Although this tip targets one particular Internet provider, ANY computer user will benefit from the advice I give at the end of the article. In Western Colorado, a company called Bresnan provides a large swath of the cable services...including cable Internet. Overall, I have no problems with the Bresnan service. They run an extremely speedy and pretty stable Internet connection.
However, my beef with the service has always been their sub-standard email service.
Over the past few weeks, Bresnan customers have been pleasantly surprised to see that all of the sudden 99% or more of their spam messages have stopped arriving in either their screened mail folder or their inbox. They were happy. What they and I didn't start to figure out until this week was that Bresnan's new anti-spam system was so stringent that many legitimate individual and business emailers no longer can send to a Bresnan address. They swung the pendulum too far the other way.
Unfortunately, there is no solution that I can see for the moment except to strongly consider the advice I have dished out for years: DO NOT USE YOUR INTERNET PROVIDERS EMAIL SYSTEM! I hope I said that plainly enough. When you sign up for Internet service from any entity, a complimentary email address automatically comes with it. You are NOT obliged to use that email at all.
For a much better email experience and have the ability to check your email from any computer any time AND get an email address you will never have to change no matter who buys out who and how many times you move or switch Internet providers, change your email to one of the online systems like Yahoo Mail, Gmail, or Hotmail. Gmail is my current email system of choice [1]. OR, consider creating your own personal email address [2] by registering your own domain and use it for your email. Either of these options will allow you to avoid the frustration that Bresnan customers here in Colorado and elsewhere are experiencing.
Links:
[1] http://www.helpmerick.com/search/node/gmail+category%3A41
[2] http://www.helpmerick.com/node/138
[3] https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=rick@yourpcpartner.com&item_name=Buy
[4] http://www.yourpcpartner.com/eee_pc_airplane.htm
[5] http://www.yourpcpartner.com/are_macintosh_computers_poised_make_run.htm