For almost as long as there have been emails – spam has been a cause for concern for most. Not only for the targeted individuals, but also for the companies whose brands and addresses have been misused and products sold illegally. This month we turn our focus towards the Sender Policy Framework as a means for domain holders to combat the ever illusive problem of SPAM.

Introduction

SPF was introduced back in 2005 and has since then become widely used as a means for domain name administrators to defend their domain name(s) from being misused by spammers to send out unconsolidated commercial emails.

How does it work?

Implemented into the DNS TXT record of any given domain name, the SPF record holds a list of addresses, which has been set as valid sender(s) for the given domain name. The recipients mail server can then validate the origin of emails received simply by checking the DNS settings of the senders domain name. Obviously this alone does not guarantee that the emails you send will be cleared by the recipients spam filter. However it should make them a lot less likely to be marked as SPAM.

Example

A company with the domain name test.com wish to configure an SPF record for their domain name. They are using the email server smtp.isp.edu (IP: 123.123.123.123) as their outgoing SMTP-server. Furthermore they have a website application from where they send automated emails to their clients. The web server for this application is located at IP 111.222.111.222.

The SPF record for this setup could look something like this:

“v=spf1 a:smtp.isp.edu ip4:111.222.111.222 -all”

By adding the above record we can tell other mail servers that emails send from @test.com addresses, either via smtp.test.com or via 111.222.111.222, are legitimate emails. Everything else is not and should be dealt with accordingly.

How does this concern me?

Well, SPAM concerns everyone. From a general point of view you can help in the fight against SPAM. The Sender Policy Framework is designed to become increasingly efficient – The more domain names using SPF records, the more ISPs (Internet Service Providers) would be inclined to implement these checks; thus helping everyone.

From your point of view spammers will be less likely to use your domain name as the sender address when they spam. This should reduce/eliminate bounced emails send back to you in response to messages that you did not actually send in the first place as well as any attempt in spoofing activities using your domain name as the sender.

Last but not least, emails that you send will be less likely not to reach their destination. This should be enough of an incentive for any company to consider implementing SPF records in the DNS of domain name.

External resources & links

To learn more about SPF records, try the one of the following sites.

SPF Introduction
Open SPF, Introduction

SPF Common mistakes
Open SPF, Common mistakes

SPF Wizard
Open SPF, Wizard

Wikipedia
Wikipedia, Sender policy framework

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RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” – it’s a format for distributing and gathering content from sources across the Web, including newspapers, magazines, and blogs. With RSS you can quickly and easily get the latest updates from all your favourite websites in one place, rather than having to visiting them one by one. To do this you use an RSS reader that automatically checks for news and updates.

How can you tell if a website has an RSS feed?

Often you will see a small orange feed icon saying ‘RSS’, ‘subscribe’ or ‘feed’ next to it. Usually you just copy and paste the feed link into your RSS reader. Another great thing about RSS feeds: No spam and complete user control; Unsubscribing to RSS feeds are as easy as it can get – delete it, and it’s gone. Period.

Choosing an RSS reader

There are many different ‘feed readers’ (also known as RSS readers, RSS aggregators or simply newsreaders) to choose from, but they can be divided into two main types: web-based and application based. Web-based readers have the benefit that you can check your feeds from any computer, while the stand-alone applications often have more features and greater flexibility. Browsers such as Internet Explorer 7, Firefox and Safari also have built-in RSS readers, although these are not as flexible and versatile as using a separate application.

Web Based RSS Readers

All you have to do is to sign up for an account and you can add as many feeds as you want. Below are a few of the most popular; some sites will  have buttons that allow you to add it to these RSS readers automatically. Otherwise, just copy and paste the RSS feed link into your  reader and you’re up and running.

• MyYahoo
  
• Bloglines
• MyMSN
• NewsGator
• GoogleReader

Locally installed RSS Readers

If you prefer, you can download an RSS reader and install it on your computer, below are links to a few of the most popular. Some of these are freeware/open source, others charge a licence fee:

• FeedReader [Freeware]
• Attensa
• Lektora [Win, Mac & Linux]
• Klipfolio
• FeedIt [Open-source]
• Blogbot for Outlook
• Vienna [Mac OS X, freeware]
• NewsFire [Mac OS X]

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What is a Favicon

Favicon is short for “Favourites Icon”. The name is derived from the bookmark list for Microsoft Internet Explorer which is called Favourites list. When you add a site to your Favourites list, Internet Explorer (version 5 and above) asks the server if it has a file called favicon.ico. If present, this file will be used to provide an icon that is displayed next to the bookmark text.

Other browsers such as Mozilla have also added support for favicons. Depending on the browser, the favicon can appear in a variety of places, not just in the bookmarks list (in fact, it may not even appear in the bookmark list at all). It may be shown in the address bar or the title of a browser tab, for instance.

How to create a Favicon

To create a favicon.ico simply create a 16×16 .PNG or .GIF file and convert it to an icon resource with Chami. If you want, you can add more images to the same icon resource to provide alternative resolutions. Most browsers only use a 16×16 image but in a different context (e.g. when you drag a URL from the address bar onto your desktop) a larger icon may be shown. If the icon resource only contains a 16×16 image, this will be scaled to the appropriate size, so technically there is never a need to add alternative resolutions. However, doing so can increase the quality of the displayed icon.

Keep in mind that for a user with a slow modem a favicon.ico may increase the page loading time by a few seconds if it is too large, so don’t overdo it. Adding a 32×32 alternative should be enough to make sure the image will look good even in contexts with larger icons. Adding even more and larger alternatives is unnecessary bloat. Try to keep the number of colors below 16 and create a 16-color icon using the --colors 16 switch of png2ico (or even create a b/w icon with the --colors 2 switch). This will result in a smaller file that loads faster.

When you create the images to include in your favicon.ico, don’t forget that the icon may be composed against various background colors so you should use transparency rather than a solid background if you want to avoid that your icon appears inside a box. Note, that icon resources only support binary transparency, i.e. a pixel may be visible or invisible but not something like 30% translucent.

Installing your Favicon

To add your new favicon.ico to a web page put it on the server into the same directory as the web page it is for (e.g. www.example.com/foo/favicon.ico for www.example.com/foo/index.html). That is the first place a browser will search. If it doesn’t find an icon there, it checks the top-level directory of the server (www.example.com/favicon.ico for the www.example.com server), so by putting it there you can have a default favicon for all the pages in your domain. Depending on browser and configuration, the favicon.ico is not always rendered, even if it is in one of the above locations, unless the web page explicitly declares its presence. To declare that your web page has an icon, you add the following 2 lines into the <head> section of your page:

<link rel="icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">

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Mac computers are quite famous for the intuitive way of using them, here is the list of the most important shortcuts to know:

Find the whole list on their support pages.

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A lot of us already know basic keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+C (copy) and Ctrl+V (paste), but did you know that there are more than 70 of them ? Here is the list of the most important one:

Windows system key combinations

Windows program key combinations

Mouse click/keyboard modifier combinations for shell objects

General keyboard-only commands

Shell objects and general folder/Windows Explorer shortcuts

For a selected object:

To copy a file

Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another folder.

To create a shortcut

Press and hold down CTRL+SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or a folder.

Find all the shortcuts on Microsoft support pages.

If you seriously thinking of setting up or growing your business, you need to think about your internet presence today to ensure you keep one step ahead of the competition.

Here are 4 steps to help you get Online:

- Step1 – Protect your domain names: This is the address people will use to access your web site (yourcompany.com / yourproduct.co.uk..). Register your online presence as soon as you can. Many a business has found the right idea and developed a good business plan, but failed to secure their online brand in time.

- Step2 – Design of your website: Creating a website is a good first step, but the most important thing is to keep it updated, which is why, ideally you should manage your own website if you don’t want to end with expensive bills with design agencies.

- Step3 – Hosting and Email: Each website needs to be hosted on a server, permanently online, in order to be reached by the web community. You should use personalised email accounts like sales@mycompany.com - this is much more professional than a Yahoo or Hotmail address.

- Step4 – Marketing your Website: Your website address should be everywhere (leaflets, business cards, print ads etc..). The more people who visit your site, the more visibility it will achieve in the search engines.

As a major player in the UK internet market, Easily.co.uk offers a wide range of web services – including our Website Creator package, which can help you to build and update your website yourself, using your own professional domain name, including 2 business email addresses – for only £50 a year.

Get ready for the Euro 2008, and impress your friends with your new linguistic skills!

English: easily
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Croatian: lakši
Dutch: gemakkelijk
Greek: εύκολα
French: facilement
German: leicht
Italian: facilmente
Polish: łatwo
Portuguese: fàcilmente
Romanian: uşor or lesne or uşurinţă: cu uşurinţă or liber or calm.
Russian: легко
Spanish: fácilmente
Swedish: lätt
Turkish: kolayca or kolaylıkla or rahat rahat or kuşkusuz or şüphesiz or kesinlikle