This Helplink file is created for those of you who would like to receive mail through your webpage, but do not want to have spambots and address harvesters stealing your email address, then adding your address to thier mailing lists. Mailto: links are cool, but far too often, your email address does not have to even be publicized sometimes for you to get on a spammer's list or lists. I have provided a simple script for users to copy, and modify for your needs, and the only thing a user must do is to edit the 'your_username' field in the script - all you have to do is to make sure the proper gif files are in your graphics/ directory. There is a download link to the script at the bottom of this page

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WHY CHANGE FROM MAILTO: TO JAVA SCRIPTING MAIL LINKS?

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With the advent of technology and the increases in SPAM Mail on TFN, it becomes apparent that some users may want to have thier email addresses on thier websites. However, there are spammers out there that have ways of "grabbing" your email address off your webpages without your knowledge. Once they do that, they can add your address to any mailing list, or they can mass mail multiple users whatever they like - some of this mail contains attachments that can be dangerous or annoying - which is why I have changed most of my mailto: links to java scripts.

The effect of doing this adds a little extra security to your address. This is because a spambot cannot "grab" your address, because there is nothing for it to grab. In order for a person to mail you, they have to physically CLICK THE LINK - which opens the default mailer and sits there waiting for the user to input something.......There is nothing to grab, because in addition to scripting the action, the (AT) symbol and the (DOT) symbol are actually gif images - which thwarts the harvesting programs out there!

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MAKING THE CHANGE - THE SCRIPT

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The script is as follows:
<script type=text/javascript> function send_note(edress){ var re= /_atsymbol_/gi; edress = edress.replace(re,'@'); var re= /_dot_/gi; edress = edress.replace(re,'.'); var the_link="mai" + "lto" +":"+edress ; window.location=the_link; } </script> <a href="javascript:#;" onClick="send_note('ethan_atsymbol_kromhout_dot_us');return false;" style="text-decoration:none">ethan<img src="../../../../image/at.gif" border=0>kromhout<img src="../../../../image/dot.gif" border=0>us</a>

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In this example, this script would send mail to the intended recipient: ethankromhoutus using java script rather then to use the mailto: tag. It opens your default mail program, and prepares to send an email to the recipient above.
You can modify this script to send yourself email - You just have to replace the line:

[onClick="send_note('ethan_atsymbol_kromhout_dot_us');return false;" style="text-decoration:none">ethankromhoutus] with your own address, (which means you would replace the words 'ethan' 'kromhout' and 'us' in your script] and make sure you have the at.gif and dot.gif files are in your webdirectory, and are able to be seen. It is important that you have the syntax correct, and that you replace the name of the recipient and the domain name that appears in the script so that it displays correctly, because this piece of thescript does the work, and you want to be able to display your address on the page corrrectly, and if you make a mistake here, you may not get email from the links.

I recommend that you do some work on the script and set it up before you start replacing the mailto: tags on your pages. Once you have the script the way you want it, then you could delete the mailto tags on each page and drop the java script in its place.

NOTICE TO NEW USERS: For new users, we have added the graphics directory and the javascripts directory to the files which are copied to your home directory. These files are copied to your directory when the public_html directory files are created for new accounts. If you need the script, you can Download a copy here then edit your webpages by changing the script as needed, then upload (paste) it to your websites pages --Buddy