Many years ago, I had a Hotmail e-mail account that I eventually abandoned out of frustration. I was receiving so much unwanted junk "spam" e-mail (not to be confused with the tasty luncheon meat) that I was spending more time messing around with the spam than I was reading legitimate messages. The folks at Hotmail were completely unresponsive, essentially ignoring my pleas for help. In the end, I gave up on Hotmail and set up a new e-mail account somewhere else.

Changing e-mail addresses was a bit of a hassle, but well worth the effort. I assembled a list of all of my contacts and notified them of the change, informing them that, after 30 days, I would no longer check for messages at the old address. Two weeks later, as a final warning, I notified everyone again. At last, I would have e-mail peace.

I began to educate myself about antispam techniques, zealously guarding my new e-mail address. If I noticed that someone I knew was including me in their regular mass e-mailing of silly jokes and stories (amateur spammers), I asked to be removed from their mass e-mail list. To folks who just couldn't resist e-mailing 10 jokes a day to all of their friends and relatives, I encouraged them to start putting all of the addresses in the BCC field, instead of using the CC or TO fields. This can help to prevent e-mail addresses from finding their way onto spam lists. I also started using fake e-mail addresses for discussion groups, message boards, program installations and Web site registrations. The basic principle I used was simple: don't give your e-mail address to anyone who might make it part of a spam list.

In addition to my "real" address, I also set up a second e-mail address just to catch spam. This is the address that I give out to Web sites that insist that I "register" with a real e-mail address in order to view information.

It's also the address that I use for eBay, Paypal, Amazon and everyone else with whom I conduct online business. The sad truth is, many otherwise legitimate companies "share" customer e-mail lists with other companies, who sell them to even more companies, who sell them to spammers, who sell them to even more spammers, who sell them to criminals. Unscrupulous employees also steal e-mail lists and sell them to spammers. An AOL employee was busted in 2006 for stealing and selling 92 million e-mail addresses to spammers.

Unfortunately, that's the way that the e-mail spam game is played, and all of the stupid "CAN-SPAM" legislation in the world hasn't made the situation any better.

Experts estimate that at least 95 percent of all e-mail received in North America is spam, leaving Internet service providers struggling to come up with ways of combating this flood of garbage. This sorry state of affairs means that the real fight against spam is left largely up to you, the end user. If you're having a problem with spam, there are many potential solutions, divided into two distinct groups: Use an e-mail service that employs antispam filtering, or install an antispam program on your computer.

I currently have three e-mail addresses that I use regularly. Two of the addresses, one of which is my "spam catcher," are set up using Google's Gmail service (mail.google.com). Gmail uses a pretty good spam-filtering scheme, but, like all spam filters, it has to be trained. This chore is easy to perform; when a spam message comes in, I simply tag it as spam and move on. After a while, the program learns which messages are spam and files them accordingly. Every now and then a spam message will sneak through, which I simply tag as spam, and the program gets "smarter." I check the contents of the spam box every few days, because legitimate e-mail will sometimes be tagged as spam. Tagging these messages as being good trains the program to do an even better job. My spam catcher address tags and rejects more than 70 spam messages every day.

If you use an e-mail "client" program, such as Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird, you'll need to install an antispam program on your computer. I do not personally use any programs like this, so I have no real recommendations. However, PC Magazine, which usually does a pretty solid job of evaluating computer programs, recently published a good article on the subject, which can be found at pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2280433,00.asp (note that there should be no hyphens in this link). Their list of favored antispam programs includes Cloudmark, iHateSpam 5 and ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 7.

Bear in mind that no antispam program is perfect; they all have to be trained, they all have to be monitored and they all make mistakes. There are no "set it and forget it" programs. But, if you've decided to declare war on spam, these solutions may help you to at least win most of the battles.

Dave Moore has been repairing computers in Norman since 1984, when he borrowed $1,200 to buy a Commodore 64 system. He can be reached at 919-9901 or www.davemoorecomputers.com.