Linda's Soapbox
~~ Editorial by Linda Johnson

What's Wrong With the Word "Free"?

Used to be that "free" was a good word.  Free the people.  Free from slavery.  Wild and free. Free software.  All good things. 

Now the word "free" inside an email gets your mail tossed into the spam bucket. 

Yes, my friends, a lot of ISPs have now decided to *help* their customers by removing SPAM from their servers before you even see it.  So, they've added filters that look for certain words inside your mail and when they find them, they dump the mail into a spam holding area.  Unfortunately, some of them don't even tell you that they are doing this.  They just do it, without asking.  And the result is that you may not receive some important mail.

Here's some mail, you won't get:

Grandma sends you an email telling you that Grandpa has been set FREE from prison.

Aunt Matilda sends you a mail telling you that she is finally FREE from her migraines.

Your boss sends you an email telling you that they are having a clearance sale of old inventory and all employees are entitled to one FREE item.

Of course, FREE isn't the only word that ISPs have decided you don't want to see in your emails.  If your ISP is filtering your mail for spam, you probably won't see these emails either:

From Cousin Mary:

The baby arrived yesterday.  Weight: 8lbs., Length: 19 inches, SEX: Female.

From your co-worker:

You better come to work tomorrow.  The boss says you will be fired if you're not here for the meeting with the new VIAGRA client.

From your fiancé:

How bout we get together and watch some XXX rated movies?

Are you getting my point?  Yes, we are all sick of the constant spam and pornography we receive, and we appreciate our ISPs trying to help us, but shouldn't they at least tell us they are doing this and tell us how we can make our OWN choices about what we do and don't want to receive?

I'm betting lots of people don't even receive the text version of ABC becuz I've been known to offer lots of FREE goodies, and it's not uncommon for me to make statements like "I applied that speed fix and my browser acted like it had a shot of VIAGRA".  And, of course, I will always challenge anyone who discriminates on the basis of race, creed, or SEX.

So, if you want to be sure you are getting the mail you want to receive, you should contact your ISP and see if they are using these filters, and if they are, how YOU can manage what they put in their spam buckets.

Happy Computing!
Linda

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Linda Johnson is a college instructor of all of the Microsoft Office Programs, as well as Adobe PhotoShop and Windows. She also teaches online distance learning classes in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word at Eclectic Academy. She has worked helpdesk and teaches and lectures at many local businesses and tech schools in her area. Support this newsletter by checking out Linda's eBooks, MS Word MAGIC!, Book I: Fonts, Fun & Formats and Book II: Table Wizardry, How To Get Started As a Software Trainer, and her newest series of MSOffice eBook Tutorials and CD