Spam Books

I often play with Nigerian scammers though not to the extent that the author does. Some of his responses to the scammers email are really funny. A lot like the annals of "The Porcine Princess".

There are some hilarious pages in this book, some that had me crying and unable to speak. If the author had a little more variety it would have been a great book, but it did seem to repeat its formula in the responses to the email scams after a while.

A laugh-riot from start to finish--the funniest book I've read in years.

This was one of the funniest books I have enjoyed in a long, long time. The content is fun and light and makes for an easy read. There were times I had tears in my eyes and pain in my stomach from laughing so hard. It's an excellent book for when you need a break from this mad, mad, world.

It's one of those purchases you won't regret.

Highly recommended!

The Publishers Weekly review above is on the money, in that this book is gleefully offensive.

I'm fine with that.

If you're fine with that as well, this book will make you snort with laughter at inappropriate times. Do not read while sitting in bed next to your sleeping spouse. She will eventually punch you in the chest for waking her up.

It'll be worth the bruise.

I picked up this book because I have always found e-mail to be an effective way to begin and develop relationships with interesting people I would never have otherwise met. That's one of the many reasons I like to write reviews on Amazon.com. Since most books about the Internet are extremely simple and out-of-date, I had low expectations. Imagine how pleased I was when I discovered that this book not only answered many of my questions (such as how to get started with e-mailing to opt-in lists of people who have given permission to be contacted with information in certain subject areas) but also provided information that I did not imagine existed (such as sites for posting e-mail press releases and statements of competency to reach the media). Best of all, the ideas here take little capital and expertise so most people who are active on the Internet can use them.

Here is the table of contents to give you a sense of how the book is organized:

Chapter 1: E-Mail Newsletters

Chapter 2: Discussion Lists

Chapter 3: Online Networking

Chapter 4: Signature Files

Chapter 5: Autoresponders

Chapter 6: Customer Relationship Management

Chapter 7: Promotions and Direct E-Mail

Chapter 8: Online Public Relations

Chapter 9: Advertising in E-Publications

Chapter 10: E-Mail Marketing Rulebook

Chapter 11: Technical Know-How

Chapter 12: Measuring Results

Chapter 13: Opt-In List Brokering

Chapter 14: Worksheets

Chapter 15: 20 Recommended E-Mail Publications

As a result of reading this book, I began to wonder if I should also offer a free e-mail newsletter of more analytical and detailed book reviews covering those books I like best, with the reviews organized to be easier to access. Your opinions on that subject are most welcome!

The technical support in the book can save you some money on implementing by allowing you to do more of the work yourself. You are also directed to examples and organizations that can help you. I wrote down more than 30 web sites I want to investigate as a result of reading this book. That's about 27 more than I got out of the last 400 books I have read.

Another positive feature of the book is that it is anti-Spam. If you are like me, you get about 40 Spam messages a day that have no connection to any interest you have and seem to be created by people with little talent. One reason I have been slow to use more e-mail marketing is because I am very anti-Spam and didn't want to become a Spammer even by accident.

The best advice from the book is to build your own lists from people who reply to you and give you permission to contact them again, and use those to establish and maintain mutually supportive relationships. That makes sense to me. My web designer has been urging me on with this idea for years, but I never quite got the point before. Now I see what I should be doing. Even though I have read and liked Permission Marketing, the idea just hadn't clicked before.

Even if you don't plan to do e-mail mass marketing, the ideas in here for online public relations will make the book valuable all by themselves.

The authors also offer you access to their web site for more information and help.

A revised edition is planned for a few weeks from now, and I suspect that it would be a good idea to see what is in that edition as well. I wouldn't wait for that one, however, to get started. You can make significant progress in the meantime with this edition.

After you have finished reading this book, ask yourself what is the one thing you could do today that would help get valuable knowledge out to those who need it most. Then take that action. I also urge you to make that question and action step a daily process thereafter. This book should make you very capable of doing this!

For anyone looking for an experienced and relaible method of managing opt-in email marketing this is for you.

Marketing With E-Mail is a quick reading that broadens your horizon by giving you a concise, to the point overview of the different tools available to market a company and its products/ services through e-mail. Permission marketing is the mantra of Marketing With E-Mail and her author, Shannon Kinnard. E-mail marketing, though important, is not a stand-alone communication channel. By offering your prospects and customers multiple response paths, you increase the probability that they will respond to your product offering. In addition, Marketing With E-Mail and the companion web site refer to many resources that you can explore to get additional insights into that new field of marketing. Shannon Kinnard, however, does not cover the economics of e-mail marketing thoroughly. Case studies are not usually backed up by any in-depth financial analysis that should definitely convince you that investing in e-mail marketing provides a sensible return on investment and positively influences customer lifetime value. Hopefully, Shannon Kinnard will further share her (financial) expertise with you in the second edition of Marketing With E-Mail that will be released soon.

I am a technoid (See my about me area) so when I first started reading this book and Kinnard described the tools I thought the book was going to be fairly boring. Later when I entered in the chapters on marketing I was thrilled with an entry level book.

I needed (and still need) good ideas to help me market my business. I used my highlighter a great deal in this book. In almost every one of the later chapters I found really good ideas. Also the structure of the book was wonderful. The beginning of every chapter is a series of descriptive or narrative paragraphs, case study, resources and a cheat sheet. The structure that Kinnard uses makes this a tool for reference as well as a good read.

Finally, I think Kinnard has an excellent style. I think one of the great tasks of writing a book like this one is that most of the audience really is not interested in reading the material. We just want to know it so that we can use it. So, time spent reading and learning about email is tiresome. Kinnard does a good job of making the paint dry quickly.

As a web designer for small businesses, the task of bringing visitors to a site often falls into my lap. It's a daunting task and with internet marketing still in it's infancy it's difficult to look to anyone as an expert. Ms. Kinnard is worth her weight in gold; demonstrating how to handle the new field of e-marketing and expertly giving how-to advice.

Many of my clients are regional shops and businesses that do not have the big business (big $$) marketing budgets. Not only do I often find myself referring to this book often, but I recommend it to all of my clients as well.

Business owners are often one of the biggest draws for a business; their personality, eye for detail, or craftsmanship is what attracts customers. By reading this book, my clients are able to market themselves, which my all accounts is a win-win scenario.

If you own a business or if you represent a business that is trying to increase their market share on the Internet, make this mandatory reading.

Almost thirty years ago, William Donaldson, using the pen name Henry Root, produced a few books of letters he had written to important people or companies and the replies he had gotten. He wrote outlandish and silly suggestions, and it was funny to read the replies back, most of which took his letters seriously, which made them all the funnier. It was, however, a little mean; the respondents were probably in their respective public relations departments and had to take Root's inquiries seriously at the risk of offending a customer. Such tricking of well-meaning clerks was thus morally questionable, but no one ought to fret over the same sorts of tricks being played now thirty years later on e-mail spammers, who deserve to be the butt of any pranks anyone on the internet can devise. Scotsman Bob Servant is just the prankster for the job, and in _Delete This at Your Peril: One Man's Hilarious Exchanges with Internet Spammers_ (Skyhorse Publishing) he has presented to us eight of his recent skirmishes, e-mails back and forth that confuse, anger, and waste the time of the spammers who have attempted to get his money. Servant seems to be, in the tradition of Henry Root, a pseudonymic creation of Neil Forsyth, who has written the introduction to the book describing the author. Forsyth explains that Bob Servant lives in the Dundee suburb of Broughty Ferry and is "a former window cleaner and cheeseburger magnate" who pals around with Tommy Peanuts, Chappy Williams, and Frank Theplank ("Frank the Plank"), who are sometimes pulled into the e-mail action transcribed here. Servant's book is laugh-out-loud funny, as he takes his new e-pals on aberrant and bizarre twists of correspondence, and anyone who hates spam will find his efforts not just amusing but inspiring.

The title of the book comes from a 419 scammer who sent his first e-mail with that line as the subject. The mail was from "His Royal Highnest Jack Thomson" whose father "King Arawi of tribal land" was poisoned for his wealth, which his Highnest is ready to share with Bob Servant at the rate of 25%. "Good morning your Majesty," comes Bob's terse reply, "I want 30% and not a penny less." By the time Bob has readjusted his desire up to 40%, he is also requesting to be paid in lions, as cash is too dangerous, and helpfully suggests to his new friend Jack that Frank the Plank once saw a talking lion on the television, and could Jack get one of those? Jack says one of the lions talks a little, whereupon Bob pounces, "I'm not sure about a lion that only talks a little, I'd like one that isn't so shy, if possible?" Jack replies, "Now you are saying the lion has to talk? What is this madness? Send me the £1700 that we agreed imeediately." Bob is undeterred: "What does the lion say when it talks. I am just checking that it won't get me into any fights." After delaying a reply, Bob goes on to apologize, "Sorry about the delay. I was round at Frank's earlier and got stuck up a tree whilst chasing a snake, then fell off and banged my head on a chicken. You know what it's like." There are ten further volleys in this insane e-mail conversation before it ends, with no money going to Jack and no lions to Bob. The other exchanges collected here are just as silly. When his new Russian girlfriend expresses some doubts that he is being serious with her, he replies, "What kind of weirdo would spend all this time emailing you if they were not serious?"

Indeed. Weirdo or not, Bob Servant/ Neil Forsyth deserves our thanks for his efforts in the war against spam, and for making them available to us in this absurdly hilarious collection. If you hate spam, it will be all the funnier imagining the targets of Bob's furious nonsense scratching their heads at the meandering replies after their initial certainty that they have hooked a likely meal ticket. One final reply comes from Nigeria when it has eventually dawned on the spammer that no money is going to be forthcoming and a good deal of time has been spent reading nonsense: "YOU ARE A STUPID MAN". Not a chance of it; deranged, perhaps, but Bob Servant is far from stupid. It is a pleasure to see such hilarity marshaled against foes who so deserve it.

Every day
Jamming your In-Box
Is SPAM

This book
Is about one man
Who replied

Watch Bob
Spam the Spammers
For laughs


The paragraphs below use some of Bob's examples to give the reader a sense of this book, which is really quite clever if you like this sort of thing.

[Warning: Replying to spammers can cause spam mail to increase exponentially]


Greetings to you in the name of the Most High.

A business acquaintance of mine visited your fine country of Scotland recently and recommended you as a fine and honorable gentleman who can be entrusted with a matter of the highest confidentiality and importance.

He has assured me that you are an expert in business and trade, and that you may have purchased already four golden lions, two leopards and an alligator from the only son of His Excellency King Arawi of Togo. I hope that they are thriving and bringing you much joy.

First, I will introduce myself. I am a former citizen of a Soviet country, but through good fortune and most reputable mail order organization I was able to get married to a good man from Nigeria, who owns both a textile company and a pottery barn. I also obtained for myself a PhD doctorate in Business and Finance through correspondence with major unaccredited university in the United American States.

I am sad to say that my husband is now late due to assassination by his competitors, and I am left alone with his business affairs to handle. I will also tell you that due to his relatives in the government, my husband has been able to save a lot of money which is in an account in my name, and I trust you to keep this information in confidence. My friend Bob, I am a beautiful woman of only 25 years, and I am unable to do business here with the men in Nigeria. My late husband's lawyer cannot be trusted with such matters, and I am looking to you to help me transfer 32 million Sterling pounds to Scotland, where I understand you own a Cheeseburger Business and an African Café.

I would like for us to get better acquainted and maybe you would like to become my husband. I can cook genuine African dishes, especially yam potage, Isi Ewu and Afang soup, which I am sure your customers will enjoy. We can achieve many great things together, you and I.

My dear Bob, I am so excited about this venture between us that I can hardly wait for your soonest reply. Please also send me your photo and the name of your bank and account number so I can begin preparing to transfer the money.



Modesta Spamminovitch-Upayme



This is a quick and funny read, and heartily recommended to anyone who has e-mail.




Amanda Richards, July 19, 2008

With the internet age has come all kinds of wonderful new convinces we now rely on every day. But with every plus comes a minus, and for most of us that minus is spam. Every morning, I hate wading through the massive amount of e-mails I get that I'm not even interested in reading.

One man decided to have some fun, however. And we get to share that fun because of this book. "Bob Servant" (and the observant person will pick up on that name faster than I did) decided to reply to some of his spam and see how long he could drag out the exchanges without the other side catching on or giving up. Here in, we get eight such exchanges and the results are hilarious.

Most of these e-mails start out all too familiar. There's the African native who needs Bob to get money out of the country. Theirs the Chinese company looking for a local person in Scotland to help with local payments. And there's Alexandria, who is more interested in Scottish men than her native Russians.

But what follows is anything but routine. It's hard to describe just how great this book because half the fun is watching how the events unfold. Twice, Bob turns a job offer into a potential job for the spammer when he pretends to be interested in buying a painting or a bunch of pots.

But my favorite exchanges cross the line into the absurd. Some of these involve wild animals and the postman. But that's all I'm going to say. Well, that and it reveals just how desperate the criminal spammers are to get the information they need. They are certainly persistent. And rather stupid themselves.

I've got to give the author credit. He has created a great world you real get involved in. In each exchange we get to see a different side of Bob and his friends. They provide half the fun.

While most of these exchanges are wonderful, I did think a couple went on too long. And they weren't quite the mostly clean stuff I normally enjoy reading. But that didn't dampen my enjoyment for long.

Ironically enough, I got this book because I replied to a spam e-mail from the author. And I'm glad I did. If you need a release from the constant attack of spam, this book is perfect for you.

Bob Servant, Delete This at Your Peril: One Man's Hilarious Exchanges with Internet Spammers (Skyhorse Publishing, 2008)

One of my rules of thumb is to take books whose subtitles contain value judgments with a grain of salt. The hilarious is never as hilarious as one would expect from the book's flashy title. I am happy to report that Delete This at Your Peril is that rara-est of avis-es: an exception to the rule. This slim book, which is composed almost completely of the promised email exchanges (with some footnoting from Neil Forsyth, author of Other Peoples' Money, who helped Bob whip the book into shape-- the footnotes are sometimes just as funny), is often the kind of laugh-out-loud gigglefest that will cause people to look askance at you on the bus. In each of the eight episodes here, Servant starts out by responding to a spammer as if he's seriously interested, then gets more and more absurd in his emails until they finally get frustrated and blow up at him. It's a wonderful hobby, and more people should do things like this-- and then write books about them. I have now become a huge Bob Servant fan, and as soon as he gives me his bank account details, I'll tell the world so. ****

A blurb on the cover from "MAXIM" exclaims "GENIUS! Highly entertaining and brilliantly deranged." I wouldn't go that far with the genius and brilliant part, but "Delete This at Your Peril" IS very funny and a bit deranged. I read the entire book in less than an hour, and although Servant is as long-winded at times as he is weird, I had some real laugh out loud moments.

The question is, does "Bob Servant," putative author of this humor opus that makes fun of Internet spammers and scammers, really exist? Or is he the bizarre creation of "editor" Neil Forsyth who holds the copyright to the book?

Not that it matters. What Bob Servant (or Neil Forsyth) does--and this has been done before, see, for example, Black Hat: Misfits, Criminals, and Spammers in the Internet Age (2004) by John Biggs--is play along with the spammers as though he is some unsophisticated rube who is falling for the con. What makes the book so funny is how Servant is able to turn the tables on the 419 scam masters from Nigeria and elsewhere and rope them into a lengthy and fruitless email correspondence, while holding out the carrot of his actually going to the bank. Servant piles it on relentlessly with misdirections and pratfalls among and with his ne'er-do-well friends and acquaintances in Broughty Ferry, Scotland.

In the first chapter, there is a certain "His Royal Highnest, [sic] Jack Thompson...the only son of late King Arawi of tribal land" who is seeking "a foreign partner" to transfer "$75m" to, "for investment," to whom he will pay 20% of the proceeds.

Bob Servant fires back with "Good morning your Majesty, I want 30%, and not a penny less."

After a bit of pulling line, Servant declares that he wants the money in lions, and he wants pictures of the lions. Thompson sends him a photo of four identical gold lions, but Servant is not satisfied. He writes, "There appears to have been a slight misunderstanding my friend, I was expecting four live lions, not gold ones."

So Jack Thompson replies, "I am buying four male lions from my friends private zoo and he has also arranged for shipment to Scotland." Thompson attaches a photo of a lion! But this isn't enough. Servant wants the lions to be able to talk. After some discussion of what the lions might be able to say, Thompson assures Servant that one of the lions can talk. Meanwhile Servant is pretending to get the funds ready to send via Western Union to Thompson. But then Servant decides he (and his buddy "Frank Theplank") also want "2 leopards, 1 elephant, 1 alligator, 2 parrots, 1 hedgehog."

At some point Thompson begins to shout: "BOB LETS GO STRAIGHT TO THE POINT. THE LIONS AND LEOPARDS ARE HERE WITH ME AT THE BACK OF MY HOUSE THEY ARE FRIENDLY AND ONE OF THE LION TALKS. BOB SEND ME THE £1700 SO I CAN COLLECT THAT MONEY AND SHIP THEM TO YOU."

Bob Servant replies by asking "What are the names of the lions?" and "What does the lion say when it talks? The bank is preparing me some forms."

To a Russian babe named Alexandra who wants to find a husband, Servant writes, "What a fantastic photo. My God, what a pair of bazookas..." She responds in part with "I do not like Russian men, their attitude to women. I want to love and be loved. Unfortunately, I have not found that in the country. I am gentle women but I am a tiger when I am in love!"

At length Servant sends Alexandra a photo of himself holding a very large, bloated carp. (Well, not himself but some old guy, whom Alex deigns to find interesting, although I don't think she got the symbolic intent of the caught fish.) Bob regales her with tales of life at Broughty Ferry with his buds, Chappy Williams and the regulars at Stewpot's Bar. And on and on and on. Finally in utter frustration (ha, ha, ha) Alexander fumes, "F-you!. To me has bothered to read your delirium."

Ah, such sweet revenge! Bob Servant has done a right bloody good turn for all of us in keeping these con artists at bay and wasting their time.

There are seven more tales in the book. One wishes there were a few more. Bottom line on the old laugh-o-meter: five stars.

This book is an eye-opener on privacy invasion, and how it can harm you in countless ways. It is a comprehensive study of the many forms privacy invasion can take, especially as practiced on the Internet, and what you can do to protect yourself. Author Dan Tynan has studied these offensive practices for years, and gives us the benefit of his research and findings. Find out what is going on, and what you can do protect yourself, not only on the internet, but in other aspects of your life as well.

Much as we don't want to, privacy is something we all need to think about and protect these days, unless we want to give up our computers and other gadgets and go back to stone tablets. Now we have an easy, funny, understandable guide to protecting ourselves in the online age, and we'd be foolish (and just asking for trouble) to ignore it. Dan Tynan has done all the hard work for us; now we just need to make sure that everyone we know reads this book!

This book covers more than just your digital privacy. It sweeps on a wide variety of privacy topics. I find that a good thing since it's comprehensive. In reality your digital identity is interspersed with your physical identity and both a very important.

This is the most accessible of the privacy books I've read. The advice is presented in bite sized bits that are easy to understand and implement. It gives both background and practical advice. Both of which are necessary to understand the problem and the solutions.

Computer Privacy Annoyances
O'Reilly
By Dan Tynan
ISBN 0596007752

As someone who gets asked questions about Internet use and safety all the time, a book I had been itching to read was "Computer Privacy Annoyances", by Dan Tynan. According to the cover, the book covers "How to avoid the most annoying invasions of your personal and online privacy."

The quick and dirty? The book gives very practical, real-world examples of how your data can be used, yet the author manages to avoid sounding like a doomsayer... even some of the more scary scenarios don't come off sounding like sensationalism, just honest (and sometimes even apologetic) examples of what could very realistically happen. (I thank you, Mr. Tynan.)

I'll take bets on anyone that doesn't learn at least ten new things they didn't know about their privacy rights. Mr. Tynan has taken the proverbial "They" and reduced it to the very organizations that "they" really are. Did you know you can request a copy of your FBI files? Do you know who has the power view it? Do you know who is collecting data on you at this very moment and what they are doing with it?

The book's format allows for a surprisingly fast read. Well organized sections such as privacy at home, on the Internet, in public, at work, and even on a federal level allow for quick chapter absorption. In each chapter, the author states the annoyance, and then the fix. This allows for quick skipping over an 'annoyance' that might not annoy you that much.

I did notice that the author made no mention of the everyday information users give out about themselves without even realizing it, such as usernames that contain birthdates and such. But the Internet privacy chapter is only a small portion of the topics covered in this book. In fact, if I had to find one fault with this book, however, I'd say they lost a much larger audience that could have easily benefited from the book by calling it *Computer* Privacy Annoyances.

As a tech professional, if I could get all my clients, users, friends, family and complete strangers to read this book, I strongly believe identify theft could become a thing of the past. And it might even reduce global blood pressure, too. Bonus!

Privacy? Good luck! Even the slightest misstep on line (or anywhere else, for that matter) can open you up to privacy intrusions that you may not know about. Dan Tynan does a really good job in outlining these areas in Computer Privacy Annoyances. This is pretty much required reading for living in our heavily computerized society.

Contents: Privacy At Risk; Privacy At Home; Privacy On The Net; Privacy At Work; Privacy In Public; Privacy And Uncle Sam; Privacy In The Future; Index

In this Annoyances title, Tynan looks at a wide range of activities and situations that involve a potential unwanted loss of privacy. Using a question and answer format, he effectively shows how seemingly innocent activities (like booking a hotel room or ordering a kosher meal on a flight) can be logged and combined to build a profile of your activities that may not present a very flattering picture of who you are and what you do (and with whom). While there's the obligatory chapters on spam, online registration sites, and the like, there are also excellent chapters that cover privacy at work (what your employers can and can not do) as well as health record concerns. Things may not be as secure and private as you think they are...

Realistically, there's already more information out there to be gleaned than you'd probably expect and be comfortable with. But by reading and digesting the contents of this book, you can start to reduce your exposure going forward. Even just the awareness of privacy concerns will start to cause you to question *why* a merchant might want certain information. They may *want* your zip code or phone number, but that doesn't mean you *have* to give it to them. Even if this book keeps you from making just one mistake that would lead to identity theft, then it's more than paid for itself. A recommended read...

"The Complete Guide to E-mail Marketing: How to Create Successful, Spam-free Campaigns to Reach Your Target Audience and Increase Sales" was selected as a "Notable" finisher in the 2008 Competition in the "Business" Category.

The Eric Hoffer Award (formerly the Writers' Notes Award) for short prose and books was established at the start of the 21st century as a means of opening a door to writing of significant merit. It honors the memory of the great American philosopher Eric Hoffer by highlighting salient writing. The winning stories and essays are awarded prizes and published annually in the anthology, Best New Writing, along with the results of the book awards.

Most books that promise to be the only manual you need to succeed, do one of two things; either deliver the goods or not. Brown's Email Marketing Guide delivers and more. While some authors make a point of burying valid information towards the back of the book, Brown makes a point of introducing the material in an orderly and logical manner. Brown has put together one of the most thorough and complete books on the vast subject of email marketing. I will definitely recommend it to my friends and business associates.

and it's 5 stars for this book, since here we get clear, easy to follow, and good advices to follow, and we have good selection of experts and good advices. If you plan buy a book on e-mail marketing this one will be good choice.

Also, I need to say, that as good was this book - same bad was another this author's book - The Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Marketing: Pay Per Click Advertising Secrets Revealed

in this book, advices are or outdated, or even wrong, experts so called "advices" are nothing else but sales letters, and it is clear enough, that Search Engine Marketing is not a thing what this author knows.

But this book e-mail marketing, is clearly one of the best till now written on the topic.

With the passing of the CAN-SPAM Act in 2003, it has grown more difficult to legitimately market through email. This book addresses this issue and many others with regard to email marketing. Mr. Brown provides a comprehensive guide to marketing your business or product through email, while navigating spam filters. This book is written for legitimate businesses with legitimate products and services to sell.

Mr. Brown describes how to grow your business through your website. Additional topics covered include how to write an effective sales email, search engine optimization (SEO), and to effectively target your emails. The book includes a glossary of terms and numerous case studies.

I liked this book. It is available for just about anyone. Whether you are an online merchant or a traditional retailer. There is something there for you.

We are given an in depth history of the internet. I never knew it was first used by the military. Then there are when the first emails were sent. Totally mind boggling.

Bruce gives us the low down on four major areas of online marketing:

Paid search advertisements (pay per click)
Banner adverts
Classified ads
Email marketing

Interweaved within all this are case studies that show how the best systems work. Chapter 15 is jam packed with them too.

The author, Bruce Brown teaches how to write an effective email. He starts with the subject line then gets around to the best day to send it. We all know why Mondays are not a good day and most of us can figure out why Fridays are not another good day.

Wait till you find out which is the best day and why. The best time for sending emails are 7am-10:30am. We also get a free treat. That is website optimization tools and some web design helps. The addresses are all in his book.

As usual Bruce gives us a glossary. But because this book is such an easy read you won't need it. I think it is there just in case.

Everyone is always complaining about spam and frankly I do not know why. This stuff is quite healthy and a great alternative to most those veggie burgers the vegan nazis are trying to get me to eat. Nothing like real meat though but anyways why is everyone always complaining about spam and associating it with email? This cookbook is a marvelous one yes it sure is.

This is a bold and imaginative cookery book. Eggers shows flair with a daring East/West fusion in her Thai influenced Spam with Mint and Brocoli: tender chunks of luncheon loaf stir-fried with fish sauce, chili, brown sugar and brocoli then topped with fresh mint. Look out too for her Spam en Croute - slab of reconstituted pork coated in a rich mushroom pate and wrapped in filo pastry. It's a triumph. That distinctive taste of the abbatoir floor you get with Spam comes through best, perhaps, in a simple yet delicious Spam Tartare - raw Spam, ground with anchovies, egg yolk, mustard, oil and Worcestershire Sauce. Mmmmmm. Heaven.

Whatta concept! Whatta design! Tell all your friends

The recipe on page 20 is wonderfu

We threw a Spam themed birthday party for a friend - everyone had to bring a food item made from Spam. Just when I was freaking out about not knowing what to bring, I discovered this book. (Which proves that there is a book on everything!)

Since I'm not a cook nor too creative in the kitchen, I was pretty nervous about making food and expecting friends to eat it. But then I realized, hey it's Spam, no one expects it to be good! The recipe I picked was the Spam Risotto. It was super easy to make and - gasp! - it tasted really good!

I loaned this book to another party go-er and she whipped up the Spam loaf (with salmon) and it was surprisingly tasty as well.

Previous to purchasing this book, the only way I'd ever had Spam was fried up and in a sandwich, but now the door is open to many possibilities.

This little book has all the kitch to make it cool and some damn good recipes inside!

I enjoyed this book and found it filled with usefull imformation. Opened my eyes to the new world of marketing.

Winton Churchill makes this subject understandable for any type business owner. I have put his strategies to use and I have watched my business grow right in front of my eyes. I do not come from a business background and I had the traditional thinking for marketing which does not work any more. I am looking forward to the next book or maybe the next step is a coaching program.

Great book...really drills in on the complex sale issues...stays away
from jargon...easy to read and understand...a good blueprint (and usable step-by step methodology)for anybody thinking about ethical email lead generation and email marketing.

This is required reading for any B2B business owner that has to build a relationship with their prospects before they buy.

My business (and therefore practically my whole life) depends on email marketing. That's why I thought I could skip the Introduction and first three chapters, since they seemed to be written to do a sell job on how important email marketing is to growing your business.

However, I'm so glad I didn't skip them, because Mr. Churchill taught me what a complex sale is and how I needed to look at my business differently. You see, recently I had begun marketing this new higher-end (i.e. very expensive) book marketing program and I had been getting very frustrated with the results I was getting.

It works brilliantly, so I didn't know why the sales leads weren't converting. I thought perhaps the market was going dry, or my sales staff was losing their edge, or maybe the down economy was forcing people away from promoting their books and I should consider a new business.

I was so good to find out it wasn't the economy, and I don't have to hire new sales people, and there is no need to change businesses. I just needed to treat my email marketing differently.

The rest of the book was extremely valuable in putting together the right plan of action. There was no techno-babble, just straightforward, plain language guidance that I could understand and apply.

If you have a business with a complex sales cycle and it's in the slow lane, or if you want to add a higher end product or service and create success right from the start, then I highly recommend you get this book.

Winton Churchill's system will attract more prospects and kick their buying into high gear, because it teaches them how to make their decisions faster and with greater confidence. And, if you're in a situation like I was, it will reduce the wear and tear on both you and your sales team. It should be required reading for every sales manager.

DrProactive Randy Gilbert, #1 Business Adviser to Authors

I've tried to use the internet as it was intended, a free and open system where I could surf, send e-mails to friends and business associates, and generally tried to be a good internet citizen. Why is it then that about 60% of the e-mail I receive is trying to sell me investments, medicine, a phony degree, or enlargement of certain body parts, some of which I don't even have.

The answer, of course, is that it's free to send out e-mails in any quantity to any list of addresses. What I don't understand is why the congress has allowed it to continue, but they do.

The answer is that you have to be prepared to defend yourself from these unwanted intrusions. I thought I was doing pretty well, until a particularly nasty adware program managed to get into and install itself in my system. One of the packages included on the CD in this book solved the problem, that alone made the book worth its price.

If you want to fight back against spammers, first you need to know how they operate. This book explains in detail the techniques spammers use to create their mailing lists. That's essential to understand if you want to avoid spam in the first place. The book also offers tips and techniques for coping with an inbox already overrun with spam.

The same is true with viruses and spyware. You first need to learn how these nasty things spread so you can avoid getting infected. The book goes into great detail on this issue with clear explanations and very helpful advice. For those already afflicted, it explains how to remove a virus or spyware infection. The software on the included CD helps with that as well.

The section on pop-ups explains what pop-ups are and where they come from. It then teaches you how to effectively use pop-up blocking software.

Make no mistake, this book is written for the general user; it's no reference text for IT professionals. But even experienced users will find a lot of worthwhile material.

Anyone who has been around computers lately can tell you that spyware, pop-up, adware and other assorted infections is enough to drive you right up the wall. Trying to remove all the problems could become a full time occupation. How does one combat all these nasty problems and still have the computer up and running?

Having spent that last several months working on a spyware lockdown, this book has provided some very important information for me to the project. The book does give you a great deal of interesting reading that is written for just about all levels of comprehension.

The author has given you a number of ways to configure, install, setup and troubleshoot the various ways to block spyware, spam, the ever annoying pop-ups and even viruses. What this book does is lay out a way for the reader to first take in the concepts and then try it out. As always you need to make sure you have a backup of the system you will be working.

The book does come with a cd that has several demos and even a couple of freeware utilities, although the Spybot and Ad-Aware are out of date since the printing, they are still useful and best of all free. Overall the book does a good job of informing the user without being over technical and if you are new to computers this might be a good pickup to see what you are in for.

There is no question that the pests addressed in this book are a significant threat to the everyday functionality of computers. This is particularly true of home users who don't have the benefit of a network security administrator to implement and maintain a perimeter firewall and ensure that antivirus detection is kept up to date.

Home users generally think of the computer as an appliance. They don't want to know more than they have to in order to use it for its intended purpose. They aren't trying to become computer security experts any more than they want to understand the physics behind how the microwave oven works.

Unfortunately, you can use a microwave oven without understanding the physics, but at least a rudimentary understanding of the threats out there and how to protect your computer or network from them are required to effectively use the computer.

Feinstein does a good job of explaining what the threats are and why you are at risk, and then providing the reader with fairly simple instructions to help shield the computer from that threat and protect your data and your network bandwidth so you can use the computer as you intended.

This is a good resource for a home user trying to learn about protecting their PC

(...)

As someone who's been dealing with a lot of spam and spyware problems lately, I found this to be an invaluable book. Feinstein really knows his stuff and offers lots of great info and practical advice, suggestions, etc. It comes w/ a CD-ROM too, which is a nice plus. Highly recommended for anyone having trouble with spam, spyware, viruses, and pop-ups. Read it and you'll feel safer about your online life.

The book is great for the experts, geeks, average user and the inexperienced newbie who just went "online" and started using email.

It goes into details but yet explains things in a way that can be understood by anybody. The power of metaphors and examples from the offline world from everyday life do the trick.

This book is the most comprehensive book to the subject of email spam, its various forms, its purpose and why it is so hard to stop it.

If you already receive a lot of spam an wonder why you got it, even though you did everything correctly and protected your email like you protect your credit card numbers, read the book. Even if you did not receive a lot of spam, read the book, no, YOU have to read the book.

I would also suggest it to anybody who just went online and thus is vulnerable to phishing and 419 fraud due to the lack of experience.

You are reading this review, which means that you are online. Don't browse away without buying this book!

How do spammers select their targets, make money on gaining email addresses, and gain information just from a preview of a spam message? How spammers and hackers work is revealed by veteran technology interpreter Danny Goodman in SPAM WARS: OUR LAST BEST CHANCE TO DEFEAT SPAMMERS, SCAMMERS, AND HACKERS. Chapters tell how criminals and scammers operate, how they use the email system, and when anti-spam technology and laws can't help. It also provides tips on how users can protect themselves and their email against attack. An invaluable, important guide.

I was recently sent a review copy of the book Spam Wars by Danny Goodman. This is an excellent read for anyone wanting to understand where spam comes from and how the whole "spamonomy" operates...

Contents: Introduction; Email Predators, Guardians, and Victims; Grasping Spam (not SPAM); How We Got into This Mess; Behind the Curtain: How Email Works; It's the Spamonomy, Stupid!; How Spammers Get Your Email Address; Meet the Spammers and Scammers; The Spammer's View of the World; How Spam Differs from Junk Mail; The Antispammer's View of the World; Spammer Tricks Part 1: Headers; Spammer Tricks Part 2: Messages; Beware Geeks Bearing Gifts; Rule #3: Spammers Are Stupid; Technology as a Partial Solution; The Law as a Partial Solution; An Email Manifesto and To-do List; All about Email Message Headers; An Introduction to Span Sleuthing; Online Resources; Glossary; Index

Unlike books that offer purely technical solutions to reduce the amount of spam you receive, Goodman takes a step back and lays the groundwork for how we found ourselves in the current environment. Any reasonably intelligent person will be able to take this book and begin to understand just how much of a problem this is. It's not just the 50 (or 500) emails you have to delete every day. It's the billions that get sent out continuously by spammers and scammers who don't deliver on their offers. And because there are people dumb enough to respond, it's a very lucrative business that has no regard for the victims... those of us who don't want to increase certain body parts or meet girls who are hot for us. Please!

Goodman has a very irreverent style of writing in this particular work, and it's fun to read. He has no qualms to call spammers "stupid" and then back it up with examples that are far too numerous. I also appreciate that he doesn't attempt to offer some "silver bullet" that will magically take care of all your issues. There isn't one, and he openly acknowledges that. Technology can fix part of the problem, and laws can somewhat address another small segment. But in his final chapter, the "manifesto", he offers a series of steps and actions that each of us can take to start reclaiming our rightful possession that the spammer has stolen from us... our email address.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who doesn't understand what the fuss is, or to those who have reached the end of their rope with spam. You don't have to be a techno-geek to read and understand the material, and you can start to make a difference in your little corner of the internet. And if enough people take the same steps, perhaps things will become better for everyone...

Spam Wars is truly a computer book for the twenty-first century. Award-winning technology interpreter Danny Goodman teaches readers Spam 101 followed by an intermediate course in Spam, including how to recognize spam, the importance of firewalls, spam, virus, spyware and malware filters that should be installed on every computer, and much more. In a day and age where the worst possible spam can lead to identity theft and worse, Spam Wars is much-needed reading for every small business and household that relies heavily upon computers and the internet. The basics for protecting oneself from attack are presented in plain terms that even the technologically clueless can quickly grasp, and special attention is given to the exploitable flaws in Microsoft Windows and the Outlook email program. Highly recommended.

There is one classic book that sits on my bookshelf and shows the wear and tear of repeated use and that book is the JavaScript Bible by Danny Goodman. So when I found that Goodman had written a book about the eternal struggle against spam and phishing scams, I really wanted to get my hands on a copy of Spam Wars: Our Last Best Chance to Defeat Spammers, Scammers, and Hackers (Select Books, 2004, ISBN 1-59079-063-4, 330 pages) to see his take on this subject.

In a writing style that would make "Dr. Phil" proud, Goodman pulls no punches in providing a tough love narrative weaving history, challenges, and opportunities to attack this enemy head on and win the war. At US$12.21 a copy on Amazon, there is no reason potential readers should hesitate to buy a copy for themselves and copies for all their well meaning friends and relatives who do the stupid behaviors that spammers more than profit from.

Goodman makes no apologies for his approach to the topic and the fact that it is driven by his personal philosophies, but unlike the author of another spam title I recently reviewed, he gets his research and facts right, not only providing citations but links to source documents. From his "outing" of the first commercial spam from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) on ARPANET in 1978, to his plain English explanations of how email is routed, to his line by line explanations of what is contained in email headers, Goodman undertakes and successfully delivers content for the lay audience, as well as technical readers.

In some ways, Goodman may be overly optimistic that if the economic vitality that fuels spam is cut off, then the problem will go away. I myself have fought too many unsuccessful uphill battles with family and friends to either not forward mass e-mails or learn the simple BCC concept. But there is much more likelihood of success if we do this. Why? Because as Goodman illustrates very well, lobbyists and special interests have very successfully watered down any attempts at real legislation with teeth, and even the most rigid laws stop at our borders. He also shows how the original developers of the Internet are the real root cause of the problem, regardless of how good their intentions were.

And his book also educates beyond technology and spam/scams. He teaches you about things like the fact that you do not have to return a warranty card to a manufacturer to have protections of the warranty. He talks about elements of social engineering not often discussed: the use of certain words and phrases to exploit the god-fearing, the bleeding hearts, and the lonely.

So if you want yet another great reference book from Danny Goodman, then this book fits the bill. The only fault I have with the book and hopefully the publisher can address this is that this book was not released under a Creative Commons License like "We The Media". The reason for this is that Goodman wants the content and "gospel" passed onto as many people as possible. Creative Commons licensing would have definitely jumpstarted this effort, since there are no handy download documents or information sheets that can easily be distributed to others. However, I view this as gravy and in no way detracts from this book.

Who Should Read This Book?

Everybody. This includes you, your significant other, your grandmother, your neighbor, and/or anybody else who uses the Internet and really needs to understand the consequences of their behaviours.

The Scorecard

Double Eagle on a Par 5

This book is a must have for christmas. Its for the person "who has everything and you don't know what to get them. Great illustrations. Easy to read. Informative also. We put one in our customer lounge and people really enjoy paging through it. I would get one for every person on your wish list. Funny, clean, entertaining.

Need a fun eye candy with meat book to alleviate the boredom while waiting for your plane to take off, land or show up? This would be your answer...lots of info with brilliant color, facts and fun! Small enough to pack into a carry-on, have in your bath or anywhere you might like to enjoy short bursts of spamtastic data! Great stocking stuffer! Who knew????

Every page of this book is hilarious! I was also pleasantly surprised by the fun and witty historical account of Spam and canned foods in general. Very funny stuff.
Your friends will dig it at your next cocktail party. mmmm...Spam.

The Book of Spam is everything I could have hoped for...it's funny, informative, and beautifully designed. I have it out on my coffee table, and all my guests get a big kick out of it.