FictCo Support

New Spam Filtering Tools

We have recently implemented new spam filtering tools on our email server to keep your inbox as spam-free as possible. While we have been testing, you may have actually noticed an increase in the amount of spam that you have received due to the nature of our filters. But rest assured that we are now here to help you filter out all of the badness to keep your inboxes clean and happy.

WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW?
All email is getting scanned as it comes into our server and the subject line will be prepended with either the string "{Spam?}" or "{Definitely Spam?}" if it is spam (the "Definitely" modifier comes in if the spam filter scores it so high that there is no chance that it is legitimate email) or "{Virus?}" if our virus scanner detects an email virus.

What this means is that you can edit your email program to scan for any of those strings and move that email into a junk mail folder as it arrives so you never have to see it. If you are feeling brave, you can have the email deleted immediately, but we recommend moving it to another folder so you can review it every once in a while in case a legitimate email comes through.

In Apple's Mail Program:
- Go to the "Mail" menu to "Preferences" and choose the "Rules" item at the top
- There you will want to "Add Rule" that will move find any message where the "Subject" "Begins with" "{Spam?}" (or "{Definitely Spam?}") and moves that mail to a junk mail folder

In Outlook Express:
- Go to the "Tools" menu, to "Message Rules" and the "Mail" submenu
- There you will be able to set up the conditions for filtering the spam (you will most likely want to add a rule "Where the Subject line contains specific words" and create a new rule for "{Spam?}" and "{Definitely Spam?}"

In Your Admin Panel:
This method is not recommended, because you will not be able to review your emails before deleting. However:
- Log into your Admin Panel
- Click on "Email Filtering"
- Click on "Add Filter"
- After [Subject] [That Contains], add "{Spam?}" (without the quotes)
- Click "Activate"
- Repeat for subject "{Definitely Spam?}"
Any email marked in that way will be discarded before it gets to your inbox.

WHAT HAPPENS IF A LEGITIMATE EMAIL GETS FLAGGED AS SPAM?
We hope that this doesn't happen, and the rules that we are using are fairly conservative, but false positives can happen. If this does happen, please let us know so we can poke around our rules to see what caused that email to be marked as spam. The best thing for you to do is to send a copy of the email message to support@fictco.com so we can look at it. If possible, please view all the email headers in your email program and then copy and paste those into the email you send us - that way we can see what was going on with our scanners.

In Apple's Mail program:
- Go to the message in question
- Click on the "View" menu and then go to "Message" and then select "Long Headers"
- Copy the entire email message into a new email and send it to support@fictco.com

In Outlook Express:
- Click on the message in question
- Hold down control and click on the message in the message list and go to the "Properties" item that comes up
- Click on the "details" tab and click on the "Message Source..." button
- Select the entire contents of that box, press Control-C to copy the message and then close those boxes, create a new message to support@fictco.com and paste in the contents of the message

There are more tips for fighting spam here.

Adding POP Accounts

To add additional POP email accounts:

1. Log into your Admin Panel
2. Under "Email", click "Manage Accounts"
3. At the bottom of the page, click [ Add Account ]
4. Fill in the email address and password. The "Quota" box allows you to set limits on how much email this user can receive, set at 10 Meg by default. We recommend setting limits, as email counts towards your Disk Quota, and filling that entire quota will cause all user email to bounce.
5. Click "Create." If the setup was succesful, you will arrive at an "Account created" page.

• Configuring your Mail program to check added accounts

Fighting Spam

Yes, everybody gets spam. And when someone comes up with a new way to block it, spammers come up with a new way around the block. But there are a few things you can do to keep the influx of unwanted mail to its bare minimum.

1. PROTECT YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
If you put an unprotected email address on your website, you will get spam, and lots of it. Nasty little programs called "spiders" crawl all over the internet, scuttling from link to link, and gather email unprotected email addresses to spam.

What does an unprotected email address look like?
If you wrote your email address in this format:
name@yourdomain.com
or the code you used starts with something like this:
<a href="mailto:name@yourdomain.com">
then your email address is unprotected.

How to Protect Your Email Address
Whenever you want to put an email address on your site, use this javascript in the place of the usual mailto:

<script language="JavaScript"> <!--
document.write('<a href="mailto:' + 'name' + '@' + 'yourdomain.com' + '">' + 'name' + '@' + 'yourdomain.com' + '</a>');
// --> </script>

2. DON'T USE COMMON EMAIL ADDRESSES
Some email addresses have been used so many times on so many sites that spammers email them automatically, whether or not they have been published on your site. We recommend against using addresses such as "webmaster@yourdomain.com" or "info@yourdomain.com". If you find you are getting email at any of these addresses, you can tell the server to discard them by setting up a filter in your Admin Panel.

Setting Up Email Filters
1. Log into your Admin Panel
2. Under "Email", click on "Email Filtering"
3. Click [Add Filter]
4. From the pulldown menu, select FilterTo that Equals, and in the dialogue box type the offending email address (i.e. )
5. Make sure Destination is
6. Hit
7. Repeat for as many email addresses as necessary. You can also filter based on other criterion, including "From" addresses, certain words in the body of the email, etc.

3. ENABLE SPAM ASSASSIN
Every FictCo account comes equipped with Spam Assassin, the industry standard spamfighting tool. By default, Spam Assassin is inactive when your account is set up, but we highly recommend enabling the program. When you do, you'll be able to adjust the sensitivity of the program based on your personal needs.

To Activate Spam Assassin
1. Log into your Admin Panel
2. Under "Email", click on "Spam Assassin"
3. Click

To Configure Spam Assassin
1. Once Spam Assassin has been enabled, Click

2. Set Make sure required_score to the sensitivity you desire
3a. If you would like to receive email that Spam Assassin marks as Spam, put a marker in rewrite_header subject, such as ****SPAM****. Spam Assassin will put that marker in front of the subject of all emails it tags as spam.
3b. If you would like to discard all email that Spam Assassin marks as spam, return to your main admin page, and click on "Filter", as above. Click "Add Filter" and from the pulldown menu, select FilterSpamAssassin Spam Header that Begins With, and in the dialogue box type: ). Make sure "Destination" is "Discard" and click "Activate"

For More Information About Spam Assassin
Visit their website.

4. DEACTIVATE YOUR CATCHALL
Getting Spam to email addresses you haven't even set up? That's because your site has a Catchall, which is set up to forward anything@yourdomain.com to the main address. Spammers will often send to random email addresses in hopes of finding a real person, and if your Catchall is active, you will receive those emails. So, if you want to reduce the amount of spam you could potentially receive, deactivate the Catchall.

HOW TO:
1. Log into your Admin Panel
2. Under "Email", click on "Default Address"
3. You'll see "All unrouted mail will be sent to:" and the address to which unrouted mail is sent. Click on "Set Default Address".
4. Enter ":fail: no such address here" (no quotation marks) in the dialogue box and click "Change". All email that is not addressed to an account or a forwarder will now be discarded.

Webmail

You can check your email online at webmail.fictco.com.

The login for your main account and additional POP accounts are different. To check webmail for your main account, you'll need your username and password.

MAIN ACCOUNT
Name: username
Password: ••••
To check webmail for additional POP accounts, you'll need the popname, webaddress, and pop password.

ADDITIONAL POP ACCOUNTS
Name: popname@webaddress.com
Password: ••••

THINGS TO REMEMBER
Webmail takes up server space. If you have a 2MB file in your webmail, you have 2MB less space on your disk. If you have filled all of your alloted server space, email to you is returned to sender. You can keep track of how much space you have left in your admin panel.
How to log into your admin panel

If you check your email using a program like Mail, Outlook, or Entourage, it downloads your messages to your hard drive and deletes them from the server. This frees up space.
How to check your main POP account

Webmail remains on the server until you delete it or download it. Deleted mail remains in the trash (and continues to take up space) until you empty the trash.

POP Settings: Secondary Accts

If you have additional POP accounts set up, they'll need your webaddress, and their popname and password to set up Mail, Outlook or Entourage to check their account.

RECEIVING MAIL
AccountID: popname+yourwebaddress.com
POP Server: mail.yourwebaddress.com
Password: ••••

SENDING MAIL
SMTP Server: mail.yourwebaddress.com
Under "advanced receiving options," check SMTP service requires authentication and Use same settings as receiving mail server

Please note that your Internet provider may require you to send email through their mail server. If you get an error message saying that the SMTP server could not be reached, you will need to contact your ISP to find out what mail server to put into this box.

USEFUL LINKS
• Apple Mail Support
• Microsoft Products Support Entourage | Outlook | Outlook Express

POP Settings: Main Account

To set up an email program such as Mail, Outlook or Entourage to check your main POP account, you need the following: your webaddress, username, and password.

RECEIVING MAIL
AccountID: username
POP Server: mail.yourwebaddress.com
Password: ••••

SENDING MAIL
SMTP Server: mail.yourwebaddress.com
Under "advanced receiving options," check SMTP service requires authentication and Use same settings as receiving mail server

Setting up additional POP accounts

USEFUL LINKS
• Apple Mail Support
• Microsoft Products Support Entourage | Outlook | Outlook Express