Yes, I said "evil". Because it is. I belong to a couple of awesome networking lists. On one of these lists, recently, someone was asking about a possible solution to what is truly a common problem for us designers/programmers who provide CMS solutions for our clients. The problem? Microsoft Word. All of you reading this...how many of you have create an awesome site design with pristine code and gorgeous formatting, and your client is all "hooray!"...and promptly starts writing their content up in Microsoft Word, and the C&P's the stuff into the CMS you've just made for them? (Come on, I know you're out there. Raise your hands.) I have two clients, currently that do this. No matter what plugins I've installed, and no matter how many different ways I instruct them on how to do it correctly (even with using their beloved Word!) they don't do it. They just keep C&P-ing from Word, and keep calling me when the site breaks because of it. Now, to why I am evil.

Yes, I do have another "neat little snippets of code" addition to my series there - but it's still in the works. I keep getting more and more snippets, so I'm thinking this is going to be a long-running series. So to wait only for those entries...well...I'd never be able to post anything else! So, I'm pausing a moment and adding this. A year ago, today, I started a little experiment. I am happy to report that I have yet to receive a single email from either of those addresses - spam or otherwise. Well...unless you could "test" emails I've sent to myself to ensure they were still working. Which they are. But today, one ...

So an interesting question came up on one of the lists I belong to. There's a discussion about email addresses, and how effective obfuscation is against spambot collection. For those of you that may not know, "obfuscation" is a way of hiding things - in plain sight, in this case. Usually, spammers will troll through sites with an automated program, and look for the "mailto:" and "@" within part of your pages' code, like in anchor links and hidden input fields in forms. When it finds these tasty treats, they will "harvest" the email address and add them to their lists, and quite soon, you're receiving all kinds of spammy goodness in your inbox. I had looked into this, myself, a few months ago and came across an interesting article about the effectiveness of email obfuscation. It was an interesting article, and there was a nice test that was performed. The end result was that email obfuscation does, indeed, work. It's a simple and effective method to use, as well. Unfortunately, I cannot find the article. I've tried, and I am ashamed that I didn't bookmark it when I had the chance. So, I've decided to put it to the test myself.