|
|
The Guide |
Photos |
Videos |
Columns |
Calendar
|
|
|
| Holiday sculpture by Park Hyun Gu (Beating) |
It's unfortunate that a web site devoted to balloon art has been forced to set aside large amounts of time and server load to address something so far from our mission as fighting spam. Finally, we have some great news to share with everyone. A major change is underway at Balloon HQ that will drastically reduce the spam that BHQ members see in their mailboxes and BHQ servers are forced to handle. If all goes as planned, we'll also be able to remove the delay imposed on posts sent to the email forums. It will no longer be necessary for a BHQ staff member to serve as a human spam filter.
Thousands of balloon artists list their contact information in the BalloonHQ.com Artist Directory. It is their goal to be found by potential clients. But, making yourself reachable on-line by potential clients means that spammers can find you as well. The better we are at promoting BHQ and refering clients to the artist directory, the better your chances are of receiving spam.
In much the same way that spammers target your individual email boxes, spammers target the BHQ email forums. As a result, our email forums have been hit so hard over the past few years that we've had to use a person (John Barthelmes) to hand-filter all forum email. This, of course, slows down the rate that postings are delivered to all BHQ subscribers.
Over time, BHQ has implemented a variety spam solutions. They've all worked well for a while. However, constantly updating these software filters has taken significant time away from high priority, balloon related tasks.
We have taken a drastic measure, and have purchased services from Postini. Postini provides fantastic spam and virus filtering. BHQ staff have been testing this software over the past month. Personally, my (Larry's) mailbox has gone from getting over 200 pieces of spam a day to just one or two spam messages per day. Sheena, Mark, Debbie, John, and Todd Neufeld have had similar results. In fact, we're receiving so little spam, that we actually wondered if our email server was working or broken.
Very shortly, all BHQ members and list subscribers will be enjoying the
benefits of Postini. Since we want to make sure the transition is smooth,
it will be introduced slowly. Only a handful of people will be
added to the service at a time; each BHQ Member will receive a Postini
account in partnership with BalloonHQ. Within the next couple of weeks,
all BHQ Members will receive an email notice when their Postini account
has been activated. Please pay attention to that note; do not delete it.
You'll be asked to log in to the Postini site. You will then begin
to receive a notice nightly of messages that have been quarantined. These
are probably all spam, but might possibly be real mail. Watching the
contents of your Postini account will be important for the first week
or two. Fine tuning the filter settings is extremely easy through a web
interface. Some screen shots are included:
Postini will filter all email that goes through Balloon HQ (through the use of your BHQ member account or directed to BHQ email forums). If you wish, it will be possible to forward email from any other account you may have through your BHQ account. Then, you can take full advantage of Postini. We will get into more detail about that, once the system is fully up and running for everyone.
We'll conclude by saying that Postini email filtering is a pricey service. We believe that this step will ultimately prove be an excellent investment, as we are once again free to dedicate time to increasing balloon-related web services for members and sponsors. If you're not already a BHQ Member, please consider becoming one. For all you existing members, welcome back to the days of email as they were before spam ruled the internet.
|
| Dragon by Park Hyun Gu |
Park Hyun Gu of South Korea has an unusual collection of deatiled twisted sculptures with a decor flare.
