Email to some is simply a way to contact friends and family and keep in touch. To others, it is a very important method of communicating with business associates.

Unfortunately, those who send out unsolicited ads have created a problem for both. It seems amount of spam received daily increases geometrically, and try as we might, we just can't keep ahead of game.

Let's talk about some of more serious offenders. We have all received email, and tried to respond, only to have response returned as undeliverable. These people forge an email address, and are basically dishonest. Anyone who does business with their ilk, deserves what they get.

High up on list of "pains in neck" are people who list an auto-responder as their return address, and program it to send out a series of emails on a regular basis. If you reply to them and ask to be removed, you will get at least five or more emails from them over a short period of time. These people are simply naive, as they continue bothering you, even though asked to cease and desist.

Another winner in this "hit parade" is "fresh from farm newbie" who harvests (or if they are really dumb buys a list) thousands of names and starts sending out unsolicited email. Thinking they have found keys to vault, they start sending out spam by thousands. They really take offense when their ISP (Internet Service Provider) cancels their account.

Many people try to disguise subject of their email. They try to make it look like something else, just to get you to open it. Don't these morons realize that if I'm not interested in their porno site, or what ever other offer they are making, trying to trick me isn't going to change my mind. In point of fact, it is aggravating, and if there ever was a spark of interest in what they are hawking, that quickly disappeared.

And don't you just love "brain trust" who sends out his/her thousands of emails and shows email address of everyone they sent it to. Spammers who may receive their ad have just added another thousand or so names to their list.

You are a struggling entrepreneur and sometimes it feels like you are pushing a 3 ton boulder up a steep hill. Costs keep mounting and you are considering giving up. Well before you do, check out these 10 setbacks that Walt Disney had, some were financial nightmares that put him millions of dollars in red:

1) Walt formed his first animation company in Kansas City in 1921. He made a deal with a distribution company in New York, in which he would ship them his cartoons and get paid six months down road. Flushed with success, he began to experiment with new storytelling techniques, his costs went up and then distributor went bankrupt. He was forced to dissolve his company and at one point could not pay his rent and was surviving by eating dog food.

2) Walt created a mildly successful cartoon character in 1926 called Oswald Rabbit. When he tried to negotiate with his distributor, Universal Studios, for better rates for each cartoon, he was informed that Universal had obtained ownership of Oswald character and they had hired Disney's artists out from under him.

3) When Walt tried to get MGM studios to distribute Mickey Mouse in 1927 he was told that idea would never work-- a giant mouse on screen would terrify women.

4) The Three Little Pigs was rejected by distributors in 1933 because it only had four characters, it was felt at that time that cartoons should have as many figures on screen as possible. It later became very successful and played at one theater so long that poster outside featured pigs with long white beards.

5) Snow White and Seven Dwarfs was sneak previewed to College Students in 1937 who left halfway during film causing Disney great despair. It turned out students had to leave early because of dorm curfew.