| Issue #64/Aug. '00 |
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Navigate: | My Mac Online | The Archives | July 1997 | Shareware Reviews | |
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By Fenton Jones "Manavesh"
| ResEdit 2.1.3 | Stefan's Finder Menus 1.3 | Finder Options 1.0 | Hidden Finder Features 1.0.3 | 
ResEdit 2.1.3Company: Apple Computer Freeware http://www.apple.com
Stefan's Finder Menus 1.3 Author: Stefan Anthony Freeware
That's right. I've been hacking my Mac.
I began by running ResEdit on a copy of the Finder and pasting in some templates from Stefan's Finder Menus. It's a good introduction into the world of ResEdit. The small ResEdit template he provides modifies the Finder to include some command keys that should have been there in the first place. He includes some instructions, so anyone can do it.
But I had some problems with the results. It worked fine, but it added some things I didn't need, and not others that I wanted. So, using ResEdit and the info in my new MacSecrets book, I started over.
Working on a copy of the Finder, I opened the FNMU resource, #1255, for the Special Menu. Apparently you can add a command key to anything by just typing the letter in the right place, replacing the second one of the four blank boxes in front of the command's name.
I found "____EmptyTrash" and typed in "_T__". Now I have Command-T to empty the trash. Cool. With Stefan's template there was a conflict with CanIt, one of my essentials, which uses Command-B to put things in the trash. He'd used it to Show the Clipboard. So I changed that to Command-/ instead.
System 7.5.3 and up have the "move to trash" command built-in, as Command-Delete, so users would not need CanIt. They may, however, need to "enable" the command. There are a couple of freeware small control panels that enable you to do this:
Hidden Finder Features 1.0.3Author: Richard Burgess Freeware http://www.intellinet.com/~rickb
Spamlet
To munge* or not to munge-that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to let others e-mail me, including spammers, or 'tis better to hide myself like a mouse.
*Munging is altering your e-mail address on posts to newsgroups, so they can't be collected by spammers. It requires those who answer you via e-mail to manually restore your address. The official position is that it is not allowed in newsgroups, but there is a considerable temptation to ignore this, after you start getting more junk mail than legitimate e-mail.
SPAM. It's a hot topic in the Mac Usenet groups, pitting brother against brother. If you, like most of us, get UCE (unsolicited commercial e-mail), there are other ways to block it. Try one of the following sites to get a set of spam-blocking filters and instructions how to use them in your e-mail program.
For Eudora, there is Spam Filter Maker 1.1 (free), by Neil Schulmen, at:
http://www.public.usit.net/nwcs/Spam/Spam.html.
The long filter list (almost 300) was compiled by AOL. It's a little tricky to install, so here are some tips. Back up your present filters first. You can add them back in later if they get overwritten in the process. There is an option in the SpamBlocker application to set the number of the first spam filter, so set it after your last existing filter. If you have too many to count, open your existing filter file with a text editor, and read the number of the last one. If they're overwritten, you can paste them back in at the beginning of the new filter file, and the numbers will make sense.
The main downside to this client-side filtering approach is that is takes several seconds for Eudora to read the long list every time you check your mail. And it may destabilize your filters, so that they need to be reinvented occasionally. I had to anyway, after several of my old ones ceased working.
I believe that a concerted effort should be made by all of us who use the Internet, including ISPs, to isolate and cut off the spammers, or at the very least make it less than worth their while. Legislation could also help, but I believe we, who get the spam, and understand more of the dynamics involved, could do a better and more thorough job of separating the wheat from the chaff. A master list should be kept of spammers, and pressure should be brought against their ISPs to terminate them. If they do not, their whole domain should go on the black list and into everyone's filter file. All ISPs should offer the option of automatic blocking of sites on the list.
To use this more proactive approach, an AppleScript to automatically set up replies to the ISPs of spam sites is at:
http://wso.williams.edu/~eudora/eudora-3-0-spam-filter.html
A filter tool for e-mailer (which I don't have), one of many from the folks at Fog City, is at: http://www.fogcity.com
A site for extensive anti-spam info and action (personal and political) is:
http://www.mcs.com/~jcr/junke-mail.html
Just to show you what kind of people we are up against, here is an excerpt from a recent arrival in my mailbox. It is advertising from a spammer, offering to send my spam for me from his account, which is apparently immune from being terminated. These are the people we need to isolate.
"If you receive any complaints, the complainants can not send the true header, showing where the message originated, which will protect you from losing your ISP. The ISPs require the headers to be sent with the message, in order to take action against you. This can not be done as we are sending the message with our headers."
*****
All of the programs reviewed here can be found at the My Mac Software Library at http://www.mymac.com/software
Fenton Jones (manavesh@mymac.com)
Websites mentioned:
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