So, with all the conflicting opinion and advice, is everyone
thoroughly confused yet?

I must admit I am watching this from the sidelines, as I have a Mac
(so I appreciated the comments about the drawbacks of monoculture).

That being said, I feel compelled to take issue with this piece of advice:

>
>To protect yourself you must do 5 things:

(snip)

>4. Activate the SPAM filter from your ISP. If your ISP doesn't provide one,
>switch ISP's

If you use the ISP's spam filter, it is very likely that at some
point some e-mail you should, and want to, receive will be
misidentified and filtered out as "spam." That's because it is the
ISP that decides on the criteria, and it's never going to be "one
size fits all." If that's acceptable to you and a price you're
willing to pay for that level of protection, then fine -- that's your
call. It's just that you should be aware of that when deciding, and
that there is no absolute protection to be had -- only degrees of
protection.

Cheers,

David
Portland OR

P.S. I do feel this discussion is relevant to Tweeters, and good to
have, as we all share not only our interest in birds and birding, but
also our use of computers and e-mail.