Ask Steve

Protecting your personal information is important. Most new computers these days have many features built right in to protect your information from being stolen. However, the internet probably handles your personal information and protects it better then perhaps anywhere else you would ever share your information. Think about it this way; how many times have you gone to a restaurant for the first time, met a waiter or waitress for the first time, and then after maybe an hour you hand this person, you have never met prior to this, your credit card which they then take to a separate area or even room. We all do this with not so much as a second thought. Passing information on the internet is more secure then if you were to go to the credit card terminal yourself and rang up your own purchase. Look at my post How internet security works for more information.

I got a call from my mom the other day and she said to me, “I get so much spam I can not even find an email when I get it and they are so aweful I am afraid to even open my email for fear of what might be there next”. Do you ever feel like spam has taken over your email account? Have you found yourself writing letters again just to avoid your email? If you have you are not alone. But what can be done? Yes you could opt to turn your computer into a boar anchor but before trying that maybe try this first:

1. Contact your ISP and ask if they use a spam filter service for their server and if not ask them what it would take for them to - OR change ISPs

2. Register for a spam filter of you own like http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2397796-10374897” target=”_top”>Cloudmark Desktop

3. Find a friend who has a gmail account and ask them for an invite. Gmail has a pretty good filter and you can check your existing email through them.

4. Or last but not least increase the security settings on your email program and/or make sure that spam filtering is on

And before it upsets you too much go to your home mail box and see how many letters you received today address to resident or occupant

When you look at the name of a web site you notice they end in something like .com. Have you ever wondered what these stand for? Though these days they are not as strictly adhered to there is still some basic though behind these extensions.

.COM is typically designed for commercial use - though these days common might be a better word

.NET was originally set up for network services like ISP’s, however often they are also used by people who want a name but the .com is taken

.ORG is for non-profit organizations. This one is still mostly still held to

.GOV is strictly held for governmental agency websites

Every country has a 2 digit code like .US some countries have released their extension to the general public for those wanting domain name that are already taken

There are several other extentions including .NAME and .INFO which were mostly created to expand the base of available names.

One word of caution if you are looking at the other extensions; some of the more popular names have been registered with a different extension have been done so with malicious intent so please be careful.