I'll have some spam, spam, spam...

spam, with spam. I've been getting lots of great e-mail in the last week or two, offering everything from super values on ink jets to remedies for sleeping disorders. I especially like all the ones I get in Spanish...can't read a word of them. (I'd forward them to you, Melodee, but you probably don't want to know what they say!) Does anyone actually believe these things?? I guess so, or they wouldn't be so popular.

After having some problems with the last newsletter we sent out at work, on Forensic Science, I have a new appreciation for some of these spamming techniques, though. Since phrases like "click here..." get blocked by e-mail filters, some clever spammer came up with a link that says "Hit to have it started." Wow.

We tried a couple dozen times to get our newsletter to go through - I scoured the text for possible problem combinations of letters or words and we finally sent tests adding just one section at a time till we found the problem. It turned out to be the last link in the last paragraph, and I'd missed it because it was in the html, which I wasn't searching as carefully. But we learned our lesson: don't link to a www.accessexellence.com unless you want your e-mails blocked!

What to do?