As webmaster for my church, I get emails all the time. Requests for assistance, promotion for someone’s ministry, etc. It was just a few days ago that I got an email requesting birthday cards for Sgt. Kevin Downs.
The email seemed innocent enough. A plea for birthday cards for a wounded soldier? I can do that. Anyone can do that. The problem is that I didn’t follow through and mindlessly forwarded the email to our church secretaries.
According to this Sgt. Downs is already being deluged with get well cards, that the original mailing address has changed. I’m afraid this might turn into a Craig Shergold thing.
Email is so easily forwarded. Bad information is passed on frequently. In lieu of buying a birthday card and sending it to a soldier who is already being deluged with cards, why not make a donation to his medical fund with the card money? I suspect these emails for cards might be some type of marketing ploy by the Hallmark cartel. Maybe not.

Being Webmaster of my church provides for some different tasks. Among them is acting as a postmaster for any mail sent to the general email address. I had automatically been forwarding all email sent to this general email address to a Hotmail account. Many many times I’ve found that Hotmail is slow and cumbersome. That’s usually what happens with Microsoft. They usually buy some new product and make it bloatware. I have no patience when I’m trying to send an email and I keep getting “server busy” errors. You get what you pay for I guess.
So I made the switch to a Yahoo mail account. We’ll see how this one does. I would have switched to Gmail (I have an account with 6 available invites) but I wasn’t sure if there was any virus checking with Gmail. Being the receipent of viruses is a risk of being a webmaster for the church. I wouldn’t dare download the church’s email using Outlook. There are just too many well-meaning people out there who send out viruses without knowing it. I’ve never had a problem with Hotmail’s virus checker and I probably won’t have a problem with Yahoo’s virus checker either.
Postscript (3/1/05)
After one day from the switchover, I’ve found Yahoo is much faster than Hotmail. However there were some bugs in the system. I had to put some spam filters in place so that I wouldn’t get overloaded with Viagra spam and other such nonsense. It is truly amazing how many people will scrape whois entries looking for email addresses so they can sell you some snake oil.

Thunderbird is working good. I enjoy the setup. However I haven’t been able to get YahooPops to work with it. I think it is only because Thunderbird only allows for one password. If there is some trick to it, I haven’t found it.
So I’m at a quandry. Juno’s webmail interface is much easier to use than Comcast’s. So I will probably still use it if I am on the road and need to send a quick email home. Comcast is cumbersome. Sign in and then hit another page for email.
I just wish it could be easier. I’m not completely convinced that Comcast’s spam filtering tools are all that good. Juno started getting alot of spam, but then it suddenly stopped. Good filtering on Juno’s part.
I switched my mom’s account from Juno to Comcast. She’s using Outlook which makes me very wary of viruses. I caution her all the time not to click on suspicious attachments. I realize “suspicious” is a relative term these days. Hopefully I don’t find myself having to do a cleanup on her computer.

Goodbye Juno email. They are starting to charge for offline client reading. I could pay the $10 a year, or just use my free Comcast address. I decided on the latter.
I am not a heavy emailer. There was a time when I would pour my heart into emails. Now I don’t. It’s more of a quicker way to make a phone call. Especially when I’m at work and just don’t have the patience to time to make a phone call. More or less “hey are we getting together for that movie tonight?” Or I might use it just to send a funny link to a friend. There is nothing serious about email. If you want to tell me something serious, call me on the phone or see me in person.
So no more Juno email. Can’t access it from their client at home, even though I’m not using any of their modem lines to get to it. I’m going through Comcast. You’d think that wouldn’t affect their bottom line. But somehow it does. Juno still allows me to access webmail, which I will periodically. However I’ve got all their ads blocked on their webmail site. So basically they aren’t getting any ad revenue from me.
I’ve had my Juno address since about 1995 or 1996 when Juno first came out. Free email? Yep, that’s what I needed when I was away from my Lipscomb email account in the summertime. It was good to me. But somehow you just don’t get anything for free these days.
Coincidentally, Thunderbird 1.0, Firefox’s version of email program, came out today. I’m using it. I decided on it because Outlook has too many vunerabilities. There are just too many viruses (viri?) written specifically to replicate through Outlook. I suppose if and when Thunderbird becomes really popular, virus writers will write more for them. The difference is that Thunderbird’s developers would be adept to fixing security holes than MS. Plus virus writers write viruses specifically to hurt the MS userbase.

I got this forwarded email from a friend. I don’t know if she meant this for someone else or not. All I know is that I haven’t gone through menopause and I don’t plan to in the near or distant future:

We are currently conducting a study with women up to 59 years of age that suffer from a variety of symptoms related to menopause. Specifically we need women who may currently be experiencing symptoms but have never taken a doctor prescribed Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). This study consists of a 45-minute interview to be held at our office on Monday, June 9th and Tuesday, June 10th.
If qualified, you will be paid $50 for your participation.
If interested, please call now and mention the HRT STUDY. Contact us at ***-**** or toll free at ***-***-****, ext ***. We will ask a few simple questions and see if you qualify to be part of this study.

A while back I speculated about rumors floating around on the internet regarding Tommy Franks’ supposed membership in the churches of Christ. I got this in my inbox today:

please send this to those on your list so this rumor can be laid to rest
gary
The Christian Chronicle – As the war in Iraq heated up, so did phone lines and computer screens among church members with this claim: Gen. Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command, is an elder in a church in Tampa, Fla., or if not there, in Midland, Texas.
Not true, although the claim is based in elements of truth. Franks, an Army General, is based in Tampa, Fla., at MacDill Air Force Base, home of the Central Command. And he grew up in Midland/Odessa, Texas, says his nephew Jason Carley, a member of the Stillwater, Okla., Church of Christ.
Franks is married to Carley�s aunt Cathy, his father�s sister, who met and married Franks in Lawton, Okla., home of Fort Sill. The Carley clan has roots in churches of Christ, Jason Carley said.
As long as Carley can remember, Franks has taken him and other family members along to attend non-denominational services at the Army posts where he has been stationed including Fort Hood, Texas; Fort McPherson, Georgia; and Fort Sill. The last time he attended with him was in 1999. He has never attended a church of Christ with him, Carley said.
Carley attests to Franks� spiritual devotion but says he�s 100 percent sure he�s not an elder in Tampa. The Northwest church in Tampa says the same. With the rumor put to rest, the folks at Northwest say they just hope to get back to business as usual.
Gary Davenport, pulpit minister, West Broward church of Christ
“A place to believe, belong, and become!”
Work: 12550 West Broward Blvd. Plantation, Florida 33325
Website: www.westbroward.org;

Remember, just because it appears in your inbox, doesn’t mean it is necessarily true. Please verify rumors before performing a mass forward.

I received the following in my inbox. I’ll let you read it first, then give my thoughts.

GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS, ELDER
Just received this notice from Keith Shepherd the minister of the Alma School Rd. Church of Christ in Chandler, AZ where I worshiped while there after the 9/11 attack.
General Tommy Franks, who is directing the war, is an elder of the Church of Christ in Tampa, FL and was called out of retirement to head our forces. Our preacher told us last night.
Yes, and Gen. Franks married a girl who is from Memphis and graduated from Harding Academy here. My wife taught her in school.
In reference to you letter about General Tommy Franks. He has a sister living in Stillwater who is married to Dr. James Carley and they attend the Duck Street Church of Christ. So I would not be surprised if he were an elder at a church. We hear he is a very nice man. A quiet man who does not like the lime light.
shortened from a letter received from Jim Mettenbrink.

This could easily be an urban legend spreading rapidly through church of Christ circles. It sounds so rambling. 7 degrees of seperation, ya know. “I know so-and-so who knows this dog who shares the vet with Tommy Franks’ dog….”
A quick search for Alma School Road church of Christ popped up this webpage – http://aschurch.faithsite.com I’ve thought about emailing this Keith Shepherd for confirmation, but there is no publically listed email address.
But just because somebody in Arizona says Tommy Franks is a member of the church of Christ doesn’t make it true. I’d like to get official word from the church of Christ in Tampa which Tommy Franks is a member of. Not surprisingly the specific church isn’t mention…possibly due to security reasons. Some crazy terrorist might want to blow up Franks’ church.
Consequently a Google search for “Duck Street Church of Christ” showed no results.
I continue to remain skeptical, yet I’m not motivated enough to dig deeper into the query. I can’t exactly email all of the Tampa area churches of Christ to find out if its true.
Just like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop, we may never know if Tommy Franks is a member of the church of Christ. Not that I’m loosing sleep over it…
****UPDATE**** 04/29/03
I found this quote from an article on the net. It doesn’t shed anymore light on it.

�My faith in God is important,� Franks said in an interview, however, it is not known which faith he belongs to. Although it has been said that Franks is of Russian Jewish extraction, the son or grandson of Khazar Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, like Gen. Wesley Kanne Clark (who was raised as a Protestant in Little Rock), the religious and ethnic background of Tommy Franks is simply not known.”

As webmaster for my church I get some interesting emails sent to the church at times. This has been one of those times. Some nut sent a rambling email message to the church about some ministry in Iceland. He must have sent it to a bunch of people, because I’ve been seeing the result of his or her actions. Someone replied back to the original message saying “TAKE ME OFF YOUR MAIL LIST NOW. I’m reporting you to the FCC.” So that message got sent to everyone on the nut’s list. So now there’s a whole barrage of people replying to these email messages saying “BOTH OF YOU TAKE ME OFF YOUR MAIL LIST NOW…I WILL BE REPORTING YOU THE FCC.” Stuff like that. People are generally ignorant of how email is delivered to them. One person has replied back to the same list 3 times already. I’ve thought about calling this person and trying to explain to them what exactly is happening. But I don’t know if it will do any good.
Here are some of funniest replies from it:

“REMOVE THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS FROM YOUR LIST. I HAVE RECEIVED 20 IN THE LAST 48 HOURS.”
L.D. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 10:45:26
Remove my address from your mailing list. I do not want to receive any more mail from you. This is out of control and outright ridiculous and abusive.
B.R. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 13:57:14
“all of you who are replying to the lunatic from Iceland, must know that everyone on his list is getting your request to be deleted from the list. I hope by sending this out that none of us will reply to the nut and fill up our email boxes with requests to be deleted”
R.B. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 14:25:15
“this is not coming from ME (I am xxxxx@xxxx.com)..it is coming from xxxxx@xxxx.com but when everyone “replies to all”, it keeps going I want OFF also !”
UMC – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 14:25:50 -0500
YOU ARE NOT ON MY LIST!!!!!! I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS IDIOTIC MESSAGE!!!!! I CANNOT HELP YOU!
K.W. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 15:26:52 -0500
“YOU’RE LUCKY – I’VE RECEIVED OVER 40 AND NOW I’M GETTING NASTY E-MAILS ASKING ME TO REMOVE FOLKS FORM MY MAILING LIST WELL . . .YOU ARE NOT ON MY LIST!!!!!! I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS IDIOTIC MESSAGE!!!!! I CANNOT HELP YOU!”
K.W. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 15:27:56 -0500
“You keep sending this to me. I didn’t send the email, It appears to be a virus from xxxxx@xxxxxx It also seems to be going only to UMC’s, which we are, so you need not shout.”
W.H. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 15:56:40
“I am not certain how I ended up getting emails from “REMINDER FROM ICELAND” but I am also getting replies from everyone on his address list. Some how they are all being routed to my address even though they were sent to his. I am trying to find out how I ended up getting messages from this personand what they mean. I am a United Methodist Minister and I have no idea where this came from. If you find out anythin please let me know.”
R.C. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 17:20:43
“REMOVEMEAS WELL”
G.B. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 17:54:00 EST
“Your “remove” emails and protests are being sent to the guy�s entire list. Don’t bother replying to his bogus email address, as you are only compounding the problem. I’ve received more emails from his victims today than I did from him.”
B.B. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 17:57:00 -0500
“Whoever you are, you are making me crazy! Please stop this nonsence!”
M.L. – Wed, 12 Mar 2003 20:54:14
“Messages to Iceland will just bounce back to everyone. This must be a bad joke. I have installed McAfee.com and instructed it to Kill any thing from iceland.”
L.T. – Thu, 13 Mar 2003 00:28:19

I’m watching that movie Rudy. It’s a good movie of telling no matter how difficult life can get, you can always succeed. Then again, it might just be a propaganda film for Notre Dame football. Notre Dame isn’t all that good. It’s got a winning tradition and the Touchdown Jesus on its side. But I’ve never been all that impressed.
So it took Rudy 3 or 4 times to get into Notre Dame. Is Notre Dame that difficult to get into? Could I get in? Do you have to be Catholic to go there?
I like the movie, I just wish it wasn’t about Notre Dame, a school I’ve never been impressed by.
Rudy grew up to be a motivational speaker. I found his website.

I’ve seen this phenomenon before. Some big rumor starts on the internet and it is automatically forwarded around to everyone else’s address book contacts. I tend to loose respect for people who proliferate rumors without first examining it to see if it is true or not.
Today’s example is Hillary Clinton’s support for a Black Panther murderer. It’s untrue. Yet people continue to spread rumors like this without verification. It’s amazing. They must be thinking if a text message comes into their emailbox, then it HAS to be true. If you think you are changing the world by forwarding around stupid messages in your inbox, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Arizona for you. Buy a ticket to the cluetrain, people. And this cluetrain is snopes.com. Tickets are free. Available at your computer desktop in the form of a big giant E.
How do these rumors start? I don’t know. But I do know how they are spread. I am fairly sure that some people have email just to forward around jokes, rumors, and urban legends to other people. That’s all. No real personal messages. Just rehashes of the same text forwarded over and over again. Redundancy on email servers. It’s a never ending cycle. Who will be the next to start the latest AOL virus rumor? Who will be the next to forward that rumor around?
“Cluetrain” – I like that word. I didn’t make it up. I wish I had….

For some strange reason, I received this email sent to the church email address. I am not sure why. So it is all settled. I’m moving to Nigeria to be a hotel worker. Be sure to check out the dollar amounts. If they are serious, then it is some high bucks! Funny, the last email I got from Nigeria was some scam wanting me to give someone my bank account number.

Vacancy: Career Opportunities in an International Five Star Hotel.
We are an international five-star hotel here in Lagos, Nigeria. To maintain the Hotel’s international standard of high quality service delivery, we are about to assemble a team of qualify foreigners to occupy the following post.
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT. REFRERENCE NUMBER SALARY IN $
(a ) Admin Officer
SS/401 123,000
(b) Secretary.
JSA/402 98,645
SALES AND MARKETING DEPT.
(a) Supervisor
SS/505 115,000
(B) Computer Operator
SS/506 105,800
FOOD AND BEVERAGES DEPT.
(A) Sous Chefs
SS/507 115,000
(b) chief steward
SS/508 98, 523
(c) Restaurant/Banquet Supervisors
SS/509 96,000
(d) Bar Supervisors
SS/510 96,000
(e) Room Service Supervisor
SS/511 96,000
(f) Ordertakers
SS/512 96,000
ROOM DIVISION DEPT.
(a) Front Officer Manager
SS/513 120,000
(b) House Keeping Manager
SS/514 118,500
(c) Receptionists
SS/515 101,000
(d) Reservation Officers
SS/516 110,000
(e) Floor Supervisors
SS/517 110,000
TECHNICAL DEPT.
(a) Chief Engineer
M/824 220,000
(b) Assistant Chief Engineer
SS/825 186,659
(c) Chief Technician
JSA/826 210,000
FINANCE DEPT
(a) Chief Accountant
M/928 250,000
(b) IT Manager
SS/929 217, 555
(c) Purchasing Manager
SS/930 205,000
(d) Credit Account Manager
M/931 200,000
(e) F/B Cost Controler
SS/932 201,000
(f) General Cashier
SS/933 210,000
(g) Paymaster/Secretary
SS/934 217,649
(h) Account Payabel Supervisor
SS/935 209,999
REQUIREMENTS:
1. All candidates should have a minimum of first degree or its equivalent in a relevant field of study.
2. While a bilingual ability is an advantage, it is necessary that candidate applying for the secretarial and receptionist should have excelent communication
skills particularly in English and French language.
3. All accounting positions require an extensive knowledge of computer. Consequently, candidates applying for the positions are expected to be
conversant with property accounting packages like Spreadsheet, Sage, Omicron, Fidelo,Adaco etc.
4. Only Electrical Engineers need to apply for the post of chief Engineer.
5. For the IT position, prospective candidates must be able to manage a computer network as well a handle basic hardware and software tasks.
AGE: The ideal age is between 21 to 45 years for all position.
METHOD OF APPLICATION:
Interested and qualify candidates should send their letter of Application(quoting the reference Number) by way of the email servce together with your C-V. These should get to us in two weeks from this publication.
ACCOMMODATION: Each candidates shall be entitle to a well furnshied 3 bedroom apartment.
INSTRUCTION: ONLY SHORTLISTED CANDIDATES WOULD BE CONSIDERED.

In other news….
I have the keys to the church van…..affectionantly known as “ole blue.” It is a Ford model from the late eighties. We’ve had it forever….since my sister was in high school. It is a bear to drive. Seemlingly no manuvability. I feel like I should go cruising for chicks or something. The guy who gave me the keys said he was going to be out for the next youth devo, so I should be in charge of driving it next month.