Hi Lynny

> Is this just bad manners, and they get the email and don't
> bother replting, even to say it was recieved, or is it becuase
> spam filters are catching emails that obviously not spam.

Often I suspect bad manners - BUT sometimes they are caught as SPAM - esp if they have an addess like hotmail, etc.

> I even had an email recently from someone I had writeen to 2 or
> 3 times, each with reply's coming to mt inbox, sudden one
> reply, suddenly ended up in the darn spam folder. And I just
> looked now, and even after putting this person on my safe list,
> again his email is in the spam folder....

> ANyone else have this problem, or know of a work around?

This is annoying - it doesn't happen often - but I've changed my methods for several reasons - one of which is to stop this. I now read me spam e-mail at least once a day - and it there's anything there mark it as not spam, and move it to my inbox. I then delete all the spam.

Not a complete answer - and not very elegant - but like you I can't afford false negatives.

Best wishes

Phil Astley
www.businessacademy.co.nz

Hi Phil.

Thank you for your reply, I found an answer in the dreaded helpfiles of my email program that might be worth trying, theres probably something simmlar in all email programs.

I'm using Vista Ultimate and am using Microsoft Office outlook 2007, and heres the path and instructions that might help with spam

Tool>>Options>>Preferences>>Junk Email>>Safe Senders>> add emails that are safe, but also at the bottom of the list there are two checkboxes, saying something like,
also trust e-mails from my contact list
add anyone I write to the safe senders list

I would have thought that the second option would have been automatic, I mean if you write to someone chances are you want to recieve a reply from them wouldn't it?

Anyway, I just thought this might be of some help to someone.

And about the other option of being bad manners, I recently come up with another option, perhaps people mean to reply, and just forget to. I really would perfer a reple that said "recieved, will reply later" or "recieved, will reply after consideration"

Regards Lynny
canzdesign.com Website and graphic design
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Hi Lynny,

my advice would be to a) improve your spam filters b) create a review system until they are good enough.

Spam filters to ditch: All NZ mass ISPs (xtra, Telstra, Vodafone). Outlook.

Spam filters to adopt: smx.co.nz or Gmail

I've worked on smx filtered email and Gmail for years and their spam filters are excellent. Both require a little bit of training (the spam filters require, not you).

For review I would simply set a calendar task twice a week until it settles down.

Hope this helps,

Kind Regards,

Jochen Daum

Chief Automation Officer
Automatem Ltd

Phone: 09 630 3425
Mobile: 021 567 853
Email: jd@automatem.co.nz
Skype: jochendaum
Website: www.automatem.co.nz
http://twitter.com/automatem
http://nz.linkedin.com/in/automatem
http://www.xing.com/go/invite/3425509.181107
http://www.aucklandbusinessnetworking.co.nz

I agree with Jochen - a lot of ISPs are terrible. XTRA(Telecom) are one of the worst.
You have two levels of spam filtering, one in your email program, and another on your mail server. If the mail is getting flagged at the mail server, then the chances are it's never getting through to your email program so you don't even know the mail has been rejected.
I've used various mail filters on my server in the past, and I've found two methods that work well to reduce spam drastically without generating false positives.

DNS blacklists work pretty well by providing your mail server with a list of known addresses on the internet that send spam.
Secondly I use greylisting, which takes advantage of the fact that most spammers are lazy and/or using hijacked computers rather than proper mail servers. Basically any mail from an unknown source is made to retry delivery. Legitimate mail servers do this automatically, but spammers generally move on and don't bother. This does introduce a bit of a delay in receiving mail, but should never produce false spam classification.
I know this might have been a bit technical, but if you keep in mind DNS blacklisting and greylisting, and ask any prospective mail provider if they provide these it might be useful.
Just a warning about DNS blacklisting. Make sure you keep any computers connected to your broadband virus free. If a computer gets infected and starts sending out spam, it's a quick way to get onto a blacklist, any any other computers sharing the same connection, even if they're virus free will also be blacklisted, as it's the address of your router that the outside world sees.

I defintely agree that the major ISP's filters are too invasive.
We find that the only way to ensure you don't miss emails picked up incorrectly is to ensure that they are visible and you are reminded about them.
While most anti-spam systems are said to have a very low amount of false positives, even missing one or two emails is too much.
Our Advanced Anti-spam solution sends you a daily report showing any emails that were picked up but are not 100% spam. This way you can easily receive these emails or whitelist the sender with the click of the mouse.
99% of the time they will have been detected correctly, but it gives you that human eyes factor to check and confirm for yourself.

You can check it out at http://www.2qik.co.nz/anti-spam.
We offer a Free 1 month trial so you can see for yourself how good it is.

Brent Ingram
www.2qik.co.nz