The funny thing about being a Web developer is that people seem to think you know everything about computers. So, when something goes wrong on a client’s computer–"my hard drive crashed", "how do I download movies from BitTorrent?", "I’m being sued by the RIAA for music my teenager downloaded!"–they call me.

One regular complaint clients report is the overwhelming amount of spam they receive. For a long time I’ve been using a fantastic spam filter for the Mac called Spam Sieve.

It works with almost any email program running on the Mac. I get about 300+ pieces of spam a day and only a handful of them find their way into my inbox. I almost never get a false positive (a good email tagged as spam.) It takes a couple of days of training it (probably 15 – 30 minutes total) to let it know what’s good and what’s spam, but it learns quickly. It’s light years ahead of the built in filtering of Entourage, which is my email program of choice.

The only downside to Spam Sieve? It’s only for the Mac.

I know that a lot of people use Spam Assassin. In my mind there’s no worse program out there. Why? Because it’s a pain in the ass for the sender. I can’t count the number of times people have emailed me, looking for free advice or help. I respond, only to get a message that I must authenticate myself to let my email go through. You can be sure that I don’t. Also, Spam Assassin will "protect" you from receiving email newsletters that you sign up for.

The palace guards from Monty Python’s the Holy Grail showed more intelligence.

So, all you PC users out there: what do you use? Do you have an email filter that can educate itself to what’s good and what’s spam? If so, please let us know.

Rich Brooks
Not to leave the room even if you come and get him.