My Yahoo! Mail account used to be a spam heaven. 60+ spam a day was the norm. SpamGuard is a joke.

I was seriously considering creating a new account and just abandoning my current one.

As a last ditch effort, I decided to unsubscribe or opt-out whenever possible. I assumed I would probably end up getting even more spam.

Amazingly, it worked. It took a couple weeks of unsubscribing to actually see some results, but now I am averaging a couple of spam a day. Not too shabby.

I also learned that you need to opt-out more than your own email address. Yahoo! regularly delivers spam which is sent to email addresses similar to yours. Too smart for its own good.

[@477]

Another tip: Create a filter that moves all emails not directly addressed to you to the trash.

Russ is closing is blog after 4 years and over 3000 posts.

Well, I think it's time to put this weblog to bed.

Yep, after four years and almost 3,000 posts I've decided to close up the Notebook. There's lots of reasons, but generally this is a continuation of the full-reset I started back in January. At first I was actually thinking about just transitioning to a more of a weekly blog where I write less frequently and was sort of cleaning everything up with that in mind. But then I just decided that I really needed a break, and that I'd really much rather start from scratch at another URL some other time when I'm ready to write again. Lot less pressure that way to do something new later on, and a lot easier to get out of the habit of posting daily now.

Amazon just started taking pre-orders for the Netgear Skype Wi-Fi Phone SPH101. $250 seems a little steep. I think I'll wait for reviews before I take the plunge.

Richard points out that you can use Google Earth to view the Maxim 75-by-110-foot magazine cover located in middle of the Nevada desert.

It makes wonder why the satellite pictures of such a deserted location are up-to-date when most US metropolitan areas appear to be quite outdated.