On the other side of the coin, some of my clients send to hundreds / thousands of targets.  For that I use php scripted database driven lists through our server.  So coming back to this small under 25 management – it was a challenge to get my thinking back to small & ultimately simple. Kind of refreshing actually!

So, the easiest / most basic way I could think of is simply to write the email addresses into a document (like a “Word” or “Publisher” or any text document), save that document, and then copy and paste the addresses into the “To” line of a new email when you want to go to send it.

This is very primiative, but simple and effective method.

Your text document with the email list would look like this:

Jane Doe <nowhere@yahoo.com>, Clyde Lovett <clyde@notarealdomain.com>, Charlie Brown <charlie.brown@fakecompany.com>, John Doe <john.doe@madeupname.com>

and so on, with each address entry separated by commas.

When you want to send an email and you you need the address just copy the whole kit and caboodle into the “To” line and off you go.

The email program will recognize the stuff in between the < > as the email address and the other name info is for your reference.

I can take people to any level of sophistication they want with this, but this is the most basic, easy method to manage a group

Let me know if you need more / different / more sophisticated or if this answers your question.

Cheers,

Clyde

If you are registered with CrestoneRegister.com, you can simply shred this duplicitous “invoice” from Domain Registry of America or other similar companies. Invoices should come from Crestone Creations only.

Regards,

Clyde Lovett

Crestone Creations

Domain Name Registration Phishing
Originally Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:55 am
Post subject: Domain Registry of America

I went to my P.O. Box (you know – that thing at the post office) and there were credit card solicitations and circulars from the grocery store and hardware store. I said to postal worker- “Hey, can’t you do something about this?” Well, the answer was no. If somebody pays to have soemthing sent to you, then the post office is obliged to deliver it.
Fortunately this is not the case with email. With email we DO have some ways to block unwanted emails, but we must be pro-active about it in several ways …

Don’t let spammers get your address! This is the biggest problem.Next, if you do get spam, use some filters to block unwanted emails. The trick is to block the nasty stuff without losing the stuff you want.In spite of all you do, sometimes a few spam emails get through. I get 2-3 per day in spite of top of the line filters both from the server (Spam Assassin) and 3rd Party.It is no one’s fault – other than the spammer – that spam is being received. We will do what we can to help you because as our client we care about you, but ultimately, the spam you receive is not anyone’s fault.Quiz question – who is to blame for spam? – answer,
click here for the answer!OK, so read on!
PROTECT YOURSELF!
1. Never post your main email address (unencrypted)on any web site. If you need to post an email address somewhere, use an email alias so that if spam comes from that address you can simply delete the alias. Crestone Creations can set up alias’ for you. There is no monthly charge, only the time to set it up.
2. Always encrypt your email address on your website. If you are with Crestone Creations, we havebeen encrypting all posted email addresses for the pastseveral years, but if your site was created before that timeplease contact us to reviewyour site for spam protection. Recently we have acquired anew, stronger encryption program, so it may needto be updated onyour site.
3. In lieu of encryption, you can post your email address as an image. That way there is no code which is readable by a spam harvester. Of course, it is not a hyperlink (not clickable) anymore, so someone would have to type in your email address to send you an email, but it is MUCH more secure.

IF YOU ALREADY HAVE SPAM:

If you already get spam, here are a few thingsto do:
• Enable a SPAM filter on the server and set it to a heavy setting. Ifyou host with Crestone Creations, this is available to you.
• regularly add nasty domains who send spam to your Spam Assassin blacklist.
• email rules: setup rules in your mail programwhich automatically delete emails with certain keywords – like, y’know, those pharmaceuticals …
read more about rules – click here
• Bounce emails that are clearly junk, so that it appears, to that spammer,that my address is not valid. Bounce is a feature availablewithin email programs.
• Spam Protect Service – MX Logic – If you still have spam, Crestone Creations has contracted with a 3rd party security company spends their days separating the good from the bad. They will preemptively filter spam before it even gets to our server. This is their business and we must charge for it – because they charge us for it! But it works. We will be publishing more info about this soon, but in the meantime we can set it up for you. It is $4.95 per month per POP account. We must cover ALL POP accounts on a domain – you can not just cover one account. If you would like this set up, click here . By the way, it works really well. One client had about 150 spam per day and it went to zero with all her desired email still getting through!
The last-resort solution to an over-abundance of SPAM is to change your address. Here’s how to do it:
First of all, begin with a clean slate by changing your email address. No sense fighting a losing battle. Pick a new address which is not something “guessable” like don’t pick info@ or something commonly used – a spammer may pick a domain name and then send a bunch of emails to plausible addresses within the domain (and as soon as you open/reply to one of them – they know it’s a legitimate address and guess what – more spam to follow).
These are the steps I took using my email address change as an example:
1. changed my email address from clyde@crestonecreations.comto a new email address (like I’m going to just type it in plain text here on this page – haha NOT).
2. set an auto responder to reply to all messages at my old address. I don’t have to worry about people trying my old address and not reaching me because of this auto-responder. I get no mail at the old address, all it does is send a reply to people who try to reach me there. (As several years have passed now, I have disabled the auto-responder – but it was a good idea for the first year or so).
3. I let my regular contacts know my new address and let the others acquire my address through the autoresponder.

Quote from a client:

This morning at work I had 27 emails (extraordinarilyhigh) and they were from weird email addresseslike .fbi and .cia.gov and relating to my password andsaying that my email had been detected as accessing 30 illegal websites.What the heck is all this??
Answer: First of all, thebest way to analyze SPAM, which thismost likely is, is to view the header information. It takes some experienceto read this, so if the header information is sent to me via email, thatis the best.
Often times the header info reveals the true sending source instead ofwhat is seen in the short headers, which is the appearance of the sendingsource.
In Mac’s OSX Mail, you can reveal the long header info by
1. Opening the email
2. Keystroke: Shift+Command(Apple key)+H
(this will also hide the long header info, so you can toggle it long/ short)

Because there is no guarantee asto how your email address is treated by those towhom you give it out, there is a bit of control givenup wheneveryou useyour email address to “sign up” for something or as contact infofor something that might become public. Again, the way I deal with that isto use email alias. For example. If I were to set up an account at “whateverwebsite.com” thenI might make an email alias which is whatever@mydomain.com. That emailalias would re-route to myusualaddress@mydomain.com (substitue your emailthere).If SPAM started to come in addressed to the alias address, I would be clear as to where it came from, how my email address was farmed, and I could change the alias or delete it, as appropriate.

If your site is hosted with Crestone Creations, you can set up your own email alias to attach to your POP account using your Plesk control panel or we can do this for you for a small fee.
_________________
I could repeat all of the common wisdom on the realities of SPAM and the struggle for solutions, but they are so well addressed from every angle at: www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/nospam.html
I suggest skimming the above referenced site for info that may be relevant to you.
_________________
How do they get my address from a web site?
Read about the spam harvester – click here
NOTE: If you host with Crestone Creations, is your spam filter turned on? The answer is most likely yes, but you can check on your own -Log in to your control panel and check.More info at this page in the “Control Panel” section.

With Standard you can

• Send Invoices
• Receive payments
• Have a shopping cart
• Etc.

So instead of $30/month PLUS the transaction fee you have a FREE account with ONLY the transaction fee of 1.9% – 2.9% + $0.30 USD (as of November 2009). Check out the different accounts here for yourself:   paypal.com–profile-comparison

Crestone Creations is happy to act as your representative and get your PayPal account going, or you can set it up on your own and we’ll just go in once it’s set up to create the code needed for your web site buttons & other professional customizations (like your logo on the checkout page, etc.).  (you can change your password once we’re done).

Save yourself $$ - do these steps on your own:

1. Ok wait: Before you get started: Let us set up a special email address for your paypal account, such as paypal@youraccount.com with your domain name in place of <youraccount.com>
2. This will have the dual role of keeping any existing personal account on paypal separate from this new account AND will give us the ability to put a professional look to your transactions.
3. Go to https://www.paypal.com/
4. At the top of the page click the “Sign Up” link
5. From the 3 choices choose “Business” – click the “Get Started” button
6. From the payment solutions menu “I want to sign up for a payment solution:” choose “Website Payments Standard” and click “Continue”
7. Follow the prompts.  It is all self-evident from that point.
8. Once you’re done, send us the logins and we will set up the payment buttons on your website.
9. Once we’re done you can change the password for the account if that makes you more comfortable, although we’re usually not interested in illegal and unethical behavior

So you can do this on your own up to this point, OR
We’re happy to set this up for you and save you the steps so you don’t HAVE to do it on your own.  We’ll just need to know what kind of business you have (non-profit, sole proprietor, etc.) your official business name, official address, if non-profit then your non profit number, business phone number, bank account to where you want your $ to go, bank name, ABA number.

Contact us today to get going with PayPal on YOUR website!!