| LED Digest 1750: MSN Bends on Blocking Transactional Email |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ February 18, 2004 Issue #1750 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Mozilla vs Internet Explorer ==-- ~ Lee Roberts "Yep, I'm a tab junky." ~ Steve Marriott "For those that are going to follow this thread I wonder what your views are." --== Keywords in Meta Tags ==-- ~ Clint Whitsett "Special thanks also to Rick Meigs..." --== AOL Bouncing Email ==-- ~ Keith Daegele "My guess is they have a list of dynamic IP ranges..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Hacker Safe Certification? ==-- ~ Sandy Galvin ~ Sheryl Coppenger --== Bayesian & Other Filtering Solutions ==-- ~ Tom Aman --== MSN / Hotmail and Transactional Email ==-- ~ Ken Evoy ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Lee Roberts Subject: Mozilla > For those of you that do not have a browser > that does tabs: get one. - Charles Oertel, LED 1749 I love the Gecko products and I totally understand tabbed browsing. But if there's a way, I'd like to have my new tabs come up on top in Mozilla's versions. If I'm not sure I want to really be on a specific page I'll open in a tab so I don't lose my position in the first tab. There are times I have 10 tabs going at the same time. Yep, I'm a tab junky. The problem with people that use IE falls to the lack of education. Initially it was because people didn't want to go through seven hours of download to get Netscape. Now, it's just a lack of education. But that's about to change. AOL10 will be using Netscape, yep - got that from AOL itself. I don't know if they are going to make people upgrade or not, but it would be interesting if they did. Sincerely, Lee Roberts Apple Pie Shopping Cart http://www.applepiecart.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Steve Marriott Subject: Mozilla > Mozilla (particularly 1.5) seems to be much faster, stable > and honours CSS Level 2 much better... So I would like > to know from fellow LEDers whether Mozilla may soon > become the default browser of the web? - Viggie Bala, LED 1748 I was interested in this article from this view point. I have just finished a site [URL below] using only css, div's and iframe for layout. No tables etc. There is barely any coding required across the whole site as css handles most of this for each page. The interesting point is to compare the two browsers viewing this site. For those that are going to follow this thread I wonder what your views are. The site is not WC3 compliant for various reasons some of which I know (like scroll bar definitions, no alt tags etc). However my own preference is for the look of the IE displayed site and scrolling definition is part of that preference. Consider that at least 95% of all browser will (although not all v6) will display my site just fine, what's a designer to do. Accept the lowest common denominator in terms of design and compromise for cross browser capability, or accept the lowest common denominator in terms of the mostly widely used (by far) browser? Steve Marriott www.littlehummingbirds.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Clint Whitsett Subject: Keywords Ah finally - Real Answers! Thanks to everyone for the feedback, this has turned out to be a great way to pick up some premium knowledge at a paupers price. Special thanks also to Rick Meigs who posted the link to "Patterns in Unstructured Data" http://javelina.cet.middlebury.edu/lsa/out/cover_page.htm I've been designing web sites for 8 years (not a programmer) and LED Digest is my #1 source for answers to the "tricky stuff". Thanks and best regards, Clint Whitsett www.unitedcoatings.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Keith Daegele Subject: AOL bounces > On my last email blast 1600 AOL addresses bounced back... > this is an opt-in e-newsletter. [The provider] of the email service > said they were bouncing because the recipients couldn't read > an HTML email. - Verna Wiseman, LED 1747 Verna, Are you by any chance sending the email from a cable modem or other high speed residential service? I noticed the phenomenon occurring several months ago when I could email my sister's AOL account. Messages would go through without bouncing from my PC at work, but when I sent the email from the same account using my smtp server at home, the messages would bounce only from AOL addresses. My guess is they have a list of dynamic IP ranges (the source of much spam I'm sure) that popular broadband providers Timer Warner, Comcast, etc use and actively block emails from servers on these classes of IP address. Again, this is just my theory, please someone correct me if I am wrong! Keith Daegele ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Alexander Galvin Subject: hacker safe? > Anybody have any feedback, positive or negative, > on getting a site certified hacker safe? - Scott Marino, LED 1749 I'm very curious about this as well. We periodically get cold calls from security sites offering to certify our web site for safety and these calls often refer to thinly disguised threats from credit card companies to withdraw our merchant privileges if our site isn't certified by someone as sufficiently guarded. It seems like a good idea, but I resent the threat, and have no way of knowing just how accurate these assessments are likely to be. Sandy Galvin Barclay Blocks http://www.barclaywoods.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Sheryl Coppenger Subject: Hacker Safe > The company that does most of the certifications > is http://www.scanalert.com - Scott Marino, LED 1749 I took a look at the web site. They are quite right that SSL isn't enough, just as firewalls aren't enough to protect networks. I think something like that is a good idea, a "good start" if you will, but I wish they hadn't expressed it as "hacker safe". The key phrase on their technical page is "known" in "known vulnerabilities". A vulnerability generally becomes "known" to the security community because it already was used to break in somewhere. A machine safe from known vulnerabilities isn't necessarily safe from the NEXT vulnerability. Also, I doubt that they provide much protection against "social engineering" attacks like accounts with a password of "password" (trust me, it happens -- and with people who should know better). Or if the machine also is used as a workstation by someone and they open the wrong website or email security may be compromised. If they accept shared hosting machines, there is the additional problem of attack from within. Having a login on a machine makes it much easier to gain control. For instance, say I get an account on a shared hosting machine and run a rootkit on it. If merchants on the machine are keeping their data unencrypted in a mysql database or flat files or sending it orders out in email then they're "mine". Just my $.02 from over 25 years of working with computers, most of that in system administration and security (but not web security per se). If you can afford a service like that, go for it. But don't let it make you complacent. Sheryl Coppenger The George Washington University http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~sheryl ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Filtering solutions > They also have a anti virus program that scans all incoming > e-mail and blocks it and notifies me have the sender. - Becky Neilson, LED 1746 I presume this should have read "notifies me and the sender". I hate anti-virus software that does this. Usually these anti virus programs notify the "sender" based on the "From" or "Reply-to" addresses AND fail to include a copy of the original email (or at least the original headers) in the notification. The problem is that there is a very strong probability that an examination of the actual headers in the original email would show that the "From" and/or "Reply-to" are fake and that the email originated elseware from a spammer. Since the notification does not include the original email, this makes it impossible to trace the source and do something about it, leaving this spammer free to continue sending out the virus. By all means, notify the apparent orginator since that his/her system may be compromised, but make sure the original email, or at least the headers from it are included in the notification. Tom Aman http://www.cyberspyder.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Ken Evoy Subject: Losing email Hi to all, Guess what? Further to "LED Digest 1745: Transactional Email & Filters" where I explained how Microsoft was blocking our transactional e-mail, and what we were doing about it (see my post in URL below).... http://snipurl.com/4kf9 [list.audettemedia.com] Microsoft called and says they've been tweaking their filters. It seems our mail is now getting through. Our tests confirm it, so we'll be taking down our special page that we put up after a customer with a hotmail or msn address orders Site Build It! successfully... http://buildit.sitesell.com/success-page-MSN-hotmail.html I thought I'd let you know that this page was highly effective... Our hotmail.com and msn.com customers were almost 100% supportive. Several said they were going to contact Microsoft and tell them why they were changing to Yahoo! ONE was peeved that WE only told him AFTER he bought... and I don't disagree with that person. I really hate to inconvenience our customers, but I simply was NOT going to hurt OUR business AND allow this to remain a secret, because *we* had nothing to hide. After all, this was NOT our fault. That page does a very simple job. It explains exactly what happened and it lets the customer decide who's at fault. We were willing to run that page for every hotmail and msn customer, forever. I highly recommend you use it should the same ever happen to you -- and this is not about Microsoft -- it's about any big company that feels it can be cavalier with both its customers and your business. The saddest part of all this? No one seemed to "get" how big an issue this is. I guess it has to happen to you, before it matters, but bad things happen when that kind of thinking prevails. With Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo accounting for around 60% of all e-mail addresses on our SBI! site's e-zines, this is a VERY big issue. Anyway, if and when it does happen to you, use the page above, because the folks who DO care will be your customers. And they'll complain to whoever they feel is doing THEM wrong. This is not a victory, because it was never a fight. It's merely setting things right. :-) All the best, Ken Evoy, President SiteSell.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "The biggest mistake people make in life is not making a living at doing what they most enjoy." - Malcolm S. Forbes [thanks to Ken Evoy for the quote] |
