Emails are an essential medium of communication in the fast track world of today. Be it for our personal or for business purposes, emails are indispensable. Loss of emails can bring about anything from a minor loss to devastation, depending on the need of the user. Hence, data recovery vis a vis emails is an absolute must, especially if emails are essential communication tools for one’s business. Data recovery softwares are a viable and dependable option when it comes to effective email recovery.
Data recovery softwares function differently for different types of files, which are:

* Outlook PST Files
* Outlook Express DBX Files
* Web Mail


Outlook PST Files

PST Files are very complex. So, once data is lost from these files, it is important to recover the data as well as repair them. To recover data the files themselves, these softwares are very helpful. Good software is equipped to repair and restore data from damaged or corrupted Microsoft Outlook file.

Microsoft Outlook stores email messages, contacts, notes and folders on the local drive as a .pst file. The Outlook recovery software scans the damaged .pst file and extracts and saves information in a new usable .pst file, enabling PST Recovery.

The key features of good PST files recovery software are:

* Providing PST Recovery from folders, calendars, contacts, tasks, notes.
* Repairing even the password protected files
* Restoration of formatting from RTF and HTML messages
* Recovering data from encrypted files
* Providing support to repair .pst files.
* Recovering deleted email attachments.


Outlook Express DBX Files

Good recovery software can scan, extract and save emails form .dbx files in which Microsoft Outlook Express stores messages and folders in the local drive. It should also be allowed to retrieve accidentally deleted messages from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder in Outlook Express. The .dbx files also need to be repaired so as to enable smooth functioning subsequently.

The key features of good DBX files recovery software are:

* Providing Mail Recovery from Outlook Express dbx files.
* Providing deleted email recovery of dbx files from corrupt media, such as floppy disks, Zip disks, CD ROMs, etc.
* Provides Mailbox repair of dbx files.
* Support to repair dbx files within a size limitation.
* Recovering deleted email attachments.
* Enabling the recovered messages to be opened directly in MS Outlook Express.
* Enabling recovered messages to be saved in the *.eml file format on any (including network) disks visible by the host operating system.
* Enabling message source view.


Web Mail

In order to access a web based email program like Yahoo or Hotmail, one has to use the Internet Browser to log onto a remote computer which stores the emails. When mails from it are deleted, they cannot be recovered. Hence, data recovery software is required to retrieve that data. It is a very complicated procedure, and only messages that have been opened already can be retrieved using a good software.

As the old and clichéd adage goes, prevention I better than cure. So, it is advised that a lot of care be taken. After all, loss of important mails can spell disaster for your business.

No doubt about it.

"Spam" (unsolicited commercial email) threatens to
paralyze and ultimately destroy the email system as it
currently exists on the Internet.

Anyone with an email address can attest to the fact that
the avalanche of Spam has only increased in the last year
and shows no sign of stopping.

However, the current system many Internet Service
Providers (ISP's) use to deal with Spam may just destroy
the Internet's email system long before the spammers do.

Now, I won't deny that the weight of the Spam on any
ISP's resources can rate very significant.


It's been estimated that between 30-60% of all email now
sent is Spam!

This means that 30-60% an ISP's system resources
(bandwidth, hardware, system maintenance) go towards
delivering messages nobody wants to receive.

Out of self-defense, many ISP's turn to third party
services like SpamCop, SPEWS (Spam Prevention Early
Warning System), and SpamHaus to help them identify
sources of spam and block the messages before their email
systems get clogged.

No Trial - No Defense - Guilty!

In theory, it's a great system.

In practice, it creates a situation resembling a witch
hunt where the accused gets burned at the stake without a
trial, let alone the ability to face their accuser.
Here's how the system works.

Let's say a business habitually sends legitimate email to
its customers or prospects who asked to receive the
email.

As long as nobody complains, life proceeds as normal.

But then let's say one of those people forgets they opted
in to the business's email list and reports an email
message as spam to one of the services I mentioned above.


Result: the business gets blacklisted by one or more of
these services and ISP's in turn automatically block
email (legitimate email) sent by the business to its
customers and opt-in subscribers.

To make matters even worse, nobody at these anti-spam
services bothers to let the business know they've been
blacklisted.

When the business finally discovers their status and
tries to contact SpamCop, SPEWS or SpamHaus, the real fun
begins.

If the business does discover which service(s)
blacklisted them, they'll find they can't call anyone on
the phone to discuss the problem.

They also discover these services are totally unregulated
and there is no higher court of appeals.

Any email responses from these services often contain a
smug attitude of assumed guilt that scoffs at your claims
of innocence.

Also, don't bother asking for the opportunity to face
your accuser in order to prove your innocence because
they get to hide behind a cloak of anonymity.

Combining this attitude of assumed guilt with the
inability to prove your innocence creates a recipe for
disaster for every legitimate business.

Oh, by the way, while writing this article, I received 19
spam email messages through an ISP monitored by all 3
anti-spam services.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

In the end, the current system only creates opportunity
for abuse that targets legitimate businesses while the
real spammers just merrily keep sending their flood of
email.