Julie Wolf and Grant Andrews hosted this second Message Magic webinar again and there was a good turn out both in the room as well as on the phone in line. Grant supplied us with plenty of good information and answered questions from members.
One of the very important bits of information Grant gave us is a technical reason why NOT to do broadcasting via MM to strangers.
Here are a few snippets of what will happen
Skype, as everyone knows, is a communication system which monitors activity between you and those people you send messages to.
So….let’s say you send 10 messages to 10 people. Skype stores those messages in an internal database which is stored on your computer, and starts to look to see if the recipient is online and can receive it, and also if you are online at the same time. Remember, Skype delivers when you are BOTH online at the same time…..
So there it is, checking back and forth, back and forth, are these 10 people online at the same time I am online, and if so then deliver and if not then skip to the next check.
Imagine you send 100 or 1,000 or 1,000,000 messages… how big do you think the database is getting and how busy do you think Skype is getting?
In other words, system resources start to get busier and busier….That is ONE side to it.
Here is another side to it that
Yes, that preamble was just to paint the picture… and the picture is a busy one on Skypes part. You have a very busy system which is hogging resources, but not just any type of resources…
There are 2 parts to it :
- Internal processing and
- Internet communications.
Now here is the interesting part. If you have a firewall in the picture, let’s say ZoneAlarm for example, what do you think it (ZoneAlarm) will do when it sees one of the programs that have been granted access to the internet start to do a polling type algorithm which is flooding your internet connection?
It will shut your internet transmissions down!!! It won’t just shut down Skype. It will shut down your entire internet connection.
NONE of your programs will be able to access the internet. You will go dark.
Pretty, isn’t it? Why does it do that? I’m not sure exactly but I can make an educated guess. I think it gets confused over the fact you gave permission to a program to access the internet at will and then that program floods the bandwidth… it gets confused and doesn’t know what to do so it shuts EVERYTHING down thinking that there MUST be a flaw somewhere and in it’s role of BIG PROTECTOR it makes the decisions that their programmers are incapable of determining and dealing with.
So beware!!! Broadcasting to strangers and ZoneAlarm are incompatible…..and ZoneAlarm is one of the more robust products on the market… there are many pretenders… and if anyone can actually still access the internet and share their experiences I will in turn share your scary stories with others.
This is only one of the many great tips Grant shared with us.
Listen to the recording to hear it all – it certainly is worth it!!
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Julie Wolf
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Not directly relevant to MM or Skype, but on the subject of ZoneAlarm, if anyone has just had a problem on a Windows XP system where they could no longer use Firefox or Flock to browse the web, the culprit is last weekend’s latest Windows Update of the Malicious Software Removal tool.
Perhaps ZoneAlarm is doing so well in building market share that Microsoft felt the need to sabotage them in this manner. Very annoying.
Why has this information not been supplied before one downloads the software?
If my entire Internet connection is shut down, how do I re-access?
How can I safely use MM without the fear of being shut down? Will this happen only with Broadcast message or can it also happen with “Add Contacts” ?
Hi Saviour ELLUL,
Your internet connection will only be shut down in extreme cases, and has nothing to do with MM as such. If anyone sends too many messages to “non contacts” at once, and you are using a firewall like ZoneAlarm, this COULD happen. It will not happen when you send out “Add Contact” messages.
I hope this will set your mind at rest. Always remember that anything should be used with responsibility and in moderation – never abused.
1) Information is published as soon as it comes to light. As of this morning the issue was posted in the FAQ. It is every members responsibility to read the available information.
2) If your internet connection is being blocked by your firewall then shut your firewall off.
3) MM is perfectly safe to use. What matters is HOW you use it. We’ve been outlining best use practises from the outset, which is use Add Contacts to build your contact list and use the Broadcast feature to send messages to your contacts.
4) We can control the situation if done correctly, ie Add Contacts etc. This is one of the MANY things discussed in the bonus material available to paying members (which will be available within a day or two… sorry for the delay but all issues must be dealt with in priority order).
Good comment thank you Bradley, Savoir , Hyla and Grant.
I would also remind Savior that this warning was to make it very clear why you do NOT wan to to Broadcast to Strangers … nor too many Friends on Skype. Use your Skype groups, and keep them relavent groups of common interests.
Perhaps Hyla will do a post on Skype groups soon. I would be happy to make screen shots or video demos as well if there is an interest. Let us know … and keep those comments comming!