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| Express e-mail |
Well, here are some suggestions for helping yourself and your friends to a more enjoyable e-mail experience. I will list these in the order in which they aggravate me. I would suggest you print out this page and study it carefully.
Be sure to check your spelling. Most e-mail programs today have spell checkers built into them. Simply check your options and activate the spell checker. People measure your intelligence by how well you spell.
You should also try to use reasonably correct grammar. Break your message up into short paragraphs and keep the whole letter as short as possible. People tire quickly of reading something that is difficult to decipher.
Above all, please sign your name. Never send anything out without your signature.
Unsolicited Junk e-mail
If you receive it from a reputable company, simply follow their instructions for being removed from the list. However, if you never heard of the sender, do not attempt to be removed. You will simply be confirming the fact that you received it and you will get lots more. If you never respond, the sender will eventually stop sending it. Be careful where you put your e-mail address. For example, do not sign guest books on sites that you visit unless you know something about the site. If you use a little discretion and common sense, you will eventually cut down on some of the junk mail.
Forwarded Jokes, Stories, etc.
When you receive a joke or story from someone, do not send it out to everyone on some list you keep unless you have asked their permission to do so. If you like a piece, it is far better to send it to one or two persons who might appreciate it. There are web sites that put out daily jokes and stories. Why not send out the address of such a page and let people subscribe to their offerings if they like? Mass mailings by you are really someone else's junk mail.
If you do want to share something, don't simply forward it. Don't you get weary of opening 6 or seven pages until you get to the story itself? I sure do. Then when I get there, there are all those hash marks which make it almost unreadable. It would be far better to use copy and paste. Simply highlight the story by dragging your mouse across it while pressing the left button. Then right click on the highlighted portion. Select copy. Then go to your letter and click the cursor on. Then right click and select paste. You have now pasted the story right in your e-mail. Then take a few minutes and write a few sentences to the person as you would in any personal correspondence. The receiver will appreciate that.
Virus Warnings and Chain Letters
Never forward these. Do not warn others before you check it out. 99.9% of these are fake. Before you pass them on, go to the following web site run by the Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) Website maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy. (This is not from the CIA.)
This site includes information on most of the hoaxes that are being passed around the internet. Some of these have been going round and round for years. There is information on virus hoaxes, urban legends, chain letters, fake offers, etc. You will find a lot of interesting reading on this site. Don't forward it before you check it out.
To check out virus warnings, you can also go to the web site of the company being discussed, e.g. Microsoft, McAfee, Norton, etc. They will have the warnings of legitimate viruses on their web sites. Also, the newspaper and television as well as news web sites will report on any serious virus information. If it isn't in the news, you know someone made it up.
Suggestions for Attachments
1. Make sure attachments of textual information are in .txt, .rtf, or .doc format so that they can be read by the receiver in programs such as Word Pad which come with windows. (.txt is preferable since it can also be read by MAC users.)
2. If you send photographs, or other large files, take a minute to write to the person first and ask their permission. I have had many friends call me in a panic and say that they can't receive their e-mail. Nine times out of ten it is simply that someone sent them a large attachment that takes long periods to download. When that happens, you simply have to wait until it is all downloaded. Walk away and do something else for 10 or 20 minutes. Some of them may even take several hours. You might start to download them and go out for dinner. When you come back it will probably be downloaded and you will then find your other e-mail comes rushing through.
If you have a graphics conversion program, convert your photograph to a compact format such as JPEG (.jpg) rather than Bitmap (.bmp). It will upload and download much faster and you will not be able to tell the difference in quality. Bitmap format might take 100 times longer to send and receive than JPEG. A color photo in Bitmap format could take as long as 30 minutes to an hour to send and/or receive. It will also probably exceed the size of the allowed mailbox of the person receiving it. Many ISP's put a limit on the size of mail storage.
Golden Rule for e-mail