Shooting the Breeze: Spam, spam, spam
The Net Guide By Paul Chan. Internet users who have been online for some time will be acutely aware of spam.
Spam is more commonly described as unsolicited emails (similar to junk mail) which you receive in your email inbox.
The content of these unwanted emails can range from attempts to sell you stocks, shares, or printer cartridges through get-rich-quick chain letters, cash frauds and adverts for sex websites and products.
In extreme cases, unsolicited emails may contain viruses which would mean serious consequences for your computer if you don't have adequate virus protection.
Simply opening these emails while you are online can lead to more spam coming through your email in-box but there are ways of cutting down the amount of spam that you get.
Unfortunately, there is no way of guaranteeing that you will never get spam.
Even if you are careful not to disclose your email address to people you don't know, you may still get spam as some spammers employ computer programs to guess email addresses (by generating millions of random email addresses).
The solution is to employ filtering techniques to remove spam and/or emphasise email from people you know.
You may also try Mailwasher - a free software package that lets you control your spam before it arrives on your computer.
