Announcements

GEEZE!

The Learn Now language series is selling by the truckload! We knew this would be popular, but had no idea it was going to be this big (lots of vacations coming up I think ;-). In fact, we're not going to run the special we originally planned today to give anyone who missed out one last chance at this!

Again, these language titles teach you a new language in a "learn by doing" way. Begin with the alphabet, learn by going into interactive situations (very cool), compare your voice to that of native speakers, and build skills with games. This system is used by over 10,000 educational institutions to teach foreign language skills, so you know it's going to be great!

Isn't it time to stop telling yourself you'll learn that new language "someday"? Join the hundreds who have already purchased one or more of these titles! The price is only $19.97 and shipping is FREE (retail is $49.95). We promise you'll like it - if not, you can send it back for a refund! Nothing to lose!

Here's the link for more info:

http://www.worldstart.com/store/learnnow.htm

PS - Don't miss out - we've already sold out of some titles. Just think, for less than the price of a dinner out, you can learn a new language!

ALSO - Please Look At This!

We have a title that went over huge in our MS Office Tips newsletter. It's the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus on CD ROM!

I don't want to take up too much more of your Friday, so here's the quick version of the info. This title not only lets you look up words, but also pronounces them for you (you don't need the CD in the drive either). In addition, it has a built in spell checker that makes finding a word that you've misspelled easy to locate.

If that isn't enough, it also includes 21 ways to find a word! If you need to look up a word, this is a must have. I've been using it on an almost daily basis and love it. We only have a handful of these left, and I can't get any more (one time deal). Check it out at this link ASAP:

http://www.worldstart.com/store/collegiatedictionary.htm

Thanks! Enjoy the rest of the newsletter and I hope you have a great weekend!

Computers 101

Q:
I keep getting e-mail from people with advertisements for porn sites. How can I get off these lists?

A:
Well, it's tough. There's not really a good answer to that one. I don't think anyone has a sure fire way to keep them from sending that junk to you once they get your address; however, there are some things you can do to minimize it.

1. Never, ever, reply or respond in any way - just delete the e-mail. Most of them use a fake e-mail address, so you can't reply to it anyhow. If you try to ask to be removed, it merely tells them they have a "real" e-mail address. After all, anyone who would send out junk like that probably doesn't really care if you're angry about being on the list. So, don't respond to junk mail. Just delete it.

2. Be careful what you sign up for and tell your friends not to sign you up for stuff.

You don't want to accidentally sign up or get on a list that freely sells its subscribers to anyone who will buy (no, we don't - in case you're wondering) and they didn't inform you of this.

Unfortunately it works the same way online as it does in the real world of direct marketing. You purchase something and give your phone number away. The place you make your purchase from then sells your information and suddenly you start getting telemarketers calling constantly (especially at dinner).

So, maybe you signed up for or purchased something on the web and the company sold your e-mail address. Now your address is on a CD with millions of others that's being sold for $150.00 to whoever wants to buy it. (And no, we don't do that either)

My advice on this one is to make sure whoever you're giving your info to will respect your privacy and not sell your information to a third party. If you're one of the thousands of people who have purchased software from us in the past, you probably noticed that we have privacy policy that promises we won't give your info away. Make sure any site you give you info to has a similar policy.

3. Another way to get your e-mail address on these lists is to post stuff somewhere. You post a classified ad or stick a link on a free for all links page and your address is sitting out there for the taking. There are little programs that "harvest" e-mail address from all over the net, so any time you post something, you risk getting added to a list somewhere.

Chat rooms, especially on AOL, are good targets for these e-mail harvesters too.

Sometimes it's a good idea to maintain a free e-mail address for this kind of thing, so you can avoid getting lots of spam in your regular e-mail account. Check out Yahoo or Hotmail for these.

4. And finally - tell people to use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) to forward you e-mail. Have you ever gotten something forwarded to you with hundreds of e-mail addresses in the header? If so, your e-mail address may be getting unintentionally passed all over the net. Tell people to BCC forwarded messages to you so your address isn't exposed to the world.

Have a question for the newsletter? Submit it at the link below:
http://www.worldstart.com/submitquestion.htm

Tip of the Day

Filtering Your E-Mail

So, you want to filter the "bad stuff" out of your e-mail huh? I don't blame you!

You can set up "message rules" or "message filters" in most e-mail clients. These can grab an incoming message and make it history before you ever lay eyes on it. You can have the message rules set up to check for certain subject lines, e-mail addresses, or even words.

Since we've been on the subject of trying to get the porn e-mail our of our lives, I'll show you how to do that using Outlook Express. Please note that most e-mail clients work in a similar way (in Netscape, you set this up using the Edit menu, Message Filters).

Here are the steps - it's not at bad as it looks:

1. Click the Tools menu, Message Rules, Mail.

2. On the screen that pops up, click the New button (for newer versions of Outlook Express, you don't have to hit the New button - the screen you need pops up automatically).

3. At this point, there should be a screen that lets you set up your rules. Check the options you want to filter. As soon as you check them, you'll get a new item under the Rules Description section. Click the underlined area to set the actual stuff you're filtering for.

For instance, if you're trying to filter out porn e-mail, click the checkbox in the first section, "Where the message body contains specific words".

Now, click the link in the Rules Description box for "Contains specific words" (this looks just like a regular web page link).

On the window that opens, type in the words you want to filter. I'll leave the selection of those words to you since this is a G-rated newsletter :-)

A word of caution though. Pick your words very carefully. If you choose a word like "naked", you'll never get an e-mail that contains that word, even if it was used in a harmless way like "the naked baby streaked through the yard" or something similar.

A few clicks of the OK button and you should be back to the message rules screen.

4. Now, you'll need to decide what you want done to the message once it gets filtered. This is done in the second section of the screen, "Select the actions you want to rule."

In this case, you're probably best to scroll down to the Delete From Server checkbox. That should prevent it from downloading. Or you can just send it to the Deleted Items folder, that works too.

That should help you keep the porn spam out of your inbox, but keep in mind that you can also use message filters to send stuff to specific folders you create. For example, if you have 3 e-mail accounts, you can set up a filter that sends each address to a different folder.

The possibilities are endless.

Have a tip for the newsletter? Submit it below:
http://www.worldstart.com/submitatip.htm

Amanda's Cool Site of the Day

How Far Is It?

Have you ever been curious about the distance between cities or countries? Well now you can figure it out.

A perfect little site for those of you with an abundance of curiosity, and for everyone else this site is just plain neat. You can calculate the distance between cities and countries. For a test run I put Toledo, Ohio in the “From:” slot, and in the “To:” slot I put Tokyo, Japan: the distance is only 6446 miles as the crow flies. Why don’t you try it out?

http://www.indo.com/distance/index.html

Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
Send it to Amanda at amanda@worldstart.com