Recipients on a bcc (blind carbon copy) list cannot see each other. For mailing
lists, the advantage is that only the one delivering the message is copied
on a reply, since the other lists getting the message are hidden. Bcc's
are also good for providing privacy when sending a message, (each of the
other recipients will not see who else got it, unless they are on the same
domain) and for sending a message with "clean headers". The recipients don't
have to page through pages of recipients.
Put all the lists you want to send that message to in the bcc: line and the
message will go to each of the list separately.
To send "bcc:" look for the following:
In Eudora, there is a a blank that
says "Bcc:" use that one.
In Netscape Messenger click on
the little down triangle to the left of "To:" in the message header. A drop
down menu will show up that includes "Bcc:" Click on that. "Bcc:" will show
up where "To:" was.
In MS Outlook Express the default message
headers does not include a Bcc entry. It can be set to give you that option
every time. Generate a New Message. Click on "View" and then on "All Headers"
in the drop down menu. You will now have a bcc: entry line, and you will
have it for all future messages. (You don't have to use it, it is just
"there".)
In AOL, put a set of parenthesis "("
and ")" around the list addresses.
(To be completed)
Filters sort mail by applying certain criteria to header information. The
headers contain "tags" like From:, To:, Sender:, Subject:, cc:, date:, etc.
Only the most basic ones are used by most filter routines.
Typically the "rules" are applied in a certain order. To filter mail from
a list, you need to find something in the header that's always there but
unique to that source of e-mail. Open a message and examine the To, From:,
and Subject lines for something useful. For instance, the mail from BMWTech
is always "From" the person sending it (not helpful), but it's always "To:
bmw-tech" or some address containing that. Sometimes mail might be "From"
the listserver, although that's unusual. Find a characterisctic tag and use
this as a condition to move incoming mail into different folders.
BUT... first you want to isolate out mail that's addressed to you personally.
I have a folder called "Main" and anything that's To: or cc: to me goes into
that file. That way a response to me that comes through a listserver draws
my attention.
Filtering on the subject line is not as good as filtering on the To: and
From: fields. People may or may not edit the "BMW" or "TECH" from the subject
line before a response, and in my case I'm on two different lists that both
add DIESEL: to the beginning of the subject.
Filtering out annoying people is fun, but my advice is to filter to an "Annoying"
folder in case the person has something good to say. In my case, I have to
because one such person might be writing to me on club business rather than
the usual spam-the-list-with-drivel routine. It's easier to get annoyed once
a week than to get annoyed several times a day. And it would be too embarrassing
for me to have to say, "You sent me an article? Ohhh... I never actually
see your mail."
So my filters look something like:
to: me, goes into Main
cc: me, goes into main
from: annoying person, goes to ANNOYING
to: bmw-tech, goes to TECH
cc: BMW-TECH, goes to TECH
to: vwfans, goes to vw
cc: vwfans, goes to vw
etc...
Very few things actually go to the defaut in box. If any list traffic ends
up there I'll look at why it didn't get filtered and fix it.
The VAST majority of e-mail viruses are spread through the fault of the user.
E-mail viruses are basically sent as attachments, and as long as the user
does not execute an attached program, there will be no problem. Some
people have a burning desire to run every attachment regardless of origin
- if you're one of these people, those viruses were written for you.
Don't open unsolicited attachments. If they end in .EXE, .VBS,
.COM, .BAT, .SCR or a few others then they are programs and can do nearly
anything to your machine. MS Word and Excel can have macro viruses
attached to them, also. Simply delete the e-mail and you'll be safe.
Most of these virus-carrying e-mails are sent without the sender's knowledge
and therefore have text that will seem very impersonal since it wasn't written
to you specifically.
.VBS (VisualBasic) viruses are very popular right now; one way you might
want to protect yourself is to turn off the link that associates .VBS files
with Visual Basic. This way if you accidentally try to run the file,
nothing will happen because Windows won't know what kind of file it is.
Get a good antivirus program. Norton is the biggest name in
anti-virus programs but McAffee is another, and there are websites that will
scan you for viruses as well.