- The Perfect Email Address
So your a’hotmailer’ or a’AOLer’. So your a fully fledged internet being. No way! It may sound wierd, but many people discriminate against AOL accounts and Hotmail addresses. Get yourself a new free email account such as one from usa.net, another.com or best of all(promotion plug here) bbmail.co.uk. So now we have sorted out what your having after the’@’ sign, what should you have before it. My advice is your NAME! It may sound kinda obvious, but people can easily identify with’tommorris’ or’johnsmith’ or even’cruelladevile’. The worst addresses you get are sometimes from school. If you are lumbered with’966436@uplandscc.e-sussex.sch.uk’ like I have been, then get an address change quick. Nobody has got the time or effort required to will that in to their brains or address books.
Here is my guide to what you want in an address
tom.morris@_.com
NOT opuahs83408@aol.com
No’chat chat’
As simple as it is to say’k’ instead of OK, or Y instead of Why?, we should really cut down on the acronyms, smileys:), and othher annoying little internet things. That was OK in 1994, when we just used the internet between geeks, but now we have newbies getting on to the’net from every corner of the globe, many not as experienced to know all the acronyms and abbreviations, not to mention what a smiley is. They r fun. But they don’t go down well in business, or should I say biz.
- Don’t send TOO MUCH!
Too much you say? How the hell can I send too much? This isn’t the postal system, some bloke doesn’t have to carry all this in his backpack to my friends house. It just dissappears up the cable and appears at my mates account. But remember this. We don’t all have super-fast connections, and here in the UK, quite a large percentage of us have to pay for calls. We have to pay to download a force-fed’Reasons Why I Am A D|ckhead.’
- Please no more HTMailL
HTML Email(or HTMaiL as I have renamed it), is the use of ideas from webpages(ie. links, images, and other interactive cleverness) to style your email. A typical HTML email can take up 10 - 30 times more than a standard email. We are talking 50 - 100 K, which for an email is quite large. And, Outlook doesn’t produce good HTML(just like all Microsoft products then.), so the easy answer, if you are gonna use HTML mail: make something bold, or make something italic, but for god’s sake, I don’t want emails in tables and frames, not to mention bloody Java applets firing up. Also, HTML mail would be more easy to add viruses to than a standard webpage, because the email program wouldn’t have all the neccesary security that a web-browser would.
- Set holiday replies
I suppose I really should practice what I preach, but my email service(POP3 provider) doesn’t really offer this. It’s a technique that allows you to automatically send a response saying’I am on holiday from X date to Y date. Send me an email in a few days when I return.’ Most providers let you set this quite easily. If yours doesn’t, investigate another email provider.
- Block’em!
Click. Downloading mail. Click.’Thank you for signing up.’, ’BUY THIS!’, ’BUY THAT!’, ’CLICK ME!’ Annoyed yet? Yes, I certainly was when I was recieving 50 emails a day and 90% of them were crap. Then I moved my provider, set up some junk mail filters, and now I recieve 50 emails a day, but I want at least 60% of them! Makes life so much easier if you don’t see the spam.
- Attachments
If possible, do not trust files that are .exe, .doc or Macintosh executables. Only run files sent by really good friends or reliable sources, and virus check files. Get a free virus checker from download.com(I use Disinfectant for the Macintosh! Kicks some major a*s.)
Also, be prepared if you are using Outlook for Windows. It is the most virus friendly program in existence.
Be careful about .exe, .doc and Mac .sit
Virus check them using a free virus checking program such as Disinfectant for the Mac, and various freebies for Windows.
DON’T SHOUT AT ME!
IF YOU TALK LIKE THIS, IT IS REALLY HARD TO READ, SO MAKE ALL THAT FINGER EFFORT AND PRESS THE CAPS-LOCK BUTTON, aah. That’s it. Yep, people get stroppy if you write all in caps, because it represents the internet equivalent of shouting.
- Going down the chain
Chain letters. Getting sent around, to everybody on the internet. Along with it’s counterpart Spam, they are the most annoying things in existence. So, exterminate them with a simple press of your’Delete’ key, rather than the’Forward’ option. It makes peoples life easier if you delete the chain letter rather than sending it on to a friend, who will send it on to their friends. If we all work together, chain letters will officially stop as nobody will forward them. And like man needs food, water, shelter and warmth, chain letters need victims to forward them. So, just don’t do it alright.
NO MORE CHAINS!
Don’t forward them
I think I have pretty much covered everything important so far. But if you notice something blatantly obvious that I forgot, email me or comment on this opinion and I will add it.