These articles appear in the Times Record each Friday in the Technology section.

Are Virtual Postage Stamps the Answer to Spam? ... But, relative to the printed junk mailer, the spammer’s costs (and time invested) per delivered message are miniscule. This is one reason why email spam is so prevalent, and why internet service providers (ISPs) like Microsoft (MSN), America Online (AOL), and others, are trying to “take a bite out of spam”. Why? On top of everything else, it’s expensive.

Common Sense Needed to Keep Spam at Bay ... So, there’s also a good chance your email application’s Junk mail filtering system will automatically disable the loading of images in any HTML email it believes is spam, as well as do nice stuff like putting the suspected spam in a Junk mailbox for you.

You’re A Web Designer and You Don’t Even Know It ... First off, you need to face facts. Even before you thought of your clever email address, some spammer’s “random email address generator” software came up with it first.

What’s the New Spam Leader? Not What You Think ... Most people would probably answer “adult-themed material”, or, in short, porn. Although porn was the spam leader in spam’s infancy, today’s email InBoxes are filling up mostly with ads for healthcare products.

A Real Global Problem We Can Fix (Maybe) ... According to statistics published recently by email filtering firm MessageLabs, despite our collective efforts, spam is ‘sploding. By the middle of this year, spam will make up 80% of all emails sent and received worldwide.

What’s a Five Letter Word For “Sharing” ... The rationalization process begins, of course, in the form of an impish little guy in a red suit, sitting on your left shoulder.

The Rights and Wrongs of Copying Digital Media ... When you purchase media containing copyrighted work like a music CD or movie DVD, you do not own the underlying work, only the right to use the media containing the work.

Is the Broadcast Flag a Trojan Horse? ... Perhaps a flag to search your TiVo or Windows Media Center Edition PC for content that has been acquired through “unauthorized” channels, and then delete it? I don’t want to sound too “Orwellian” here, but I think you catch my drift.

Broadcast Flag to Protect TV from Pirates in 2005 ... Starting in July 2005, every TV sold in the United States will come equipped with an electronic circuit that will search all incoming signals for the presence of the broadcast flag. If your new TV detects the flag in the video signal, the TV will go into a special high-security mode and lock down its digital outputs.

Movie/TV Industries Get “Music Lesson”, Move to Prevent “Sharing” ... The TV and movie industries are well aware that the promise of high speed internet connections streaming their products to consumers brings with it the promise of increased “sharing” of their products.

Is the Portable Media Center An “iPod Killer”? ... there’s a new breed of personal media player about to come onto the scene. Some pundits are calling it “the iPod killer”. That remains to be seen. Let’s take a closer look and see if it lives up to its billing.

David Meets Goliath in the Music Format Wars ... Ever since Apple introduced the iTunes digital music “jukebox” software, the iPod, and then the iTMS, industry analysts have been looking, waiting, and in some cases hoping, for the whole thing to come tumbling down.

Control the Media Format and the Hearts and Minds Will Follow ... On the surface, all the online music stores and personal digital players offer pretty much the same thing. What’s “below the surface” may turn out to be more important as the pretenders are separated from the contenders.

DRM Protects the Rights of Studios, Artists, and Listeners ... The second part of the recording industry’s solution is the online music store. The concept seems simple enough. Pay your money, download a song or album, and use it as you wish (as you would a CD from a “real” store).

Movies and Music Merrily March Towards Digitization and Dastardly Distribution ... “Sharing” has progressed far beyond friends and neighbors, or dorm floor buddies – it’s global, and it’s costing the labels and studios big bucks. What can they do to stem the tide?

On Time-Shifting, Betamax, and the Flashing 12:00 ... Think about it - today’s college kids have never known a world without video rentals and Home Box Office (HBO). Yes, there was a day when you saw a movie in the theater, then waited a year to see it on TV in all its commercial-riddled splendor.

What’s All This Fuss About Downloading Music? ... There’s a war raging in our country right now. No, it’s not about who’s “soft on defense”, or who can marry who, or who knew what about the halftime show of “Super Bowl 34-D”. It’s a war with thousands, even millions, of skirmishes played out every day on computers across the land.

Maine Student Web Designers Get 2nd Annual Chance to Shine ... This time last year I wrote of the First Annual Maine Student Web Design Awards (MSWDA), the brainchild of the good folks at Bath’s own Maine Hosting Solutions. The Awards were a resounding success, especially for a first-year program. This year the Awards are back, and they’re bigger and better than ever.

Come Fly With Me (And My Laptop) ... Ah, the joys of the open road. Or the open tracks. Or the open skies. You’ve traded in the shackles of a desktop computer for the footloose and fancy-free laptop lifestyle. Whether for business or pleasure, traveling with a laptop opens up new possibilities.

Getting Comfortable With Your New Digital Camera ... Try to always shoot at the highest resolution your camera and memory card can support. Here’s why. If you choose a lower resolution setting to squeeze more photos onto your memory card, you may regret it later when you try to create a decent-sized high-quality print.

Real Technology Questions and Answers for PC Users ... Mac users out there - your answer to these questions: relax. None of this applies to you.

iLife ’04 A Must-Have Upgrade for Your Digital Lifestyle ... All right, I’m just gonna come out and say it. If you’re a “digitally creative person” (in other words, you’re serious about digital photography, video, or music) you need a Mac. If your idea of digital creativity is recording TV shows you missed while watching other TV shows, well, you deserve your Windows Media Center PC.

The “Softer Side” of Switching to the Mac ... Last week we talked about some of the hardware costs associated with making the switch from frustrated Windows user to high-on-life Mac head. Now, on to software.

Switching to the Mac On a Budget ... So you’re thinking of switching to the Mac. You’ve been reading these articles for a year now, and you’re right there, teetering on the edge. But there’s one thing holding you back. You still believe that it’ll be prohibitively expensive to switch, that all your old stuff won’t work, that you’ll need to buy all new software, hardware, etc.

A Tale of Two Keynotes – “Watchers” and “Doers” ... Both presented their visions of how technology can “make our lives better”. Where the two men’s philosophies, and in turn their corporate “karmas”, diverge, is in their notions of what the terms “digital convergence” and “digital lifestyle” mean.

The Mac Maineiac’s Peerless Prognostications for 2004 ... What technology writer can resist making a few predictions for the New Year? I sure can’t. Gazing into my “silicon ball”, here’s what I see for 2004, along with some advice.