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April 28, 2014 - Hammondsport Mac Users Group ATTENDING : Tom B, Ed M, Al J, Judy H, Carl H, Nancy B, Pat H, Luanne G, Bob S, Gene N and Nancy D. TOPIC : SPAM
The meeting started with each person sharing an experience with spamming, scamming, junk mail or other e-mail maladies. Next we shared some of the ways of preventing (or at least reducing) spam in our e-mail boxes.
HOW TO PREVENT IT 1 Don't subscribe to anything. (If you must, give it careful thought) 2 Don't go public with your email ID. (social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Discussion Forums) 3 Use temporary or alternate e-mail addresses (one for ordering, one for social clubs, one throw-away) 4 Disguise or "munge" your address. (me [at] yahoo [dot] com 5 Never respond to SPAM. (don't click 'Unsubscribe' unless it is a trusted sender that you know) 6 Watch out for pre-checked boxes on forms. (only check or fill in what is absolutely required) 7 Don't forward chain e-mailings. (see E-mail Etiquette Hints)
PASSWORDS
E-MAIL SECURITY
Many on-line e-mail providers allow you to see a history of recent log-ins to your account.
SECURE SITE BUG
Heartbleed - is a potential exploitable flaw recently discovered that could jeopardize many online websites using the familiar https: secure site in money transactions. Most businesses have quickly fixed this flaw with appropriate patch. Read this article from Tidbits to understand how it affects the ordinary web user. You can easily ascertain the safety of any website such as your local credit union, favorite on-line store, etc by inserting the website into either of these Heartbleed test sites: Heartbleed Server Test - (quick test) Qualys SSL Server Test (longer test)
HANDY TEST WEBSITES DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com - if you are having difficulty connecting to your favorite website, go to this site and type in the URL that is being stubborn - instantly tells you if site is down or it's just you. Down Right Now - check out this site the next time your having problems with Yahoo mail, Netflix, PayPal, etc. - it shows current and recent status of all major sites depending on user input.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUT Contextual Menus reveal many additional options and can be viewed by simply Right-Clicking with the mouse (or use Control Key while using a trackpad) - see examples
IN THE NEWS
What exactly is ICANN? (International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) - created in 1998, ICANN manages the Web and has taken over Internet duties that used to be directly controlled by the U.S. government. The Los Angeles-based organization has primarily been responsible for opening up the Internet’s addressing system to new names to the right of the dot, known as domains, adding .biz, .info. and other domains to the original .com, .net and .org.
Change Fonts - a 14-year old student from a Pittsburgh area middle school has discovered a way to save the U.S. Government $136 million per year by simply changing to Garamond font in printed materials - see student's original report. A Sans Serif font walked into a bar, only to be told 'We don't serve your type.'
Hammondsport Mac Users Group - Hammondsport, NY 14840 - www.hportmug.com
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Apple Mail can prevent
Spam by enabling Junk Mail. See how 
Yahoo Mail (the
free version) has a forwarding option to redirect mail
(not including SPAM) to your Mac Mail box. See how 
Some good discussion
ensued regarding the use of passwords, especially in protectings email
accounts. Read Business Insider's 
In Gmail, log in
to your account, and then click the link 'Details' to 
Tolerance
mob ousts co-founder of Mozilla and inventor of Javascript, Brendan Eich
- 
U.S.
Government to hand over Internet control (ICANN) to U.N. - 