Half a man day every day! What does that cost you? Kind of surprised that it took you so long to get around to this, but, given your tendency to not do anything until you can do it *right*, I understand. :)

It is true that the war against SPAM is a war of escalation, and you have just engaged the enemy. I (once again) suggest that you employ an army/militia that fights these battles (and wins) daily. No doubt you VPOPers can hone yer ninja skillz to a level where you are mitigating a lot of the junk, but it does (as you note) take one of your warriors out of other fights. More important fights probably.

Plus, you must concede that an organization that does nothing else 24 hours / day (and is the largest in the world) can do a better job than you entire team, just based on better access to info, focussed experience, and sheer headcount.

Being the control phreaks you are, your sphincters are probably in a collective knot over the *possibility* of outsourcing anything tech related.

You do not currently engineer your own chips, and last time I was in your "gayrage" I noticed you had even succumbed to having Mr. Dell assemble your workstation - a large step for sure!

You do not brew your own beer - although, it would be hard to brew something worse than that lyte stchuff you serve up... :) (actually, now in 'merka I have actually had a few lighties and been ok with it, and the pleasure of your company always makes it acceptable in the 1000 Oaks area).

Plus, you could even get (a crappy service) for free from yer employer - although you do get what you pay for. Or, an old friend of yours might hook you up with a primo service - certainly a free trial. You would have the added bonus of completely eliminating viruses from your and your customers' mail streams. Only one company in the world guarantees complete 100% protection against all know and new unknown viruses, and you have an "in"! Protection against unknown viruses? It's real baby! Hard to believe, but you need the hookup!

You are probably starting to get calls from other network providers, threatening to black list your network as a result of your users relaying spam as a result of virus infections that create zombie relays. How much does it cost to (have Mo) call a (l)user and tell them to buy AV software, or explain them that their AV software does not have a signature for these new viruses, as there are too many for them to keep up with....

http://www.entmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=6059

Anyhey - you know I love you, in a manner acceptable to your wife. :)

Merry ho ho and all that biz - will be in LA soon, will give you warning to clear out of town...

Toodles -

uknowhoo

Well, half a man right now... it is pretty new to us and we are dealing with all sorts of little challenges. It seems this is all Matt has time to do (and I only get him half-time these days). I certainly hope the time needed drops significantly - Time will tell.

I know of a person working at a company who gay-ron-tees no virii via email but of course we like to do things the hard way. It's a mix of cost and loss of control that keeps us spinning gold in-house. I don't know if we'll ever get over the control issue. I didn't think y'all were going after the ISP/Hosting market.

Also, not only is my workstation a Dell, we outsourced the last two servers we brought online as well. No Dell or name brand but built by someone else. I kinda liked the feeling, maybe I'll do it again. Wonders will never cease.

As for your upcoming LA visit, let me know! If only I could SHORT the real estate market... I'd make a killing.

Time *will* tell.

We are actually ending up doing some big XSP deals, as a result of the virus thing. The pain is great, and no one else can really do what we do. They (like you) do not like the cost, but balanced against the costs of not doing anything, it makes real sense. We are not greedier than other services, we are better. Again, you get what you pay for.

You should be outsourcing your workstation to Jobs not Dell, but this may be another example of "penny wise - pound foolish". I sense a recurring theme here. :)

Air France seems to have good deals right now to LAX! :)