 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Ash Nallawalla ash@melbpc.org.au |
 |
Have you completed the Member Survey we published last month? If not, please
complete it on paper or, preferably, online at
http://www.melbpc.org.au/surveys/ About 400 members have done so as I write this in early September. Some
of the early responses deserve some comment.
The first concern is that a quarter of the respondents were not aware that we have a membership incentive
scheme in place. If you find a person to join the group, you should ensure that your membership number is
listed on the application form, for this is how the office can credit your account with an additional month's
membership dues. You will not receive any notification of this other than a change to the expiry date on the
magazine mailer. This only works for new members, not renewals.
Many members have written that they do not participate in any group activities other than the Internet
service. I can't talk because I have not had time to go to any group activity this year and I imagine that
many others find that life and work gets in the way. For those with Internet access, even if you communicate
with one or two fellow members and help each other, that would be a good start. Those who subscribe to our
Internet service should visit the melbpc newsgroups and make their presence felt.
Some of our Internet subscribers say that they find it hard to get on after 3.30 pm. I agree that sometimes
we find that all lines are busy, but with over 300 of them being available, there are usually one or two who
are logging off. The trick is to redial a couple of times and to make sure that you try all the available
access numbers. Sometimes you may want to walk away for a cup of tea and come back before you try again.
One of the country members suggested that we set up a local access number so that he or she does not have to
use STD. When I last checked, a 1800 number costs $6/hour so that would wipe out the $140 subscription
revenue very quickly.
We have noted for some years now that Internet service subscribers form the majority in this group. Some have
commented that our service may soon be rendered obsolete by better offerings from the large companies. I too
have felt that way but we have lasted at least two years beyond my original calculations. Someone suggested
that we look into offering faster access, such as ADSL, perhaps at a premium. Not a bad idea, but
traditionally we (the volunteers) have not been too interested in a metered service or multiple classes of
subscribers. I am sure the Internet committee will consider all such suggestions and evaluate them
afresh.
Less than one third of the respondents have not bought anything over the Internet. I was a late adopter there
and I still have not tried banking or share trading over the Net. I was contributing too much money to the
Pokemon industry so I decided to cut my losses and looked into the eBay auctions. While I think I am saving
money, I suspect that I am spending more of it.
Aliased E-mail
I picked up a useful tip through a mailing list that will enable you to identify the source of your unwanted
e-mail. Many people incorrectly call such e-mail "spam" whereas the term refers to massively crossposted news
articles. The correct term is UBE (unsolicited bulk e-mail) or UCE (unsolicited commercial e-mail), although
I suspect that "spam" will prevail.
The technique exploits the fact that the plus sign (+) has not been given any meaning in the context of an
e-mail address. In fact, on most (but not all) ISP configurations including ours, the plus sign and anything
following it up to the @ sign are ignored.
Note: Be warned that this technique may not work one day, without warning, so do not use it for
people or organisations that send you important e-mail.
If I were asked to supply my address at a web site, say, www.ebay.com, I would supply, say,
ash+ebay@melbpc.org.au. If I needed to use it in newsgroups, I'd configure my newsreader to show my address
as ash+ng@melbpc.org.au. If you have patience and you don't post often, you may want to reconfigure this for
every specific newsgroup, as it will identify any spam you get as being from a certain source.
Our fellow member Peter Haughton has identified a great use for this technique - to identify family members
where they all share one e-mail address. For example, the (fictitious) family account bloggs@melbpc.org.au
would be depicted as bloggs+fred@melbpc.org.au for Fred; bloggs+freda@melbpc.org.au for Freda and so on.
At this point, all the specially tagged e-mail will continue to fill your inbox. Most mail software has a
filter option that enables it to look for key words and move the e-mail to a designated folder. Mr Bloggs
above could, for example, create two folders named Fred and Freda and write two rules: mail for
bloggs+fred@... would go to the Fred folder and mail for bloggs+freda@... would go to the Freda folder. For
newsgroup-generated junk mail, Mr Bloggs would create a folder and a corresponding rule called News.
I repeat that this tip is at best a short-term kludge and if you use it for family accounts, you should tell
your correspondents that if mail should ever bounce, they should resend it minus the "plus" embellishment. It
is best left for use with Web sites that require you to test it by sending yourself an e-mail, e.g.
ash+test@melbpc.org.au
Reprinted from the October 2000 issue of PC Update, the
magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
