eco war tips!

A Spammer is Spoofing My Email Address

How fun.  Imagine my delight to wake up the last couple of days to find thousands of bounced emails - all with my address in the From: line.  It’s such an honor to see my address associated with other legitimate brands that are so proven in the fields of appendage enlargement. 

Here’s what happens…

A spammer needs to send spam emails and they don’t want to use an address associated with them.  So, they add someone else’s address to the From: field of the email.  When the email bounces, it comes to the person’s address. In this case, me.

Spoofing is a pretty common problem, but still painful. Apparently, there is little that can be done aside from filtering the incoming messages and hoping that people don’t think you’re sending the spam.  I’m looking into adding an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record, which can also help, I hear. Any other tips?

What Is Local: Part CXXII
I was talking just a moment ago to Marketing Sherpa’s Stefan Tornquist, who was asking me about inserting a question re local into an online survey they are doing. We digressed into an interesting discussion of what local is really about. Back to the Local Paradox post below . . . Direct mail is worth more […]

48 Hours
In less than forty-eight hours, I will step onstage at the UN Climate Conference in Bali.

Two Quotes on Simplicity

The first is by Antione de Saint Exup ry, author of The Little Prince and a pioneer in aviation:

Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away. 

The second is by William of Occam (1288-1347)  You might know the name from Occam’s Razor.

It is vain to do more with what can be done with less.

These quotes mean a lot to me and were found, most recently, at the beginning of Chapter 5 of Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Workweek.  More on that later. 

Poverty and Climate Change At Davos
A few weeks ago in Davos, I shared the stage at the World Economic Forum with Bono, who has provided inspirational leadership in the battle against extreme poverty in the world.

New thinking on the climate crisis
You can watch the brand new slide show I presented to the Ted Conference by .

EveryScape Expands Community Strategy
I just wrote about Smalltown turning its Webcards into website substitutes. Mapping site and virtual world EveryScape is seeking, in a way, to do the same thing with its local business profiles. CEO Jim Schoonmaker told me that is how its profiles can be used and are being used by some small businesses. These are […]

Managing Online Forums - A New Book By Patrick O’Keefe

Patrick and I go way back in web terms, but met for the first time this year at SXSW. We’ve always connected around managing online communities - something we were both doing back in 2000 or so.  That was when Patrick was teenager.  Since that time he’s grown his iFroggy Network of community sites and gone through just about everything you can imagine in terms of managing discussion boards.

Patrick recently put these experiences into a new book called Managing Online Forums - “everything you need to know to create and run successful community discussion boards.”  

I think the timing for this book is great.  With so much emphasis on Social Media, a lot of people are jumping into the fray and discovering that managing people in a community setting isn’t easy.  I think Patrick’s done a great job of getting to the real, practical issues and questions that arise and how to deal with them responsibly. You can find out more at ManagingOnlineForums.com.

Congrats on getting the book out Patrick! Nice work! 

Time to stop sending letters

A hike in the price of stamps is incentive to ditch snail mail and curb your carbon footprint.

• While you’re at it: Cut down on junk mail
• » Read more EcoGeek blog posts