E-mails now have a connection back to their servers. I will
leave the technical aspects out of this article. Instead, I
will walk you through how information from your computer is
getting back to them.
You have probably already experienced this, an e-mail lands
in your box with many symbols in the subject line created
with the Shift Key plus a Number Key. This is the most
common one. For example, it may look like this:
& *) (* & ^% $ #! Exception the length of the symbols are longer.
When you click on it to delete it, any further action,
including the deletion of the e-mail looks to go into la-la
land. In other words, you can do anything else. This may
last up to a minute or two depending on your computer speed.
You have just been pinged and information is going back to
their server saying there is a live connection.
In addition, because the symbols change all the time, it's
difficult to block them without you use a program like Spam
Arrest.
Here is an easy way and excellent way to protect from this
and all you have to do is change the way you dial in and
out.
If you have a DSL line or any other type Internet connection
that is open all the time. Control how frequently you allow
e-mails to upload into your system. If you use Outlook, you
go into Tools, Options, select the Mail Delivery tab and
change "check messages every" 30, 60 or 90 minutes. This
also helps on time management if e-mails are eating up too
much of your time.
Next, after all your e-mails are uploaded into your
software, whether you set the time management feature above,
close off the Internet connection. It will not stop the
lost 30 or 60 seconds these e-mail lock up your computer but
you have cut off any possible pinging.
After you close the Internet connection, read, review and
delete the e-mails. After completing this, you can go ahead
and reopen the Internet connection, and send your responses.
If you have a dial-up connection, you can do this same
method, except you will ignore the Mail Delivery option
mentioned earlier.
This actually is not just happening on e-mails with these
symbols. There are other programmed e-mails dumping cookies
on your computer. I will not address how to remove cookies
in this article. To find out how your software can remove
your cookies use F1 (help) on your keypad in your e-mail
software to find the answer before. WindowsXP also has
additional information for removing cookies under: Start,
Help and Support.