HOWTO - get rid of spam from your email accounts
Prevention is better than cure. Keep your email address private. Give it only to your friends, relatives, and business associates. Leave it out of newsgroups postings and online forums.
Hotmail, I know, deactivates (but does not delete) accounts which have been dormant for more than 90 days. If you are receiving too much spam on your Hotmail account, simply stop using it and let the account be deactivated.
Keep it this way for a couple of months, then re-activate the account. Spammers will stop once they repeatedly receive bounced messages to your deactivated account. From then on, guard your email address well. Use another couple of email accounts for signing up to web forums, free web services and listing on instant messaging applications like ICQ and char programs like IRC. Occasiaonally let those accounts lie dormant as well.
For other email accounts, the only way I can think of right now, is to fill up the allocated storage so that any new mail is rejected. Maintain this long enough and spammers should also stop sending email to that address.
Alternatively, get MailWasher to filter and optionally bounce mail before they are even downloaded by your email client.
HOWTO - Rip Audio CD to MP3
I know MusicMatch is popular and good, but it is really bulky, plus it does not perform very well. Here is a solution based on freely available software. Tools:
CDex with Adaptec ASPI Manager
I had some frustration initially when CDex could not detect any CDROM drives after the installation of Adaptec's ASPI Manager. '
But I managed to find a
Solution.
Cool Open Source Software
Privacy should not be condoned, but neither should the notion intellectual property be used to ensure unrealistic profit expectations of many major companies. I advocate the use of open source software.
Sound editing Audacity
Analog Video Capture VirtualDub
DV Video Capture DVIO
Audio CD Ripping to MP3 CDex
MPEG 1/2 Encoding TMPEGEnc
Compiler MinGW
Image Viewer / Editor IrfanView
File Manager Total Commander
MP3 Player WinAMP
Email / Spam FilterMailWasher
There are some very good shareware type applications out there that I just have to give my thumbs up to. I encourage people to register and pay for them if they really find that these applications have increased their productivity.
Source Code Editor Source Insight
CD Creation Nero Burning ROM
Text/Code Editor UltraEdit