Spam, spam…

Spam mail can take several forms, be it just an 'infinitely' long senseless email, an astronomical number of blank emails or unsolicited emails. Anything that does not fall within the ethical borders of email use is now commonly termed as 'Spam'. It is believed that the word 'spam' came from a decade old rock hit by Monty Python called "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam..." because like in the song, it is an endless repetition of meaningless text. Others think that it comes from the computer group lab at the University of Southern California who named it after 'lunch meat spam' because they both share similar characteristics.

Spam mail is harmful in many ways and its adverse effects are not always conspicuous. A study conducted last February has shown that spam mail costs the recipients 9.4 billion dollars worldwide in internet charges alone. But estimates on how much of productive time is wasted on reading spam project the cost to be three fold or more.

There are many ways in which one could track down the source of spam mail and you can harness a lot of information and resources for tracking spam on the internet. Never delete all the spam from your inbox. If you got hundreds of copies of the same email, always keep at least one copy in your mail box because however trivial it could be, it can provide valuable information that will be crucial in tracking the source of the email. To trace the email, you have to look at the header first. The information you usually see from the header is the subject, date and the "From" / "Return" address. About the only thing in an e-mail header that can't be faked is the "Received" portion referencing your computer (the last received). You will need to take a look at the headers on the message as follows;

* Eudora (before ver. 3) - Select Tools , Options , then Fonts & Display then Show all headers

* Eudora (ver. 3.x, 4.x IBM or Macintosh) - Press the BLAH button on the incoming mail message

For Mac Eudora 4.x, hitting the following will cause Eudora to alter its default setting so that BLAH will be automatically selected for all new email received after this switch is set: x-eudora-setting:123=y When checked, Eudora will show all the headers from messages, not just an abbreviated set.

* HotMail - To expose the full message header, click "Options" on the Hotmail Navigation Bar on the left side of the page. On the Options page, click "Preferences." Scroll down to "Message Headers" and select "Full."

* MS Outlook - Double click on the email in your inbox. This will bring the message into a window. Click on View - Options. You can also open a message then choose File>Properties>Details.

* MS Outlook Express - Alt-Enter, or Alt-F then R. To look for, copy and send headers In Outlook Express 

1- Press CTRL F3

2- Press CTRL A 

3- Press CTRL C

4- Press Alt F4. (At this point the message is already copied) 

5- Open a new message. Right click and paste or select Edit and paste.

* Netscape 3 - In the Netscape Mail window, click View/Document Source.

* Netscape 4.xx - Double click on the email in your inbox. Click on View - Headers - All.

* PINE - You have to turn on the header option in setup, then just hit "h" to get headers.

* Yahoo - 

1.Log into your Yahoo! Mail account. 

2.Click the "Options" link on the left-hand navigation bar. 

3.Click the "Mail Preferences" link on the right. 

4.Locate the Show Headers heading and select "All." 

5.Click the "Save" button to put your new settings into effect.

URL's to help you figure out how to look at the headers:

http://ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trachead.html

http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers/headers.html

Once you have the information about the server and the source of the email you can complain to the relevant authorities and make sure that necessary action is taken to punish the offenders.

Forward the decent way

Most ethical practices are related to forwarding emails. When forwarding mail, make sure that your recipients haven't received the particular email or its attachment already. You can do that by checking the 'To' and 'Cc' fields of the email you received to see whether the address of any of your intended recipients is already there. If you have been in a situation where you have received nine or ten copies of the same attachment from different friends, you'd know what this means.

When we receive an email, it may contain the addresses of other recipients of the email as well, and it is unethical to forward the mail in question with all those addresses included in it. The decent thing to do is to delete addresses of people other than those whom you want to send it to.

For more details visit

http://spam.abuse.net/
 

Know your terms 

Bandwidth Allocation Control Protocol: a proposed protocol that works in conjunction with Multilink PPP to manage bandwidth dynamically. BACP lets two devices negotiate adding or subtracting bandwidth as needed. 

Baud Rate

The number of symbols transmitted per second. This is not always the same as the bps rate (see also BPS), because a given symbol, or baud, may have more than one bit.

GSM

Global System for Mobile Communications: one of the leading digital cellular systems. GSM allows eight simultaneous calls on the same radio frequency. First introduced in 1991, by the end of 1997, GSM service was available in more than 100 countries and has become the de facto standard in Europe and Asia. 

T1 

A four-wire USA telephone company standard that carries data at 1.544Mbit/s. The US-equivalent of a European E1 line.

They are barely boys

A score of old men leading our boys to die, while we watch in horror, in pain, in grief, and disbelief that we had to lose so many of our boys, their toys barely left behind, their eyes so young, so bright, so full of hope. The fight so long and sad, the pain so bad, the wounds so deep, until at last, our young men sleep in their maker's arms again.

Their names carved in stone, never to come home, never to touch our tears again.... We must not forget, as we grow old, our hearts must never be cold, we must not run and hide, we must remember them, the boys who died, let it not be in vain, let us not forget the cries, the agonies, the bravery, the heroes and the smiles, the time that was not so long ago, across so many miles in a land so bright so green caught in a place between hope and lies.

We must remember still, must promise that we always will touch their hearts while we can.

Remember friends, remember...
The boys who died,
who lived, who cried,
the boys who fought
for our motherland.

Saku

Pilgrim laments

Lakshmi Attygalle

Dreams never end

Always believe that one broken dream is not the end of dreaming, though I know how much it hurts when your dreams have failed, always believe in yourself. Be the best you can be. Have faith in your ability; believe there's nothing you can't do.

Sometimes you'll fail again, but then again make those barriers the foundations to help you rise up. Remember "if your conscience is clear you will achieve your goals."

A Friend

Indian models: Pretty no?

Why on earth are so many Indian models portrayed in advertisements? One reason is that the direct ad can be dubbed and therefore the cost will be less. The second reason according to media is that Indian models are not camera shy comparatively!

Oh please! Anybody can argue that they are more direct but can one deny that no Indian ad gets to the viewer as effectively. When a Sri- Lankan model comes on screen the word goes around as "oh, isn't that so and so", "Doesn't she also appear in that ad", "Isn't she known to so and so" and so on... which makes both the ad and the model popular. But today we see many ads which come on for a few seconds desperately trying to tell us something where the models lips say one story and the words another, obviously because it has been dubbed. They then disappear out of sight leaving an unsaid story of the absurd way Indians are being used to promote Sri-Lankan products.

Is it worth it? Just because Indians win world pageants year after year and a whole load of wannabes are introduced each time (so they do not make a big hit in India but come to Sri Lanka and you got yourself a career) The press and TV are ready to welcome them with open arms. Come on advertisers, Sri-Lankans are good looking and are much closer to the people's hearts than Indians. So take your pick. After all we Sri-Lankans sure are proud of our inheritance, remember?

NILU

Language dilemma

Today, as a country, we are suffering from lack of qualified English teachers. In most of the rural schools, they don't have enough English teachers. How can the government find English medium teachers who can teach subjects such as Science, Maths and Commerce when there aren't enough qualified English teachers?

One allegation is that the English stream is most suited for prestigious schools because children of the English-speaking middle class study at these schools and only those schools have the resources to implement the English stream.

However there are so many advantages of having an English stream. To communicate information throughout the world we need a language that can be understood by the majority of the world. In today's world English acts as a "global language" which incorporates people who belong to different races etc. Most students express the idea that starting this stream from the Advanced Level is unrealistic because the mother tongue of most students is either Sinhala or Tamil. Then the controversy also arises as to how students could face a competitive examination such as the A/L in English when students find it is very difficult to face the A/L even in their mother tongue.

However we should not forget that the key for knowledge is English. And the English Stream should be implemented amidst difficulties for the progress of our future generations.

Namal Asantha Fernando
(A student)

What 'colou' are you?

I'm influenced by colour too, but my perception of colour arises, not from the colour of a person's skin, rather from the aura that people exude from within - from their personality.

I see bold, vibrant colours when I meet interesting and exciting people, and suddenly my world becomes a few shades brighter. Then there are those people who colour the world in the warmest pastel shades with their gentle and caring ways. Find a person with a sense of humour and you'll encounter a veritable rainbow. Just as a dull, humourless or eternally pessimistic person can turn everything into a suffocating shade of grey. I see black in malice, white in goodness, red when I come into contact with anger and yellow, with cowardice. Asked to describe a person I'd have a whole palette at my disposal.

So instead of saying 'be proud of being dark' or 'be proud of being fair', I would say take a moment to look inside yourself and be proud, if at all, of what you find within. Certainly hold your head up high if you are someone who adds brightness or warmth to the world around you.

Stop thinking in black and white, change your outlook on colour and you'd be amazed at how much more interesting the world really is.

S. Zahir

A love that transcends all

Well, I did, I still do (to a lesser extent - though. I've lived and learned to be moderate!) I remember how my mother brought a baby brother home one day. I had imagined a special ward where one could go and choose any baby one wanted, but it was too late when I realised my mum was getting too wrapped up in his work and would run to him if she heard the little thing that resembled a piglet (he was so rosy and plump) let out the slightest cry. Then she seldom seemed to know if the rest of the world ever existed including myself. The same mother punished me for my inability to write 'R' in the Sinhalese alphabet, properly. Since I couldn't lay my hands on the baby, I had to take it out on the cat my mum loved so dearly.

Likewise, I had to go through baby-tantrums twice more. I can remember turning gradually bitter and one fine morning a stubborn thirteen year-old-me, crushed a beautiful bunch of red roses, my mum had received for coming back home that day with my baby sister. I detested the tiny tot for years. Hence, I went astray - found people who I thought, loved me more than my parents did. But now, after twenty-one years of life, I've realised, parents are blessed creations of God. There's no greater love. And yes, that's the sole unconditional love - the one only passion that has no desire for gain. We may not see it - they may not be able to express it due to so many things; things that concern no one else but us, their own flesh and blood - they'd give anything for. They forgive, they forget. The tears they cry for our pain, the smiles they smile for our joy - those could be the only genuine things we receive in a life time. I love my baby sister now. Yet, repentance kills me for having doubted my parents for I've realized that there's none better than them.

U.D. 

Four of the best

By Marisa de Silva

With a programme of great entertainment in the form of the country's most popular contemporary musical talent, and lots of food and fun guaranteed, the Thomians, old and young are looking forward to a night that's more than special.

'Wildfire' led by Derek Wickramanayake is well known to music fans as one of the hottest and most happening bands of today. Well, Wildfire will be rocking and rolling everybody on the 21st. From modern day rock to old-time folk and country and western, they will provide you with a musical night to remember.

'Deja Vu', in keeping with their name, will take their listeners to places they love to go to over and over again. These five guys have achieved a remarkable blend of harmonies and sounds, delighting audiences with their mellow music. 

And when you hear five Thomians rocking, then you know you've heard 'Stigmata'. These young guys live their music as they say it's a part of their lives. They say that rock music is a powerful and emphatic medium and thus, the best way to get through to people and draw their attention to the vices of today's society. 

'Revelations', an ensemble of 12 of the best male voices in Sri Lanka will get the show off to a grand start. As a group they have no boundaries and like to experiment with all types of music. 'Acappella' (Unaccompanied singing) is their speciality.

When four of the best bands around join forces under one roof, it should be an experience of a lifetime, especially since it's for such a worthy cause. 

Apart from celebrating St. Thomas's 150 years of service to the nation, this event is also to raise funds for the rebuilding of the College Hall. 

Proceeds from the show will also support the Association of Families of Missing Service Personnel. This organisation headed by Mrs. Druki Martenstyn, helps women and families of servicemen missing in action to cope with their loss and move on with their lives. Funding self-employment programmes is one of the organisation's main goals. 

And if all that music's going to make you hungry, well there's food for almost every palate together with 'probably the best beer in the world' available at the Food Market.

Tickets priced at Rs.250/= will be available at The Y2K Bowling Centre, Millenium Park, Deli Market, all Keells Super outlets and at the STC office. Don't miss out on this night that promises you a variety of sounds from the cream of Lanka's talent. 

The Sunday Times is the official newspaper for the event.

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