Software: Resize Firefox Search Bar

Just moved to a new computer and my Firefox search bar (the text field on the right hand size of the tool bar) is too small by default. On my previous computer, I hacked userChrome.css (as described here) but now I'm too lazy so I got this extension instead. It adds a grab control to the toolbar and I can resize the search bar interactively.

Misc: Spam-free

After running SpamBayes in addition to our server-based spam filter for one week, my inbox is spam free! It's so-o-o much nicer to start the day and see spam getting clobbered.

Misc: Spamish Thoughts

While browsing the spam tokens reported by SpamBayes, I realised that spam messages often have the same words, including typos and deliberate mispellings. As described in Paul Graham's A Plan For Spam, it's pretty straightforward to detect spam once you have trained your spam filter. Spammers are victims of their own dubious success; the more spam they send, the more duplicates each person is likely to receive and hence identify automatically as spam. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to run their own spam filter. Heck, I've been online for years but only just started my own filter.

Julian asked why spammers think anyone would buy mortgages / fake watches / online diplomas / genital enhancements / medicines from a stranger based on a tacky and badly spelt message. Other than the obvious response that enough fools actually respond to spam to keep spammers employed, perhaps enough people accidently click on the spammer's link to earn them advertising dollars!

Misc: Identifying Spam

You'd be a lucky person if you don't receive spam e-mail. I get about 15 spam e-mail daily, which is a smallish number but annoying. My company's mail server identifies about two-thirds of spam e-mail correctly, leaving me to deal with the remaining third. This is a pain but I can see our IT administrator's point of view; he can't really make his filter more aggressive without mis-identifying valid e-mail as spam. So, I looked around for a personal spam filter and found SpamBayes. It's a Python program wrapped within an Outlook plug-in, and delivered in a Windows installer, so it's pretty easy to install and use. I'm looking forward to seeing some results tomorrow!