'Of Mice and Megabytes' Supplement


		“Of Mice and Megabytes Supplement” E-MAIL ETIQUETTE AND TIPS Previous \|\| Next Once you’ve used e-mail you’ll wonder how you ever got through life without it. Staying in touch with family and friends has never been easier. To help you get the most out of it, here are a few tips, information, and suggestions. PLEASE DON’T YELL DON’T WRITE YOUR E-MAIL MESSAGE IN ALL CAPITALS! IT LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE YELLING! Use capitalized words sparingly for emphasis, but don’t write the entire message in all capitals. Also, in general, text written in all caps is harder to read. E-MAIL AND NEWSGROUP SHORTHAND In an effort to save keystrokes, you may have noticed abbreviations or acronyms in messages—such as “FYI”—especially if you’ve ever participated in a newsgroup. I’ve yet to find a Web site that explains them all, so the answers which appear at the end of this article are my guess. See how you fare with this short quiz with message samples to help provide context. Click here for the answers. PMFJI - “PMFJI, but I believe I’ve heard this story before about the computer user who mistakenly used the CD-ROM disc tray as a cup holder.” (This example would most likely be found in newsgroup postings, probably in a thread (a series of questions and answers.)) IMO and IMHO - “I was the person who mistakenly used the CD-ROM tray as a cup holder, but IMO (or IMHO) it seemed perfectly logical.” LOL (Example #1) - “CD-ROM tray for a cup holder!!?? And he wants to be a computer technician!!! LOL.” LOL (Example #2) - “So this customer calls me and asks if ice cubes would hurt the CD-ROM drive. I think I hurt his feelings when he heard me LOL.” ROTFLOL - “When I heard about the person who used the CD-ROM tray as a cup holder, I couldn’t contain myself. I was ROTFLOL.” FWIW - “I’m unsure of the circumstances, but FWIW, I would have read the instructions first.” BTW – “BTW, this is the first time I’ve ever used a computer.” TIA - “Dear Tech Support. Is it true that if the floppy disk is turned on its side the data will fall out? TIA. Rick” TTFN - “Dear Tech Support. I just figured out the answer. Please forget that I ever asked the question. TTFN. Rick” BETTER TO BE SAFE … If you’re ever required to send confidential or other highly sensitive information via e-mail (such as your credit card number), consider sending it in two (or more) e-mails. Send the first half of the credit card number in one e-mail, then the other half of the number in a second e-mail. TAKE TWO, THEY’RE SMALL There are plenty of free web-based e-mail accounts available through the likes of Yahoo, Netscape, et al. Take advantage of these and use them as a second or even third e-mail account. With multiple e-mail accounts, you can keep your business, on-line purchases and inquiries, etc., separate from your personal account. KEEP FILE SIZE ATTACHMENTS SMALL It’s very convenient to send pictures of the baby to friends and relatives. But be very aware of the file size of the picture (or other graphic, video clip, or audio file) you’re attaching to e-mail messages. My sister-in-law scanned a photograph of her new puppy and sent it to all her friends via e-mail. Unfortunately, the scanned photo was three megabytes in size requiring a very loooooooong download time for her friends to endure. Not a nice thing to do. (Try to keep the file size to under 100K bytes.) WOULD YOU LIKE SOME SPAM WITH YOUR MESSAGE?? I’m sure anyone and everyone who have ever had an e-mail account have found those annoying unsolicited advertisements in their inbox. These promise untold riches and other pie-in-the-sky claims. And, if you read closely, they usually contain verbiage about how to request removal from their list so you won’t receive subsequent advertisements from them. Well, don’t believe it. It’s usually bogus. And, in some instances, if you reply to the e-mail, it confirms to the sender that your e-mail address is valid! The best advice is to grin and bear it … then delete the damn thing. STATIONERY AND SIGNATURES Some e-mail programs such as Outlook or Outlook Express programs offer e-mail stationery and signatures. Stationery provides your e-mail message with graphic backgrounds very similar to the ol’ writing paper stationery. This is useful if your message has a particular theme such as a baby announcement, party invite, etc. You can create your own or use the provided stationery. Signatures can be very useful in creating a boilerplate sign-off or any situation where re-typing the same information becomes tedious. If you wanted to have your name and company information listed at the end of your e-mails, create a signature such as the following: Rick Momii ABC Widgets Inc. 1122 Third St. Suite 44 Los Angeles, CA 90012 E-Mail: rick@yahoo.com USE CAUTION WHEN OPENING ATTACHMENTS Be leery of e-mails having files attached to them, especially if you’ve received them from an unknown sender. For PC users, file attachments whose “extension” ends in .EXE, .COM, .BAT, or .VBS are particularly worrisome. These files have the ability to execute malicious activity such as a computer virus. If the sender is at all circumspect, delete the message entirely. (Anti-virus software will help keep e-mail sent viruses at bay.) More information and help about e-mail and newsgroups can be found on the Web. Try www.help.com or www.learnthenet.com/English for starters. DELETING MULTIPLE MESSAGES EASILY A friend was recently bemoaning to me the arduous task ahead, that of cleaning out her e-mail folders of hundreds of unwanted messages. She complained that the process of deleting messages one by one was too tedious to bear: Highlight a message, press the Delete key, answer yes to the confirmation query. Over and over and over again. Kawai-so, ne? Worry not, I told her. There’s an easier way to delete messages en masse and it goes like this: DELETING BLOCKS OF MESSAGES For example, let’s suppose 10 messages currently reside in your Message List, and you want to delete the first five. Click once on the first message. Move your cursor to the fifth message and WHILE HOLDING DOWN THE SHIFT KEY, click once on message five. Press the Delete key to remove the now highlighted five messages. DELETING MESSAGES IN A NON-CONTINGUOUS BLOCK In the same example, let’s suppose you want to delete only messages one, three, and five. Click once on message one, then while holding down the Ctrl key, click once on message three and then message five. Press the Delete key. (For Mac users, hold down the Shift, Option, and Command keys.) Keep in mind these procedures won’t work on Web-based e-mail such as Yahoo!, or HotMail. It will work on Microsoft’s Outlook and Outlook Express and Netscape Mail. You can also use these procedures for OPENING multiple files from within many applications such as Microsoft Word. From the File \| Open window, use the Shift or Ctrl key as outlined above if you need to open more than one file. ANSWERS: PMFJI – Pardon Me for Jumping In IMO – In My Opinion IMHO – In My Honest Opinion LOL – Lots of Luck or Laughing Out Loud ROTFLOL – Rolling on The Floor, Laughing Out Loud FWIW – For What It’s Worth BTW – By The Way TIA – Thanks In Advance TTFN – Ta-ta For Now Re-printed from the Rafu Shimpo, November 2000. Copyright©2000 Rafu Shimpo. All rights reserved.

“Of Mice and Megabytes Supplement”