A Path to Success

Gmail's spam filter broken? A spam torrent in my Gmail inbox!

For the last few months I have noticed a very large increase of spam being delivered to my Gmail inbox. Has anyone else seen this uptick in unfiltered spam activity? Google gloated about their performance a scant 2 years ago, but things seem to have degraded in an ugly fashion recently.

These spam messages are all delivered directly to my gmail account (which I rarely publish because I have a forward set up for my newpathconsulting domain to go to my gmail account). I am suspicious because if spam is being sent directly to my gmail account without going through the forwarded email accounts, then one of 3 things are happening (or maybe all 3):

1. Spammers are getting a good list of Gmail addresses from somewhere (this discussion thread suggests that spammers are using Google services to spam other Google users -- here's a link to a search on Google for the past week's discussion on broken Gmail spam filters) or

2. Gmail is selling/sharing/leaking my Gmail email address somewhere

3. Gmail users are not reporting spam as much as they used to!

(more spam filter issues)

On May 27 2009 I got no less than 12 spams between 6 and 8:30 in the morning. I will continue to get them throughout the day and most likely end up with 20-30 spam emails in my inbox. I just got one as I was composing this post.

Anyone else having this problem?

TED comes to Toronto as TEDx, EveryBlock on the iPhone, an Innovative Fundraiser

A few interesting articles this morning on the internets.. I'll format this blog as an experimental set of soundbytes organized by 3 different themes that I hope will interest NewPath'ers everywhere:

First an event, then a new product launch and finally an interesting fundraiser.

Cool Event

I am sure many of you have watched TED videos over the past few years -- short videos that inspire and feature some of the best socially conscious entrepreneurs anywhere. There is almost something for everyone there no matter what their interest from corn-cob fuel for kitchens to build electric car infrastructures. TED has announced that they will endorse local TED events around the world, and Toronto now has a team of people that will be hosting something they call TEDxTO.

Check it out at http://tedxto.com/

Awesome Product

I wrote about EveryBlock back in late January 2009. EveryBlock is a website that aggregates information from a ton of different online sources at a highly localized level. Noone actually populates EveryBlock, EveryBlock "gets" the information and reformats it for structure, thereby adding metadata to the information.

Here are some interesting examples of what EveryBlock collects at the level of a street intersection: new businesses in your area, crimes committed, foreclosures listed, restaurant inspection results. Using this data yuo can get instant reports on a variety of questions that you might pose such as: recent health inspection reports for restaurants nearby, where crimes have been committed along your route home from work and where your property values are heading based on a variety of factors in your 'hood.

And now there is an EveryBlock iPhone app.

With the power of this information in your hand you literally can go anywhere and get some real "context" of the place you're at. I checked out the app and it's rich and a great representation of the EveryBlock website, but there is one thing missing - Toronto. Several large metro areas are covered around the US, and according to EveryBlock getting the feeds is not as hard as it would seem. Seems like a great follow on after toronto.ca/open is released.

Creative Fundraiser

The Barenaked Ladies announced a new Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavour called "If I had a 1,000,000 Flavours". B&J is donating proceeds to a literacy charity - who ever put this together was really thinking - put a few good brands together and the rest is gravy. Good marketing meets a great idea. But each 500 ml tub is 1,200 calories so be careful with it...

And it just wouldn't be a proper marketing campaign without a contest to boot to create your own flavour...

New Federal Tax Self-Assessment tool available (SR&ED)

Several consultants in NewPath do SR&ED tax credits and are always helpful in helping your organization file for a tax credit. Now the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has developed a self-assessment tool for your business that makes it easy to understand more about this important program applicable to any technology/innovation business that runs in Canada.

Check it out today!

SR&ED Eligibility Self-Assessment Tool