MayFlower Software

Tags: : Mail Enhancement
Monitoring my Inbox waiting for a reply is a vexing email problem that has bothered me for a long time. My coworkers know that I am disorganized, and like to have tools to keep me on the straight and narrow. I often send emails that require a response, but I have not found a fast and easy way to monitor if I ever get a reply to that important message. And I don't have a good system to do that.

So I designed a sidebar app, which I call Reply Watcher.  It allows me to drag messages from my Sent folder to the Reply Watcher sidebar for monitoring. I can also set a day (and time) when I will be notified via a pop-up in the task bar and via an email for when I am mobile.  It looks like this:

 

 

 

When messages are overdue, Reply Watcher sends an email with Overdue Reminders. I made the names "hot", so clicking on the name creates what I call an RSVP reminder letter, that basically looks like this:

 

When I am using my Mobile device (an iPhone for me, but I have tested it with an Android and Blackberry),  you can read the same Overdue Reminders message and generate the same  RSVP reminder with one click (I usually ise my thumb!!!).

So Reply Watcher, for me, is a way to stay organized and keep track of the people who I am waiting on for replies.

And I am making it available for people to try.  Click on Reply Watcher to see a short video and get the software to test. Or enter a comment with your email address and I will send you the software to try out yourself.

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:37 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Tags: : Disaster Recovery Planning
MayFlower provides MX Failover to all SpamSentinel customers in cases of emergency, as Hurricane Sandy has proven to be.

Currently, we have a law firm in New York and their mail is queueing up on our servers here, waiting for them to return to work (who knows when?). They are not responding to phone calls, which makes sense, as much of New York city is still having problems with water and electric power.

Many times, when I explain MX failover to customers, they generally say that they have redundant servers. Having done disaster recovery planning with ADP (the check processing people), I learned of the many ways problems can occur, and it is often not what you expect. Many organizations already have redundant or clustered servers, good power supplies, uninterruptible power supplies via batteries, and some have dual internet providers.

So, when I explain why the MX Failover service is needed, many say "SMTP is a fault tolerant protocol. The sender will hold the mail and resend.  But who wants to rely on the sender to resend the mail? And what if it takes 4 days to get power back?

The main reason is that MX Failover is totally invisible until you need it.

We tell customers to set their MX records like this:

10 Internal Server
10 (Optional) Redundant Internal Server
20 Any Other Organizational Server(s)
50 SpamSentinel MX Failover Servers

This way, all "good" senders will connect directly to their on-premise servers, and all we get is spam (oh well).  In the rare case of a Hurricane or other unforeseen event, we hold all of their mail, and call them via telephone (remember, we have all their mail and they cannot get to it) and tell them they have a problem and then wait for instructions from them. Oftentimes, our phone call is the first they are aware of the problem (although this was not the case with Hurricane Sandy).

Once we have the mail, and it looks like the outage will last for many days, we can do all sorts of things to get it to people. For a small law firm, we can forward it all to a single gmail account.For a large organization, we can setup temporary mailboxes, or redirect it to a server in a different geography.  Or we can just hold it indefinitely, as we queue it up in non-mail databases so that we can hold it until we receive instructions to release it.

MX Failover is part of our software offering for On-Premise customers. Take advantage of it.

So, for all SpamSentinel customers, contact me, Frank Paolino, and I will make sure you have this failover service!

Posted by Frank Paolino At 11:48 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Tags: : Sidebar App
In my continuing effort to help customers get a better return on their Lotus Notes investment, we have tuned our Canned Reply offering for CPAs and Accounting Firms.

Let's take a look at how a CPA firm would use Canned Replies for Lotus Notes.

Many CPA firms answer routine customer questions about tax questions via email. A common question asked by many customers relates to changing tax laws and deductions.

Busy tax accountants might be tempted to answer with a short answer, as the question appears to be "simple" to them, the trained professional. But often a customer wants more details.

So, this CPA firm has created over 100 Canned Replies that they share among other tax accountants and CPAs at their firm. These allow fast, uniform, quality replies every time! And their clients appreciate a complete, thorough answer. And these replies can be done in less than one minute. It is a win-win situation. Fast, complete replies save the CPA time, and the customer gets useful information.

More information is available here:
http://www.maysoft.com/cannedreply.nsf/

High Definition link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cBjgpnmwCY&hd=1

Posted by Frank Paolino At 10:54 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Tags: : Tuscan Mural

My daughter, Sophie Germaine, just completed a three week project making a mural on a wall in Concord, Massachusetts. Sophie and I were at La Provence restaurant over winter break and talked about doing something with that wall. The "wall" really was, to Sophie, a great big blank canvas and cried out for some color and life!  

Here is the wall as it looked in the early spring of 2012:




So, Sophie spoke with the wall's owner, Guy DiGiovanni, who was thrilled to have her propose a mural. They agreed on a "Tuscan theme" based on a sketch that Sophie photoshopped to the wall, to show (roughly) how it would look when finished:




Sophie started work in early July. She worked whenever there was no rain, including Saturday and Sunday. I took my GoPro camera and stuck it on her car for 3 weeks so it could film her transforming the wall. Here is the time lapse video showing the whole project in 2 minutes:




One thing that was really impressive to me was that Sophie never showed any hesitation about tackling such a large project. Self-doubt can ruin any creative project, whether it is art, design, or even software. However, whether Sophie was working with the owner on the design, or selecting the colors, testing them on the wall, renting a lift, or showing up at 8:30 every day and working till sundown, she managed the whole thing. I tried to help out a few times (with logistics, not painting) but she more or less said "I'm all set, thanks". Which is a great start to the "work of art".



The finished mural is 16 feet high and 30 feet long, making 480 square feet of art. I originally guessed that it would take 6 weeks of work to complete (based on no knowledge or experience). Sophie worked whenever it was not raining, putting in some very long days. But she produced art at a great pace, finishing in 3 weeks (although she said that "a painting is never done, you can always add more details to it").

Here is the final mural, with Sophie sitting in one of the chairs:

The local Concord paper, the Concord Journal,  interviewed Sophie about the painting of the mural, her inspiration and the process of painting on such a large scale. "I remember we visited this huge garden in a villa in Italy," said Sophie, "It had balusters and a lemon tree. I wanted to incorporate those into the landscape." The article also helped to invite all of Concord to attend the mural unveiling, in person. The "Concord Mural Unveiling" party was held at the mural on August 13, 2012 from 5 PM to 7 PM. Guests were treated to art along with hors d'oeuvres catered by Farfalle Italian Market and music.   About 80 people showed up to talk to the artist and admire the mural. Many people mentioned how it looked much more interesting in person than it appeared at a 4x6 photo in the Concord Journal, and were glad they came to see it in person.

One of Sophie's favorite parts of the mural is the life-sized table and two chairs in the foreground of the mural.

"You can go up to the painting and it actually looks like you are sitting on the chairs."

Many people who attended the unveiling took the opportunity for a "Mary Poppins" moment to sit in the mural and have some refreshments at the table. Here are pictures of a few:









As a small but pleasant note, Sophie painted herself and me biking in Tuscany into the mural:

About Sophie Germaine The mural can be found at 97 Thoreau Street, Concord, Mass. It was designed and painted by Sophie Germaine Paolino, recently completed her first year as an art student at SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago). It is 16 feet high by 30 feet long, and depicts a Tuscan landscape. This is Sophie's first project of this scale. More of Sophie's work can be seen on her blog here: http://sgermaine.weebly.com/

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:55 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: : = More spam
Many sources have this report:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/linkedin-6-5-million-passwords-leaked-as-ios-app-comes-under-fire/

They all say "change your LinkedIn password now".  What also comes to mind is that more spam will be generated by scammers exploiting this news story. They will be saying "click here to change your password", or "your LinkedIn account has been hacked", etc. etc.

Expect more spam purporting to be from LinkedIn. If you have whitelisted this domain, read carefully before you click on any links.



Here is how to check SpamSentinel.


Open the SpamSentinelAdmin.nsf database, open the Global Domains view and check for a linkedin.com or bounce.linked.com document and remove it.

Posted by Frank Paolino At 12:11 PM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Tags: : Ad Supported Software
One of the most popular features of Gmail is "Canned Responses", which are "official" answers to Frequently Asked Questions. It allows a Help Desk or Sales staff to provide more complete answers every time they reply. So I asked myself "Can this be done in Lotus Notes"? Well, the answer is "Yes" and we have done it!

We call it Canned Replies. It installs as a Lotus Notes Sidebar App* in about 2 minutes. It allows us to create high quality replies quickly while maintaining consistency among our staff. Now, when a user asks a question, we can reply directly from our knowledge base via our Sidebar App and have fast, uniform, quality replies every time!

Canned Replies are rich text and can include any color text or different FONTS, italics  or any      You can add a Word or PDF (or any other) attachment or even send an embedded link to a movie!  All of the replies are stored in a simple Lotus Notes database, that can be edited and shared with others on a Domino server. You can make your own "Replies" private for your own use only,  or public to be shared with your team.

We are giving the software away for free at the Everything Email blog site.  The software is ad supported, so please consider the sponsors if you like and use the software. We are also making a "no ad" version available for $49 per user with support starting year 2 at $25 per year.


A lot of people ask me, "Who can use Canned Replies?"    Here are some examples that apply to most organizations:

Internal Departments Human Resources Retirements Holiday Schedule Benefits Questions Vacation Policy Rejection letters Acceptance Letters Contracts as Attachments Information Technology Telephone Menus Voice Mail Computers Off Hours Support Login Information and Passwords Reception Directions to the Office Catering Cafeteria Menus Legal General internal & external communications Routine disclaimers NDA letters or PDF Attachments

External Facing Departments Sales Product Data Sheets Product Information General Terms and Conditions Product Announcements PDF attachments with Product Literature Customer Support Public Relations Press Releases Announcements Milestones Accept/Reject Guest Blog Requests Request for Media Interview Request for Charitable Donations Customer Support Greetings Product FAQs Support Hours Product Fixes and Patches Knowledge Base Items PDF attachments with Technical Literature

Watch a One Minute Video of Canned Reply in action:









Help Desk and sales support questions never end. The Canned Replies Lotus Notes Sidebar app makes creating standardized, quality replies fast and quick.

To install Canned Reply Sidebar for Lotus Notes, go to this web page:

http://www.maysoft.com/cannedreply.nsf/page/Canned-Reply-Install

*Runs on Lotus Notes 8.5.2 or higher, and supports Windows, Macintosh and Linux Clients.

Posted by Frank Paolino At 1:30 PM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (5) |      

Tags: : Blog Spam
So this blog is being targeted by spammers to advertise their products. I don't get a lot of comments, so I made the default ACL "Readers" to stop the spam overnight and moved on to the next thing on my Agenda.

I did not bother to test the blog by creating a comment because I knew it would work.  Until it didn't.

Moral of the story: Make changes and test them, or as a customer told me on my first week as a consultant:

Don't expect it if you don't inspect it.

Still good advice today.


Below is what I saw this morning.

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:03 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (4) |      

Tags: : Funny

This is a pretty funny skit. Jon talks about Social Media and email spam. I don't want to spoil the fun, but here are a few excerpts:

"The ones from Barack Obama have the subject line "Hey"...you don't need to address anyone as "Hey" to be cool. You're the President, that's pretty f---ing cool!  You don't need to resort to the sort of fake familiarity that spammers use ... Second, everytime I open those super casual bro-mails, the message is always the same "Give me money".  EVERYTIME! It's like you don't really value our make-believe friendship! Then there is "Can We meet for Dinner?". Sure! Then, a few days later, "I'm bringing Michelle"...

View the entire skit here:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Spamalot
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

                                               

Posted by Frank Paolino At 8:45 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Tags: : Fun
The WAIKIKI SPAM JAM Festival is a street festival that celebrates the people of Hawaii's love for SPAM products a canned meat from Hormel Foods. In Hawaii, you will find SPAM family of products at all grocery and convenience stores, many restaurants and in most homes in Hawaii. 

According to Barbara Campbell, vice president of Outrigger Enterprises Group, one of the event’s founding sponsors, more SPAM  is consumed per person in Hawaii than is consumed in any other state in the United States. "Each place in the world seems to have its own signature food festival. With almost seven million cans of SPAM eaten every year in Hawaii, a festival featuring SPAM seemed appropriate."

Here are some of the recipes titles: SPAM PAN LAU LAU: A variation on an authentic Hawaiian Favorite SPAMAKOPITA: A variation on Spinach Pie SPAM  Musubi: Sushi with a twist Hawaiian SPAM Sandwich: Pineapple and Spam !! SPAM Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pancake) Loaded Potato Skins with SPAM Ono Mac & Cheese with SPAM

"Since it’s inception in 2002, the Waikiki SPAM JAM Festival has become one of the most popular festivals in Hawaii. This year, we’re expecting more than 20,000 people to join the festivities in Waikiki," Campbell said.


If you want to try these recipes from SpamJam at home, you can find some of these recipes here:
http://www.spamjamhawaii.com/recipes.html



SPAM is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods, Inc.


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Posted by Frank Paolino At 5:49 PM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Tags: : Fun
This is a fun story of a spam attack that ends up uniting a group of people. As reported in the Wall Street Journal article, a spam message sent to a listserv address created an auto-reply to all. Many other people replied-to-all with "remove". This happened over and over. Finally, one user said:

"Do people understand that, by replying to all, you're perpetuating this ridiculous spam cycle?" someone from the U.K. wrote. "I realize that I'm doing exactly the same by sending this message, but I thought it was an observation worth airing to the group."

To which others "replied-to-all" to agree, adding more noise and some anger.

But a funny thing happened along the way: The mutual misery of spam hell changed into a sort of comradery, uniting many of the spam victims. As the WSJ reports:

Then, the tone suddenly changed. Padraig Belton, a writer in London, made a suggestion: "Personally, I feel that after this many emails from you lot, we should all knock off together to the pub." His motion was seconded. "Hello from Canada, all!…  Where's the pub?" "I am in," wrote a third person. "And, yes, I know in replying to all, I am adding to the madness."

But the best part of the story is the creation of a LinkedIn group, called Unified by Spam - The Social Experiment.

Here the members can all get to know each other. In a strange way, serendipity brought them together. From Wikipedia, Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise" of finding something good without looking for it. 


Here is one of the quotes from the group:





So I am off to join this group and meet some new people from around the world...

Posted by Frank Paolino At 9:46 AM Location Boston | Permalink | Comments (0) |