Easy Solution for SPAM

I've had the same email account for years. I can not tell you how many, but before Netscape was the most popular web browser.

In the years since I signed up with my ISP, they've changed their main domain name several times. So now I get email under the name raydaly@xxxx.com and raydaly@yyyy.com and raydaly@zzzz.net. I've only used the xxxx.com address myself. So any email to the other accounts I know is spam (several hundred per day).

The easy solution requires a small amount of background. Most bulk email is usually batched to an ISP. So hundreds of email address could be in the message sent to one email server. So the same email that goes to any unused accounts contains spam for many other people.

Easy solution. Why don't ISPs look for an email sent to a "never used account" and then just stuff that email into a delete box before it gets sent into peoples' inbox. Certainly every ISP has these spam only addresses and could implement this.

Is this too simple to be a solution? Maybe. Or maybe spammer have figured a way around it. But I think it would work to cut an awful lot of spam. Something has to work soon.

SharePoint: First Step to Integrating with Intranet

Due to cost and product design, most organizations will install SharePoint for employees and not the public. This will require companies to consider how to intergrate with their existing intranet. This is the first step that is fairly simple to take even for companies considering a fast migration to SharePoint from their intranet.

This idea is to use SharePoint to be the search engine for your intranet. Microsoft has done a very good job with search and it is a perfect way to introduce SharePoint to your intranet audience.

First, you need to set up a new portal. This requires a new virtual IIS server. When you set this up, make sure to go into the properties and use the security tab to allow anonymous access. Make sure to note the user name here. You'll need it in step three.

So now you have a new virtual server and you need to set up it up as a SharePoint Portal. You do this from the SharePoint Central Admin page. Obviously, this will take a few minutes.

Third, you need to set up the new portal access. Again from the Central Admin page click on -----. Set up the user name from step one for access. At this point you should now have unresticted access to the new portal. Test this.

Fourth, you now need to set up the search. Go into the Site Settings and set up SharePoint to search your intranet. [I'll do a graphic, step by step later.] You should now be able to search your intranet from within your SharePoint. Click on a link from a search result and you should see a page from your intranet.

Fifth, you probably want to delete the default areas (Topics, News and Sites) that SharePoint sets up for your new portal. This is going to depend on your intranet design and SharePoint skills. This would give you a portal just used for searching.

Finally, now you need to get to the SharePoint search from within your intranet. This is the HTML code you need to put into a page on your intranet.

Search: 

[Note: ????.??? will have to be corrected later.]

Open the page where you put this form. Do the search and you should be searching using SharePoint. Great, your intranet users can now get a test of SharePoint.

Hope this works for you. Next we'll get your people to start using alerts in their searches. NOTE: A more detail document will be done when I have a test setup ready.

SharePoint As New Media

Can SharePoint be a new way of expression? I'm rather sure that it is. Instead of a web site composed of HTML pages, SharePoint stores nearly everything in a MS SQL database, the majority of the content is MS Office documents and pulls things out using web parts. Obviously different than HTML. Maybe as different as television is from radio.

Anyways, I'm taking a class on SharePoint this week and I'll keep notes here.

Darknet: More to Come

Several bloggers pointed me to J.D. Lasica book/wiki Darknet. After a quick read of the first chapter, I'm sure that I'll have many more comments. First because of the subject matter and second because I need to get the "web book" I've been working on the web for comments.

My first impression is that Lasica misses the broad point that "Movies, Music and Television" are all content for the internet. As Eric McLuhan pointed out in his book, "Electric Language : Understanding the Message", the content of the internet is all media. This is based on the Marshall McLuhan "law" that the content of new media is old media. Understanding this make understanding the darknet easier.

My second impression is that we have always made our own media. More on that later.