How to Block Spam

Technology has brought modern society a wide variety of beneficial tools and services. However, technology has also brought irritating and malicious schemes and programs directly to millions of computer users all around the world. One example of such an annoying scheme is spam.Spam is the process of simultaneously sending identical or similar messages to a large number of people in the hopes that a certain percentage of recipients will respond positively. Spam can be in the form of email, forum messages, and even regular mail. To prevent spam from reaching the user's inbox, antispam software must be used. This article will list a number of antispam programs that are able to block spam from ever reaching the recipient.

MailWasher
MailWasher is a free spam filter that works with virtually every email program in existence including Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, Gmail, Incredimail, Windows Mail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail. MailWasher is currently being used by over eight million users worldwide and the software never expires. MailWasher simply needs to be installed on the user's computer and then configured as a plug-in for the specific email client that is being used. Once MailWasher is setup and configured, the user is able to check their email and then mark each email or recipient as either Good or Spam. The software will eventually learn to automatically flag email based on the user's selections. MailWasher can be downloaded for free at http://www.mailwasher.net/ .

Spam Blocker
Spam Blocker is another free antispam software created and distributed by Untangle. Spam Blocker uses a powerful algorithm to flag and block spam before it even reaches the user's inbox. This can cause a potential problem, however, as innocent email messages may be flagged as spam and blocked, meaning that the user will never recieve those messages unless he/she checks the browser email account of their email service. Spam Blocker is free, open source, and can be downloaded from http://www.untangle.com/spam-blocker .

SPAMfighter 
SPAMfighter is a free spam blocker for Outlook Express, Windows Mail, and Mozilla Thunderbird. SPAMfighter currently has over seven million users and interlinks all of these users as a single community. For example, if a user receives an email that is spam but was not detected by the software, the user simply flags the email as spam and it is removed from all users in the entire SPAMfighter community in a matter of seconds. For messages that are flagged as spam, the software simply stores them in a separate folder marked as SPAMfighter. SPAMfighter can be downloaded for free at http://www.spamfighter.com/ .

Easy Email Spam Filter
Easy Email Spam Filter is an antispam software designed to block incoming spam and send it back to its creator. Easy Email Spam Filter works with virtually all email clients but cannot work with browser-based email services. The software has its own interface and must be launched as its own program but does provide a shortcut to the existing email client on the user's computer. Easy Email Spam Filter can be downloaded on a free trial basis and can be purchased for $14.95. The software can be found at http://www.easyemailspamfilter.com/spamfilter/ .

Free Antispam Scanner
Free Antispam Scanner is a free antispam software that is able to sort emails into multiple categories so that users can quickly and effectively detect spam. With Free Antispam Scanner, only the headers of messages are seen in the interface and messages are not downloaded to the user's computer until they are cleared as safe. The software includes security tools, a learning algorithm to make decisions about email messages, and a separate category for spam so that important messages are never lost. Free Antispam Scanner can be downloaded for free at http://www.styopkin.com/free_antispam_scanner.html .

How to Check Your IP

What is an IP

An Internet Protocol (IP) is used for communicating data with other computers–otherwise known as a packet-switch internetwork–using a protocol such as TCP/IP. The most common type of packet-switch internetwork is the Internet. Therefore, an IP address is the protocol used to communicate with the Internet. Another way to think about it is that the IP address is the computer’s address. When files come to your site, it comes to your IP address because that’s what it recognizes.

How to Check Your IP

There are two ways to find your IP address. The first is to use the CMD command to find it. The second is to check out a website that will reveal it to you. The first way is to open your Start menu and then type CMD into the search bar. Hit enter and you will see a small black box pop up. There will be a flasher underscore where you can begin typing when you want to.

Type “netstat -n.” It is important to include the space because the command won’t work otherwise. Hit enter and then it will process and some information will pop up. Depending on if you are using an instant messenger, browser or other program will determine how many IP addresses pop up. The first one that pops up, though, is yours. This is the “Local Address.” This is your IP address.

However, another way to do it is to search an online IP address finder. One example is WhatIsMyIP.com. The second you load that page, it tells you right at the top what your IP address is. It makes it much easier than doing the CMD. However, if you want to know what foreign IP addresses–ones you’re connected to–are there, do the command option.

How to Make a Web Page

A webpage is a document that is written in either XHTML or HTML syntax which is used to defined the view of the page to a web browser. Web pages may include images, multimedia files, and links to other web pages or resources on the Internet or local file system. In recent years, web pages have evolved to be dynamically generated through web server scripting using information based on the web site visitor. For new web authors, learning how to make a web page using HTML tags in a texteditor is a necessary first step before progressing to make advanced pages using advanced Web page editors.

Steps to Make a Basic Web Page

Step 1 – Open the text editor on your computer. For Windows users, the “Notepad” application can be opened by selecting the “Start,” “Program Files,” “Accessories” and clicking the “Notepad” program icon.

Step 2 – Save the file with a “.html” extension through the “Save As” file menu utility with a name like “MyTestPage.html.”

Step 3 – Enter an opening and closing “HTML” tag in the document. These tags declare the document to be a web page to a web browser and are required entries in any web document.

<html>

</html>

Step 4 – Now, enter the web page document “head” with an opening and closing tag. In the document “head” the page “title” is entered and for more advanced web page authoring, JAVASCRIPT declarations can be included in this part of the document. The head and title tags should be entered in between the “HTML” tags defined in step 3.

<head>

<title>My First Web Page </title>

</head>

Step 5 – Define the web page body which will include the text displayed on the web page along with any imagery or multimedia files you want to include in the document. The body tag definitions should be included after the “head” tags but before the closing “HTML” tag definition in the web page document.

<body>

My First Web Page!

</body>

Step 6 – Save the file as a “HTML” file by selecting “File” and “Save As” in Notepad. Click the “All Files (*.*) menu option and enter the file name in quotations followed by the “Save” button. After saving the file, double-click the file icon to automatically launch the file in your computer's web browser. The complete web document should look similar to:

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<title>My First Web Page </title>

</HEAD>

<body>

My First Web Page!

</body>

</HTML>

Adding Images and Links to Your Web Page

One of the most powerful features of a Web Page is the ability to provide a hyperlink to another web resource or page as well as display imagery or other multimedia files to the end-user. Using the example defined above, the basic hyperlink and imagery display syntax will be included in the example.

Step 1 – Open the previous example in your computer's text editor.

Step 2 – Select a web page to hyper link to from your document and load in your computer's web browser. Once you have the page loaded, select the URL in your Web Browser's tool bar and press the “CTRL” and “C” keys simultaneously to copy the link. Then, paste the link in between the “body” tags of the web page in your computer's text editor by selecting the “Edit” and “Paste” menu buttons.

Step 3 – Enter the following tags in the web document.

<a href=”http://www.topbits.com”> </a>

The link in between the quotations after the “href” tag will be the web page to link to from your web document.

Step 4 – Enter anchor text in between the “>” and “<” symbols in step three. This text will be highlighted to link to the web page provided in the “a href” definition.

Step 5 – Add an image to your web page that is stored on the Internet or your local computer for this example. To add an image to the example included in this file, the “img” tag will be used.

Enter the following tag definition after the code entered in the previous four steps for including a hyperlink in the web page.

<IMG SRC=”http://your image”>

Step 6 – Save the file and double-click the file icon on your computer to view in your Web Browser. The following information will then be displayed:

Your test text,

Hyperlinked text

and Test Image

After you become comfortable with manually editing web pages, you will be able to move along to using web page editors to make more advanced web documents for use on the Internet.

How to Block Websites

Most Internet users need to block websites at some point. Reasons for doing so include keeping known malicious or spam-ridden sites from being loaded onto the computer and preventing children from accessing adult or other content. Users may block a website via existing tools or browser options on the computer, third party applications, or browser ad-ons.

How to Block Websites on Safari

If the computer has Mac OS X, the user can block websites on the Safari web browser via the operating system’s built-in parental controls applications. This program can be configured so that individual accounts provide varying access privileges for different family members. These controls will not work on other web browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, that may be installed on the computer.

Step 1 – Load the “System Preferences” utility application that is found in the computer’s Applications folder.

Step 2 – Select the “Accounts” icon in the System row on the subsequently displayed menu.

Step 3 – Select the “lock” icon and enter the system administrator password when prompted by the Operating System (OS).

Step 4 – Click the “+” menu button to add a new account and then enter an account name, short name, password, and password hint.

Step 5 – Click “Turn Off Automatic Log in” when prompted by the OS to force all family users to log into the computer on each computer restart.

Step 6 – Select the name of the user that the account was created for then click “Parent Controls.”

Step 7 – Check the check box beside the Safari menu label, then click “Configure.” The user is then asked to log into the computer as the new user to configure websites that the new user can access.

Step 8 – Load Safari under the new user’s account and choose the “Preferences” and “Security” menu options from the Safari main menu.

Step 9 – Check the check box beside “Enable Parental Controls,” enter the admin password, then close the dialogue box.

Step 10 – Add bookmarks to all sites that will be allowed under the new user’s account and remove the sites that will not.

Step 11 – Select “Preferences” and “Security,” then “Enable Parental Controls,” and enter the admin password to save the changes made to the new user’s account.

How to Block a Website in Google Chrome

If  Google Chrome is being used as the primary web browser, the best way to block websites is to edit the Windows “Hosts” file to prevent sites from being loaded. Although the browser does an above average job at preventing malicious websites from being loaded, it does not yet provide parental control.

Step 1 – Press the “Windows” and “E” keys simultaneously to open Windows Explorer.

Step 2 – Enter “C:WINDOWSsystem32driversetc” in the Windows Explorer tool bar then press “Enter.”

Step 3 – Right click the “Hosts” file and click “Open.” If the OS asks which program should open the file, choose Windows “Notepad” to do so.

Step 4 – Enter “127.0.0.1,” a space, and the URL for the website to be blocked. For example, to block Facebook enter: “127.0.0.1 facebook.com” to the bottom of the file without putting “http” or “www” before the Url.

Step 5 – Select “File” and “Save” in Notepad and restart the computer. The site will now be blocked from any web browser used on the computer, including Google Chrome.

How to Block a Website in Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer allows users to block websites with its built-in tools. Users may also add a password to blocked websites in order to prevent children/others from accessing them.

Step 1 – Double click Internet Explorer’s program icon on the computer’s desktop to open it.

Step 2 – Select “Tools” and “Internet Options.”

Step 3 – Select “Content” then click “Enable” under the “Content Advisor” menu option.

Step 4 – Choose “Approved Sites” and enter the URL for the site to be blocked. Choose the “Never” menu tab and enter a password for the site to be blocked.

How to Block Websites in Mozilla Firefox

Although editing the “Hosts” file in Mozilla Firefox blocks websites, there are also a number of free third party browser add-ons that can be used. One popular application is the BlockSite add-on. This add-on supports password protection, which is more popular with families who use shared accounts on home computers.

Step 1 – Double click the Mozilla Firefox icon on the computer’s desktop to open it.

Step 2 – Select “Tools” and “Add-ons.”

Step 3 – Click “Get Add-ons” and “Browser All Add-ons,” enter “blocksite” in the search menu bar, then press “Enter.”

Step 4 – Select “Add to Firefox” beside the “BlockSite” add-on, then click “Install Now” after the installation is complete.

Step 5 – Restart Firefox after the application add-on is installed.

Step 6 – Click “Tools,” “Add-ons,” and the “BlockSite Preferences” menu option.

Step 7 – Select “Enable authentication” and enter a password to prevent other computer users from changing the blocked websites on the computer without permission.

Step 8 – Click “Add,” enter the URL for the website to be blocked, then click “Ok.” Repeat this step to add additional sites to the block list.

How to Create a Website

A website is a collection of related pages, videos, images, etc. that are hosted on one or more web servers. Websites are used for communication, education, entertainment, business, tourism, and news. Websites and webpages are the basic foundation of the Internet and provide the actual content that the online community views. As a result, every link that is available on the Internet through search engines, bookmarks, advertisements, URLs, and other sources all direct the user to a specific website or webpage.

How to Create a Website
In order to build a complete website, a user must perform a series of tasks:

1) Find a webhosting provider and follow the specified instructions to setup an account. The user generally starts off with a subdomain of the webhosting provider, but may upgrade to a personal domain name in order to make the website more respectable and easier to locate.

2) Add content to the website in the form of images, videos, documents, advertisements, or other media. Create a home page, contact page, and any other pages that relate to the website’s personal or business needs.

3) Publish the content to the Internet so that everyone can see it. Promote the website through advertisements in order to get other users to visit it.

Applications
Many websites include chatrooms or forums in order to allow their visitors to communicate with each other, and some websites are entirely dedicated to social networking purposes. Other websites express opinions or share information so that other users can research or improve their education. Likewise, some websites are dedicated to news, sports, or other niches. Additionally, some websites are found in the form of search engines, social networking websites, file networking websites, and even online stores.

Advantages
Websites allow users to post information about themselves and their views on the world to the Internet so that everyone else in the world can see it. Likewise, websites are ideal for attracting attention to a particular event or social cause. Also, websites are relatively easy to create and cheap to maintain.

How to Trace an Email Address

Persons may want to trace an email address for several reasons. For example, a private investigator may need to trace an email address to find out where a person is located or who their service provider is. A server administrator may wish to trace an email address in order to block abusive users or report them to the authorities. Likewise, an individual may want to trace an email address to learn more about a person who has emailed them or prevent harassment.

How to Trace an Email Address
One can often find extensive information about a specific person by searching for their email address in a search engine. The search engine provides the user with websites that the person has visited and registered for with that email address, comments they have left on webpages, or groups they belong to. Users also have the ability to find the person’s IP address by inputting their email address in a service known as “WhatIsMyIPAddress,” located at http://whatismyipaddress.com/trace-email. While there are similar services available from other sources, WhatIsMyIPAddress allows users to simply copy and paste the header of an email into the input field in order to locate the person’s IP address.

Geobytes’ IP Locator
Now that the user has obtained the person’s IP address, he/she can use that to determine the person’s physical location by using a service known as “Geobytes’ IP Locator.” By simply inputting a person’s IP address, Geobytes’ IP Locator allows users to identify the person’s country, region, city, timezone, population, exact latitude and longitude, and currency. However, many computers are now routed through wireless access points, ISPs, and proxy servers that mask the person’s true location. Unfortunately, Geobytes’ IP Locator is not able to see the true location of the user in this case.

How to Block an IP Address
In addition to finding someone’s physical location through his/her IP address, users are also able to block that person from communicating with them or systems they control. For example, a webmaster may wish to block someone from posting to the website’s forum in response to rude or disruptive behavior. This can easily be accomplished by opening the website’s control panel and locating something similar to “User Permissions.” This interface usually allows the administrator to change permissions for a specific IP address.

How to Make Utorrent Faster

Utorrent is a P2P file sharing software that allows users to share files via torrents. It is completely free and provides users with many different file sharing options, such as the ability to create a torrent or change the number of users who are able to connect to the computer at the same time. Utorrent differs from other P2P programs, such as Limewire and Ares, because users must obtain a torrent from a torrent database (e.g. IsoHunt or PirateBay) and place it within the Utorrent client rather than simply downloading a file directly through the client itself.

How Utorrent Works

Utorrent allows users to download and upload torrent data across the Internet. A torrent is a file that contains raw data about a given file or group of files that can be shared across the Internet, and allows multiple users to download pieces of the same file simultaneously. A torrent itself does not contain any actual files and cannot be accessed without a file sharing program, such as Utorrent or BitTorrent. Additionally, files shared via torrents are not located on one computer, but on every computer that the file is currently being downloaded or uploaded on. By downloading a file from many different users at the same time, a user can obtain it much faster.

What are Ports?

A port is a communications end-point that allows a specific software, application, or service to identify itself across the Internet. The port number, IP address, or transport protocol identifies specific ports, allowing users from all over the world to quickly find and access a port. Ports often increase an application’s performance by connecting multiple users with similar interests to the same network, allowing them to bypass other Internet protocols that may slow their connection down. While most ports are dynamic and anyone can use them, there is a wide range of popular ports that have been reserved for specific services or applications.

How to Make Utorrent Faster

Users increase their Utorrent client’s performance in order to make downloading and uploading files faster. In order to this:

1) Open the Utorrent client, click on the Options tab, and select Preferences.

2) Select the Connections tab and enter “45682″ into the “Port used for incoming connections” box.

3) Scroll to the bottom of that same window and enter “65″ into the “Global maximum upload rate” box and “0″ into the “Global maximum download rate” box under “Bandwidth Limiting.”

4) Open the Utorrent/BitTorrent tab and enter “1890″ into the “Global maximum number of connections” box, “2329″ into the “Maximum number of connected peers per torrent” box, and “14″ into the “Number of upload slots per torrent” box. Be sure to select every box on this screen and ensure that the Outgoing Protocol Encryption is set to “Enabled.”

5) Click on the Queueing tab and enter “60″ into the box for number of active torrents and “63″ into the box for number of active downloads. Ensure that the Seed Ratio is set to 100% and uncheck every box on this screen.

6) Click Apply on the bottom of the window and restart Utorrent. The program should now be much faster.

How to Hide an IP

There are several instances where anonymity is the best option for online activity. Choosing to go anonymous online is always a simple way to keep one’s identity safe online and can help to reduce the instances of identity theft.

Privacy is an important concern for most Internet users. The need to keep online surfing private increases as Internet access becomes more widely available. Privacy is possible by hiding the Internet Protocol (IP) address. The IP address is simply a numerical value that is assigned to one’s device to access and interact on the Internet or the local network.

The IP is can be problematic in the sense that it can provide way too much information publicly for websites and people to see and access. Malware and other security threats may also be hiding on software or files that were recently downloaded onto the system that may also use the IP as a form of advertisement server to serve advertisements that are relevant to the location.

Hiding an IP Address can be done in several ways. Each method will successfully help hide one’s IP address from public view and reduce the possibility of one’s identity being revealed online.

Using a Proxy Server

Proxy servers are basically a middleman for handling requests between the client and the target server. They act like an alternate gateway to help access content on the destination server. The proxy is also responsible for sending back everything being accessed from the server to the original device as illustrated in the following diagram:

There are several types of proxy servers that can successfully veil an IP address.

Anonymous Proxy Servers do not allow the original IP to become available to the destination servers. The destination server can detect these types of proxy servers and if measures are in place to prevent proxy access, access to the content will either be restricted or denied. Proxies of this type will adequately hide the IP address of the original device making the connection.

Distorting Proxy Servers are proxies that confuse the destination servers by providing incorrect IP address information through http headers. The destination server will believe that the device is originating from a certain location when in reality the proxy is “spoofing” this information.

High Anonymity Proxy Servers are proxy servers that are designed to look like a device itself. The destination servers will not be able to determine that the proxy is in fact a proxy server and will continue to use the proxy’s IP instead. The Original IP address remains secure and the destination servers will hide it from public access.

Using a proxy server is simple and can be easily done through proxy server websites.

Various proxy types that hide IPs or improve connection to certain websites can be found onProxy Sites – the Most Up-To-Date Proxy List on the Internet .

In the list of available proxies under the “Proxy Menu,” choose the “High Anonymity Proxies” to find a list of the proxy addresses that can be used to successfully hide your IP.

They will be listed in the following manner:

XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXXXX

The first four “XXX” values represent a number between 1-255, each corresponding to the IP address assignment of the proxy server. The “XXXXX” value is a number between 1-65535 and is the port number assigned to be used with the proxy server to allow traffic.

To use one of these high anonymity proxy servers (or any other proxy option), follow the specific browser instructions:

The fictional IP and Port Number “123.456.789.876:5432” will be used for these examples.

Internet Explorer

Click the Tools menu in Internet Explorer and choose Internet Options. In the Internet options, click on the “Connections” tab then click on the “LAN Settings.”

There will be a Proxy Server option to select that says “Use a proxy server for your LAN check box.” An address box will appear where the chosen proxy server’s IP address  (123.456.789.876) should be placed. The Port Box is where the client access port number associated with the proxy server that will be used to access it is placed (54320).

It is recommended that the “Bypass proxy server for local addresses” box is selected so that access to local network computers is faster and communications between machines is not transmitted online. Click in the ok button to close the LAN Settings window. Click on ok again to close the Internet Options window.

The proxy server should now be in place.

Firefox

The “Options” selection is under the Tools tab. The Advanced icon (Gear) should be selected then some tabs with their contents should be displayed. Choose the “Network” tab then click on the “Settings” button under the Connection section. Choose the “Manual Proxy Configuration” option then enter the proxy server’s IP address (123.456.789.876). Enter the port number where prompted (5432). Click on OK to complete the process.

Netscape

Find the Tools menu then select “Options” from the list. Select the General option then choose “Connection Settings.” Click “Manual Proxy Configuration” to mark the check box then enter the Proxy server IP address in the appropriate field (123.456.789.876). Enter the port number (5432) into the appropriate field then select OK to save the changes.

Opera

Choose the tools menu then select “Preferences” from the list. Select the “Advanced” tab and choose “Proxy Servers.” Check the box next to the “HTTP” option then enter the proxy server IP address (123.456.789.876) and the port number (5432) in the appropriate field. Select OK to save the changes and start using the proxy server.

Safari

Select the Preferences option then choose “Advanced.” Choose the “Proxies:Change Settings” option then check the box next to “Web Proxy (HTTP).” Type in the proxy server IP address (123.456.789.876) into the field then the port number after the colon (:). Select Apply Now and start using the proxy server.

Risks of Using Untrustworthy Proxy Servers

Remember that proxy servers have risks associated with them, especially if their creation was intended to monitor incoming connections for data that is sent over the server.

Most proxy servers are temporary. They may frequently change the IP and port number for increased anonymity. This contributes to the common problem of proxy servers not working.

A working anonymous proxy server may be slow due to the high volume of traffic being routed through it from connected clients. This contributes to the common occurrence of slow access to other servers.

Anonymous servers may compromise privacy, especially if using the server to access private accounts with various websites. This is common with untrustworthy proxy servers found online. This means that the owner of the proxy server may be filtering other people’s communications to log personal and valuable information such as passwords, Social Security Numbers, Credit Card Numbers, etc.

Note: Using a proxy server should be avoided when doing private online activities.

IP Hiding Software

There are several types of software that hide IP addresses through Proxy servers. They are generally trustworthy but may offer a diverse range of server types that may or may not adequately hide the IP. In addition, several of these options cost money, even if they are not doing their job to protect the IP.

Ultrasurf  is a free software option for hiding an IP. Engineers who wanted the free exchange of information between censored countries and uncensored countries by bypassing the existing filtering systems designed it.

Hidden IP Privacy Warning

It is very important to understand that even when using an “Elite” proxy, the IP may not be completely hidden online. Any type of crime online can definitely be traced back to the source, especially if law enforcement or orders from courts/government agencies are placed to retrieve the data from the servers. Proxy servers cannot give immunity to online crimes.

In addition, E-commerce, online banking, credit card payments, and just about any other type of online transaction should be avoided while using the proxy server. Data can easily be logged and will leave the user completely vulnerable to identity theft and fraud.