Questions from the Inbox

By Keith Darnay

"How much of all e-mail traffic is spam? How can I verify the truth of some e-mails?"

The June 2010 Symantec MessageLabs Intelligence report indicates spam accounts for 89 percent of all e-mail traffic around the world. In the U.S., that figure is about 90 percent.

A January 2010 report by the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) suggests spam accounts for 95 percent of all global inbox e-mail traffic.

According to the Symantec report, 1 in every 276 e-mails contained viruses while phishing (masquerading as a truthworthy site or source to steal personal information) accounted for 1 in every 634 e-mails.

On average, according to the report, there are nearly 1,600 new Web sites every day that harbor malware and other potentially unwanted programs such as spyware and adware. And that's a 10 percent decrease from May 2010.

What if you want to quickly determine the veracity of an e-mail message, story or request? Go to Snopes, TruthOrFiction or several other e-mail mythbusting sites. More often than not, the cause or call to action in an "urgent" e-mail is false, outdated or a misinterpretation of the truth.

Symantec Report
www.messagelabs.com/intelligence.aspx

ENISA Report
www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=8755

Snopes
www.snopes.com

TruthOrFiction
www.truthorfiction.com

BreakThe Chain
www.breakthechain.org

Purportal
www.purportal.com

"What's the song that contains the line, _____? Who sings the song _____?"

The Internet is a great place to find song lyrics, artist discographies and more.

There are several sites, like LyricServer, dedicated to helping you find a particular song based on a snippet of the lyrics you might recall.

A simple way to find the complete lyrics to a song is to type the song title in quotes in a search engine followed by the word, "lyrics." In almost all cases, the song lyrics you want will be found in the first handful of search results.

Want to know what albums, singles and other relevant information is associated with a particular artist? Type the singer or band's name in quotes in your favorite search engine followed by the word, "discography."

LyricServer
www.lyricserver.com

Lyrics Search Engine
lyrics.astraweb.com

"Where's all this great Google stuff I hear about?"

Go to the Google main page (www.google.com), click the "more" link in the top menu bar and then click the "even more" link at the bottom of the drop down box.

On the next page, you'll find a list of current Google projects and products. Some are in the beta testing stage, others are full release, little known gems to enhance your Web or desktop porocessing experiences.

More Google Products
www.google.com/intl/en/options/

"Where can I get all those cool, funny stories/photos/videos/tips?"

My coworker, Mike, lives for this stuff. Headlines like, "Boy tries to kill fish. Fish try to kill boy." Videos with explanations like, "My dog suddenly thinks he's a wolf while watching a documentary about wolves. He's never made this sound before." Or, "Use Lifesavers to Keep Candle Wax Off Cakes" and, "What caffeine actually does to our brains."

Below are some of the Web sites you can use to keep up on cutting edge news, tips and tales of the odd:

Reddit
www.reddit.com

Digg
www.digg.com

LifeHacker
www.lifehacker.com

StumbleUpon
www.stumbleupon.com

(Keith Darnay has worked in the online world for more than a decade, the traditional media world for a few decades more and manages the online department and Web site for the University of Mary. His own site, featuring this column going back to 1995, is at www.darnay.com.)