Do you really manually check spam for more than just yourself? I am sorry, but that is insane! A mail admin I once nearly worked with, had a nervous breakdown because he was manaully checking the processing in the queues all day. Your solution sounds no better than that. I am sure you are being paid for it, but I think you could probably get compensation for having to do such a thing.
In today's modern world, you are probably not left with enough time to look for a new job, and you need a job to pay the bills right? Well, not so long ago, slaves were able to plan and make escapes. If I was in your shoes, I would be looking rather enviously at the concept of slavery!
So, what do you do?
First step is really easy, and it will buy you time for the subsequent planning.
Get your boss to give you an old (but not too old) PC. Get as much RAM for it as possible (scavenge other PCs). Build a linux install (take your pick, but SuSE and Mandrake are good for beginners, if advanced, go for whatever you like).
Load this up with the basic MTA (if SuSE it will be postfix, but sendmail and a few others are also excellent. Don't use qmail).
Configure it to use spamassassin to filter all the mail (using a milter) and to relay all the non-spam mail for your domain to the internal gateway.
This will block >90% of the spam (may be more, dependent on spamassassin configuration, mine hits >99.5%).
Now you will find some time to recover your sanity and make phase 2. This should be either, find a new job (recommended) or find a better anti-spam solution.
If you architect it properly, with open source solutions (standard interfaces and nothing specifically "clever") you can easily build a "postini" like service for nothing except a bit of effort. You will of course have maintenance, and trouble shooting tasks, but compared to your current daily work load, that should seem like a holiday.
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Do you really manually check spam for more than just yourself? I am sorry, but that is insane! A mail admin I once nearly worked with, had a nervous breakdown because he was manaully checking the processing in the queues all day. Your solution sounds no better than that. I am sure you are being paid for it, but I think you could probably get compensation for having to do such a thing.
In today's modern world, you are probably not left with enough time to look for a new job, and you need a job to pay the bills right? Well, not so long ago, slaves were able to plan and make escapes. If I was in your shoes, I would be looking rather enviously at the concept of slavery!
So, what do you do?
First step is really easy, and it will buy you time for the subsequent planning. Get your boss to give you an old (but not too old) PC. Get as much RAM for it as possible (scavenge other PCs). Build a linux install (take your pick, but SuSE and Mandrake are good for beginners, if advanced, go for whatever you like).
Load this up with the basic MTA (if SuSE it will be postfix, but sendmail and a few others are also excellent. Don't use qmail).
Configure it to use spamassassin to filter all the mail (using a milter) and to relay all the non-spam mail for your domain to the internal gateway.
This will block >90% of the spam (may be more, dependent on spamassassin configuration, mine hits >99.5%).
Now you will find some time to recover your sanity and make phase 2. This should be either, find a new job (recommended) or find a better anti-spam solution.
If you architect it properly, with open source solutions (standard interfaces and nothing specifically "clever") you can easily build a "postini" like service for nothing except a bit of effort. You will of course have maintenance, and trouble shooting tasks, but compared to your current daily work load, that should seem like a holiday.