and retrieve as many files as you have storage space for. The basic service is free, with varying paid for options, offering additional features.

The last category which can act as the kind of glue that holds these services all together is web desktops. Netvibes and Protopage are probably the best known and rightly so, but for different reasons. I personally use Netvibes as it has a great user interface and fits with the way I work. Both of these services allow you to add bookmarks to other website, RSS feeds for receiving the latest news from your favorite sites and widgets that allow you to interact with many other Internet services, among them Flickr and PhotoBucket the the on-line photo storage services and the previously mentioned Box.net, all from your Internet desktop available anywhere.

Many of these tools are useful in their own right, but the true power of having Internet based productivity applications is in the ability to collaborate. The collaborative features are varied depending on the tool, but those that offer it, allow users to be able to work on the same documents in parallel. Some of the tools even let you chat to the other users working on the document, which is an incredible feature.

Productivity applications still have a long way to go. I’d ideally like them all to offer hosting of the files created. This is one of the main reasons I use both Writely and Google Spreadsheets, which were also used to write this article. Something I would love Google to offer is some kind of file repository, so I can see all the files I have across the Google services. Something like this may be possible, with the rumored service called GDrive, which will do for files what Gmail did for email.

With new services being launched almost daily, this is certainly an exciting time in the hosted application area. Please remember though, with all services allowing you to store your files on their servers, it’s important to make regular backups to your own computer. As quickly as new services launch, they also disappear, so it’s important to ensure your files don’t disappear with them.

An edited version of this article was published in the Canadian Globe and Mail Newspaper 26 April 2006

“Podcast” was declared 2005′s word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, when you consider the explosion in the number of podcasts available on-line. Podcasts have become as easy as listening to the radio – except that now the listener is in control. They are becoming so popular that the Tivo television service in the U.S. now offers a selection of easy to subscribe to podcasts, and access to any of the other thousands available on the Internet, along with regular TV programming.

The term podcast pays homage to Apple’s popular iPod digital audio player. Podcasting refers to audio – everything from quick clips to full-on talk shows – that is stored as a digital file and offered to listeners on-line, but it’s important to note that owning an iPod isn’t a necessity. People can download a podcast to their computer or digital audio player and listen to it whenever and wherever they choose.

Up till now, podcast creators have generally been people who had something to say, and who hit on podcasting as the way to reach the masses. Many already had blogs (web logs, a form of on-line diary), and used podcasts to make the leap from text to speech. But that’s changing as businesses around the world begin to realize that podcasting can be a valuable addition to their communications toolbox.

Corporate podcasting is still in its infancy, but there are many business uses for the technology aside from simply tacking product advertisement onto podcasts. Nathan Rudyk of Market2World Communications inc. sees a big advantage to podcast in the corporate environment, “The fact that podcasts can be subscribed and listened to anytime/anywhere gives them a reach, other media doesn’t have. You can’t read the company newsletter on your morning commute, and can’t fire up your PC and connect to an on-line instructional video on the bus. Podcasting leaps over many mobility obstacles to existing corporate communications.”.

Many companies, including Altana Pharma Inc. are starting to distribute internal communications via podcast, including material such as meeting minutes and memos. “Our priority was to introduce a new sales vice-president to a geographically dispersed team,” says Natasha Bond, corporate communications manager at Altana Pharma Inc. in Oakville, Ont. “He has used his podcasts to share information, insights and even personal anecdotes. Based on employee feedback to date, this has been a very effective medium to help him engage and build a bond with staff.”. Natasha adds, “A podcast is a less formal complement to more traditional communications. Our perspective is that an integrated program ensures employees get messages when and where they need them.”

Podcasts are also being used as training and teaching aids, and for updating remote employees on the road. Oracle use podcasts to reach out to the developer community using their tools. For developers or database administrators interested in new technologies, podcasting is an excellent resource. They’ll hear directly from the people involved in the project, what the technology has to offer.

Whilst podcasting can be an effective way to distribute internal communications, it does rely on the user being both competent in computers and having some means to play the audio files. “Used strategically, podcasts can have a place in the corporate environment, but are probably only going to be effective when targeted to a tech audience,” says Tod Maffin, contributing producer for CBC Radio One and himself a podcaster.

A few companies have started creating podcasts aimed at spreading messages to the public and increasing brand loyalty. One of the best examples for this has been Purina, with their animal advice podcast, which although a re-purposed radio show, does have excellent content on how to care for your pets, including interviews with vets and other experts on animal training, pet surgery, medical insurance, and behavioral issues. It gently reinforces the Purina brand, without hard sell advertising.

Any company wishing to explore the potential of podcasting is best advised to do their homework before dipping their toes in the water. Tod Maffin gives the following advice:

• Know your audience.
• Investigate the costs involved. Podcasts can be relatively cheap to produce, but hidden costs (such as the price of bandwidth for distributing a popular podcast), can quickly mount.
• Good content is a must.
• Ensure your podcast does not end up sounding like glorified advertising if it is for public consumption. The subscriber is in control, and they can un-subscribe just as quickly as they subscribed.

Podcasting is finally emerging from under the wing of the early adopters and becoming a force to be reckoned with. There’s still a lot to learn about this relatively new medium, but as Nathan Rudyk says “Don’t be afraid to try out new ideas – it’s a new medium and a lot of the fun comes from the fact all the rules haven’t been written yet.”