Spam & Email Free

Most of you know that I work for The University of Texas System, the administrative (read: authoritative) arm of 15 institutions across the state, of which UT Austin is a part. Ultimately, I am a state employee for an organization of higher education. Benefits are an understatement.

Anywho, they are on a Windows based network here, as most state agencies are. So, the email server of choice is Microsoft's. Email program: Outhouse. I think Microsoft keeps calling it Outlook... Outreach... Outoftown... whatever. Well, that little gem of a program is no longer available for Macs. Am I disappointed about that? Not in the slightest. Matter of fact, I am taking pride in that I have yet to install a single Microsoft program on this machine (web plug-ins excluded). I praise my superiors for not requiring me to do so. Office is the place my computer resides in, not something residing in my computer.

The spam filters on UTS’ email servers are tighter than a mouse’s ear. They are so stringent, that if you are not within the UT System as a whole, it takes around 3 hours, if at all, for my mail program (Apple’s default Mail - works good so far) to receive the mail. Again, if it comes through at all. Forget about it if you are sending email from Hotmail, Yahoo, or other web-based email services. Ironically, Hotmail is owned by MSN, I am pretty sure. An email coming from an employee of the City of Georgetown even has trouble coming to me.

Now if the address is cleared via UTS, it will make it and eventually get to bypass most of the filtering process. But first timers and outsiders, no go. Take a number, wait in line, hope you don't get forever lost in limbo. The good news is, at work, I am spam free. Bad news, I don't get to talk much with people outside of work.

Unlike the separate mailbox I tried to set up in Outlook on the PC, Apple’s Mail can have multiple mailboxes that disregard the server for which they are not assigned. Clearly, I was doing something wrong in Outlook during the setup of the new mailbox, but it was actually filtering all mail coming from the new mailbox’s server through the UTS Microsoft Server as well. This made no sense to me, but there was nothing I could do. I was using an environment that I consider ludicrous in its design in the first place. So with Apple Mail, I can check email for my other, outside email addresses. Provided I know all the POP info. Unfortunately, my sitetamashii.com mail is not one of those. Also, I have been getting spammed lately on those outside addresses. Solution? Set a filter that immediately deletes all mail coming from an unregistered email address. What do I consider registered? If you are in my address book, you get through. If not, I’ll never know and, most likely, never care. Again, this is not the case with my sitetamashii.com mail. That is through Doteasy and they do not have the same filter options that Mail does. That would be kind of silly having a public email address to which no one could email too.

The reason I bring all this up is that I tried to contact an old college bud of mine while I was at work. They work for the American Heart Association now. I have never heard back from them. No doubt, because their mail never got to me. They could be real busy too, but who knows. Also, because I am not using Outlook, I have no access to forms and the like that are, apparently, only accessible through Outlook, such as Leave Requests, Telephone Services, etc. etc. Not to mention, I have yet to figure out how to send a Calendar meeting (I use iCal) to co-workers as I can’t set meetings through Outlook which they all use. Seems to me, that Outlook as quite a choke hold on the Windows-using populace. Not using Outlook? Tough noogies. Using a Mac? HAHAhahah...., wait... oh crap, it’s one of them thinkin’ types.

At least I’m not getting spam.

Welp… Looks like the secret to beer sales is out.