Quick Tech Updates

I came across an article in pcmagazine about the 25 Golden Rules of Email. Some of them are pretty good. I picked out and paraphrased a dozen of my pet peaves. If you would like to read the entire article you can click on this link

1. Beware of hoaxes - Whenever the opportunity strikes to pass on some juicy tale of woe that has hit your inbox, first visit Snopes.com.

2. Don't perpetuate pointlessness - Your friends are too polite to ask you to stop, and everyone else is far too busy dealing with important messages to wade through nonsense emails.

3. Don't hand out your email address like candy - Give it only to friends and coworkers. Eventually all addresses get spammed, but keeping it close will delay this for a while.

4. BCC is your friend - use it to send a copy of an email to someone you want to stay informed yet the recipient does not know it.

5. Subject lines matter - people receive hundreds of messages a day and the subject line helps get yours read.

6. One topic per message - tracking multiple topics in a message - and responding to them - is difficult.

7. Avoid huge attachments - First and best option: Share a link rather than the actual file.

8. Attach what you promised - everyone forgets. Just try to minimize that mistake.

9.Trim excess in replies - trim away the extra appended messages at the bottom of the email replies.

10. No all caps - typing in all caps is annoying and the internet equivalent of Yelling.

11. Know your audience - you don't talk to your parents the same way you talk to your friends.

12. Create a useful signature file - at the very least it should contain your name, title, and contact information.