Chain mail.
We all get it I'm sure. Some of it is funny. Some of it is touching, some of it is just plain stupid. Come on now, admit it, how many of you send these emails on to 12 friends, just in case it may grant you a wish. You don't believe it, but you don't wanna risk not doing it. Come on now, be honest, that's what I thought.

Ok how many of you send on an email that claims Microsoft, or AOL or Yahoo! Or whoever is going to donate 5cents to a poor little girl in Nigeria with an illness, for every person you send it to? How many send on these emails, in the hopes of helping poor Mary, or helping poor bubba get over a heart condition? Uh huh.

Ok, how about this. How many of you get emails about viruses. Released by Mcafee this morning, or announced by Microsoft, pass this on to let everyone know. Telling you to delete a file called mssys.dll or something like that and reboot your computer. How many send them on, to help their friends avoid getting this virus. You search your computer, find this file and delete it. Phew. That was close. But what did you just delete? When you reboot, chances are you're about to find out!

Here's a news flash for you all. Its all bollox! I'm sorry to say, your wish wont come true, your sex life wont increase 10fold, you wont help poor Mary and bubba, and you just screwed up your computer! There, wasn't that fun.

Email is a wonderful piece of technology. Its great to know that if I wake up in the morning, take a shower and look in the mirror and find my penis isn't as big as I want it, that I can check my email and be safe in the knowledge there is someone selling a cure for the problem. Or if I wake up and decide I want breasts. I can get the number for a great natural product to increase by cup size. And they don't discriminate knowing I'm a man. That's always nice. Oh it's quite handy for sending personal messages too. The greatest feature of email is that magical button called "forward" click of this magic button you can pass one this wonderful source of information to all your friends. Sometimes emails can be very funny. I get many emails from people that are funny, and I will forward them to other people. Unfortunately, I also get a lot of chain mail. There are still people out there that fall for this crap. So here. I'm going to set the record straight on it.

First up. The emails you get where it says. Forward this to 15 people in the next 20 seconds and lil bunny fufu will hop across your screen. How many keep trying this, and are yet to see anything? No, your computer isn't at fault, it didn't work for you, because its rubbish. If it were that easy, viruses would be spreading like crazy. For something to pop up and do something if you send it to set number of people, and application would be needed. That's beyond the capabilities of HTML, which most emails are sent in. for an application to run in an email, you have to tell it to. Usually in an attachment. If you open an application attachment on any email, your stupid! That's how viruses thrive, stupid people, they rely on people to fall for this crap. So if you get an email like that. Read it, laugh at it, whatever, but don't go frantic trying to forward it as fast as possible, you just got screwed.

Next, its sad I even need to mention this, but oh well. Here is a magical piece of information. A COMPUTER IS A MACHINE. IT WILL ONLY DO AS IT IS TOLD. Remembering this, a computer cannot grant you wishes, ruin your sex life (well ok debatable) or do something magical to you. You wont get your wish if you forward it. Your wife won't leave you if you don't, unless it's a Valentines Day card and you're out of town. Sometimes these emails are cute, touching, funny, whatever, and worthy of a forward, but trust me on this ok. You wont get your wish.

Ahhh Mary and Bubbah. Poor souls. So sick, need your help fast. AOL is so kind, donating money to a good cause for every email. Who said Microsoft was stingey, they are going to donate to help poor Mary. All you need to do is forward the email, and they will send money for every person you send it to.
Sorry, not happening. For 1, why would AOL and Microsoft etc, who fight against SPAM, encourage it? Why not just send a check straight to the fund and be done with it?
Secondly, it is impossible for anyone to track how many people you send it to. Once it leaves, they don't know who it goes to. How many are sent or anything. The only way they could do this is by having a link, which directs to a site, that counts the number of hits. A lot of hard work if you ask me, cheaper and easier just to send a check. You have just been chain mailed. So no money is going to be sent, it's a hoax, almost a virus, designed by some bored kid for a few laughs.

Then we have the virus warnings. These are becoming more and more popular. First off, no respectable computer security company will send out such emails to people. They want you to use their software to protect against it. That's how they make their money. Not good business practice to send out emails and tell people. Secondly, the virus warning is the virus itself. In 2 ways. Usually it is a chain mail, idea is to send this email out and have everyone pass it on, taking up bandwidth and so forth. No such virus exists, by sending it out, you are the virus. 2nd way, which is becoming much more common now, is the warning contains the virus itself, normally containing an attachment with instructions to open the attachments for instructions on how to remove said virus. Using scary fancy words to scare you such as "your processor will be sent into a continuous loop resulting in un-repairable system failure" a processor is designed to loop, it will do that all day all night forever. That's what it does. You click this attachment after getting so worried and bam, you have a virus, never saw it coming.
Another method is a brilliant idea, why spend all that time writing a virus, they are very hard to code, and rely on system flaws to execute, and even harder to get people to actually install them. So someone had the great idea of having you do it for them. Yes I'm afraid to say, when it says search and find such and such file and delete it, you are doing the viruses' job for them. These files are actually system files, installed and used by windows for various functions. Sometimes its files you don't really need, other times they are major system files, deleting them will crash your computer and a reinstall is required. Since they are used by windows, they often have weird names, and you probably never seen them before in your life and have no idea what they are doing. But they aren't viruses. Don't delete these files because an email tells you to. If you are really worried, do a quick search on the many virus databases on line, it will come up as being a hoax, or a virus. 99.9% of the time it's a hoax. By not sending that email on to warn your friends, you have killed a virus. Give yourself a pat on the back and read up on the latest in mortgage offers.

Basically. If you moan about spam, all that, then the best way you can fight it, is by understanding what constitutes as spam, chain mail etc. if its funny, sure send it on, if you think your friend will be entertained by how cute it is, that's what the magic forward button is. But if your worried about your sex life. I'm afraid your looking at the wrong source for help.

So stop being stupid, stop wondering why your wish hasn't come true, quit worrying about poor Bubbah and quit taking up my bandwidth.
Y'all be good now ya hear