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Creating your TMDA account is a no-brainer once you get the URL from your
system administrator. Simply log in (this is generally the same password as
used for checking your e-mail) and follow the on-screen prompts.
Special Instructions
FULLNAME
Lists
Checking Pending
Special Instructions
Pay special attention to a section marked "Special Instructions" that may
appear at the end of the installation proceedure. These are instructions from
your system administrator and may require you to take special action to
function correctly with your new TMDA guarded account.
After that, you may wish to set a few configuration parameters.
FULLNAME
The default parameters are generally okay and don't take much tweaking, but
it is worth the time to page through the different menus underneath
"Settings" to familiarize yourself with what can be set. The only variable
that I do recommend you set is under "Local Config": FULLNAME.
FULLNAME tells TMDA how to address any e-mails it sends out (such
as confirmation requests). If this blank is not filled in (or filled in
correctly) by default, enter your name into the space and hit return.
Your account is now filtered and ready to go.
Lists
Click over to your lists section and familiarize yourself with the lists
configured. They will probably all be blank for now. This will change as
you continue to use TMDA.
Although it is impossible to say which lists will come configured with your
new guarded account, the four most common are:
- confirmed - users who have replied to a confirmation request they have
received
- whitelist - addresses you have specifically allowed
- blacklist - addresses you have specifically denied
- revoked - keyword addresses you have used in the past, but have been
comprimised
If you wish, you may consider adding users to your whitelist. This is a good
idea if you are expecting mail from any users who might be confused by a
confirmation request (computer novices, elderly relatives, etc.).
Also, if you currently receive any automated mailings (such as
joke-of-the-day or breaking news alerts), add the e-mail addresses now. If
you're not sure of the precise address to expect, you can use wildcards to
whitelist entire domains. For example, CNN.com
sends out breaking news alerts from the address:
BreakingNews@MAIL.CNN.COM
So you could add:
BreakingNews@MAIL.CNN.COM
to your whitelist. You could also add:
*@MAIL.CNN.COM
to accept mail from any address, so long as it came from the
mail.cnn.com domain. Furthermore, you can use TMDA's special
wildcard syntax:
*@=CNN.COM
To accept any mail from any subdomain at cnn.com. Keep in mind
that the more big domains you open up, the more chances spammers have of
slipping spam into your mailbox.
Checking Pending
It's a good idea to check your pending directory periodically for the first
few weeks or even months to catch any automated mailings that you may have
forgotten to whitelist.
The less often an automated mailer sends you a message, the more likely you
are to forget to whitelist it. I personally forgot to whitelist my domain
registrar since they only write to me a couple times a year when my domain
name is about to expire!
When you find something that you forgot to whitelist, you can use the
whitelist feature from either the pending list or the pending mail viewer.
This will add to your whitelist and release the message simultaneously.
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