OK, we’ve received the go ahead from the client for the CSV reader project 🙂 So I did up some documentation yesterday so that the client could see both my approach for the base component (which is already done) and for the extended component which will have the functionality he will want. I sent that out with a demo for the base component and then started work on the extended component. I think I’m more or less done with the extended component as well but I will need to do some testing to be sure that it works the way it should. I did however learn something else – I need time to work on projects like this … not just to code but to think things over. I spend the odd spare moment going over what has been done and I suddenly see holes in the logic or potential pitfalls. I thought of several such yesterday after I started thinking about the code and will probably need to plug some of that today. I also realized that a class doesn’t necessarily have to have properties for the sake of having properties – so I’m probably going to take out some of the properties that the base class had since the extended class should not need them … but I’m not sure if C# allows you to do that – I know I can do that in Delphi …
Re-discovered an interesting app called MailWasher (sorry am at home and so don’t have the URL but hopefully it should be www.mailwasher.com) which basically allows you to send bounce messages back to spammers – the idea being that they will take your address off their list thinking that your address is no longer active. I don’t really know if it works effectively (the reviewer of the app from whom I learn about it didn’t notice any difference in his spam level either :p) but at least it seems kind of nice to be able to automatically spam the spammers :p So I think I’ll keep on using MailWasher for a while – it’s especially handy with my HotMail account since I usually have to log in once or twice a week to just get rid of the spam since I really don’t receive many important e-mails on that account. Now I can simply do that from my desktop without logging into Hotmail 🙂
When I found out the university that I went to was offering free email addresses for life to alumni, I signed up, and was given (back) the email address I had through my university career.
I hadn’t used that address in over two years, meaning that spam was bouncing the whole time. Despite the fact that I got nearly zero spam when I last used that account, I now receive 10-20 per day. Bouncing them quite frequently winds up “spamming” an innocent individual, since they use random “from” addresses as well.
One day, I was greeted with a couple hundred “bounces” because some spammer used my university account as the “from” address on some of his “penis enlargement” spam. Truly, truly despicable.
I used MailWasher for many months and have reccommended it to many friends. If it was a full mail client that would be better, but it did work at reducing my spam. I have left the program to use KMail. It’s a great mail client with the bounce feature built in. The only problem some people might have is that it is a part of the KDE desktop for Linux. It’s a great interface and no harder than Outlook Express or Mail Washer to use.
Still, Mail Washer is a great program. And it can found at http://www.mailwasher.net/ (note: that’s .net and not .com). Have a great day!