Jason Reusch SpamAssassin for Outlook. SpamAssassin for Outlook is an effort to port the popular UNIX spam filter to Outlook on Windows. The basic approach is to make a version of SA that can easily run on Windows and then provide an addin for Outlook that uses SA.

The spam problem at work has been getting precarious. We have a rule that says you should never do anything or go anywhere on the Internet that would cause you to “look over your shoulder” while at the workplace. This is actually a really intuitive and pragmatic rule for Internet usage. Unfortunately, in the past two weeks, I’ve had content delivered to my inbox that makes me worry about who is going to walk around the corner and into my cube.

By the way, careful if you do install this. It’s alpha software, and caused my Outlook XP to exhibit strange behavior. #

Dave Winer came off of my news reader today. I actually really think he’s an interesting read, but can come off as inflamatory at times. A recent reference to a dream about Madonna just about did me in. Besides, when he provokes thought throughout the blogging community, there are plenty of other places to read the discussion, sans the adolescent dreams. My friend Jon Cooper used to call that “demasiada información.” (¿cómo?) #

Charles Osgood, the decidedly clever commentator and writer of the Osgood File for WCBS was on the Leonard Lopate Show yesterday to talk about his new book called Funny Letters From Famous People. One of the topics discussed was the idea that emails have brought on the dumbing-down of writing in the last decade—especially when compared with the letter writing of only a few decades ago. This got me wondering. Sure, we know that the emails we send to friends and family are generally trite and hastily written. But, to make a comparison of, say, my writing versus, say, Winston Churchill’s is to become utterly embarrased of mine—or, wildy impressed of his, depending on how you look at it, I guess. ;-) It’s not really a fair comparison.

At any rate, blogs may be an answer to this problem of artful writing. They’re far less hastily written than emails and are often witty and insightful. What’s more, some of the world’s best minds are writing them, like Lawrence Lessig of Stanford and William Gibson of sci-fi fame. While perhaps less intimate than letter-writing (er, aside the aforementioned Madonna incident), archivists of the future may rely on these personal histories to study people of today. #