Ralph Carlson Blog

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It’s like watching a loved one drown.

My oldest email address is my favorite. I snagged it in the early days of email so it is basically just my name. Having this email for so long, I never learned to take proper care of it. Over the years this account has gathered spam until now it attracts close to 100 spam emails a day. Some are even duplicates. I have been cavalier about spam up until now, just deleting them. Lately, I am trying to simplify my life and getting rid of spam is a high priority. Recently I activated the filters on my account, allowing only approved sources into my in box with everything else going into junk. This works fine as far as it goes but I still have to monitor the junk for the occasional email that I want. This is pretty time consuming and is clearly the sort of task that advocates of simplicity suggest you eliminate. But simplifying is not always simple.

Aroused to Ineffectual Action

I stepped up the action by blocking each spam email sender and then submitting the email as spam through my email provider. Several weeks of doing that much more time consuming task have not reduced my volume at all. Obviously the spammers are smarter than I am and apparently have an inexhaustible numbers of places to send the spam from so my blocks are pointless. The other possibility is that I completely misunderstand what blocking means.

I need help.

I have searched the web for suggestions with little that is different from what I am doing. So now I am seeking help from the blogosphere. Is my email salvageable? What other things can I do to stop the flood of spam? I offer my thanks and a big plug for you on my blog for any one who can help me get this under control.

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