My wife, Sharon, receives lots of feedback related to her stories that are posted here under my username. She appreciates each and every one, and always has a reply for me to send to the reader. That has become more and more difficult lately, due to the increasing number of ISPs that use one of the variations of "whitelisting" in an effort to reduce spam. We can't blame them for trying, but it does make life difficult for those of us who are not on the approved list.

We have noticed that Earthlink, especially, vigorously uses a whitelist, and virtually all of our return letters to that ISP are routinely rejected. There is a link in the returned letters that supposedly allows us to get our address on the approved list, but it never works.

This is an open letter to any of you guys who have written to Sharon after reading her stories. Thanks to all of you, and please know that we have tried to respond. If you haven't received a reply from us, it's undoubtedly due to the fact that your ISP uses a spam filter that blocks us from doing so. Sorry about that, but it's beyond our control.

I strongly recommend that every person who uses e-mail have one or more Web-based mail clients. Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Google Mail (GMail) are just a few of the offerings available. If you use one of those services, rather than the e-mail clients provided by your ISP, you'll be able to receive the letters we send to you.

Anyone desiring to use GMail can simply use the feedback form at the end of Sharon's stories, and tell us you'd like to receive an invitation from Google. We have a couple hundred of those invitations sitting around unused, and can send you one right away. You must act now! Supply is limited!

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