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Steve Bass's Weekly Newsletter
TechBite's columnist Steve Bass writes weekly commentary on the technology products he loves, the strategies for getting the most out of them, and the gotchas that can cause computing misery.
Get Read: The Cardinal Rules of E-Mail
Make sure your e-mail gets read, more on getting help, security gaffes, and time killers.
In this issue:
Read My E-Mail
Expert Help Follow-up
Holy Mackerel
What I'm Reading
Time Wasters
Sending Me E-Mail?
Read My E-Mail
Want me to ignore your e-mail? Can do. Just leave the subject line blank, stick your entire message into one, long, 300-word sentence, or use cutesy, curlicued fonts I can't decipher. Oh, yeah, make sure you use a lavender background and neon green type.
Get ready, I have dozens of ways for you to make sure your e-mail is read.
I'm doing this newsletter as a public service. Ah, heck, that's not true. The topic's entirely for me. I'm persnickety about e-mail because I go nuts trying to plow through the 50 or so e-mails I get each day from TechBite subscribers. Too many are loaded with things that make my head hurt and my eyes water.
So here's this week's list of ways to help you can write less annoying e-mail, messages that I'll actually read -- as will your buddies. I'll have more next week.
The stack of tips aren't in order of importance; in fact, they're all equally important. And listen, do me and everyone else with e-mail a favor and forward these tips to, as they say, everyone you know.
Tell me, as explicitly as you can, what your message is about in the "Subject" line. I view with skepticism messages with vague subjects -- Hi, Hello, How are you? Even worse are empty subject lines, and I usually delete those e-mails.
Don't trigger my spam filter by using all capital letters, exclamation points, and words typically seen in spam. Sorry, I'd love to give examples, but my newsletter program's filter would trap them.
I often get messages that are one long paragraph (like this one) with complicated details. Most of the time, I don't read them. Break up your message into three or four small paragraphs. (By the way, my limit is three or four paragraphs. After that I start dozing.) You might even provide a one- or two-sentence overview. "I have a complicated issue," you could start out, "with a Dell, memory cards, XP, and SP3. If you have time to help, I've provided details below." If you have more than one question, or a bunch of points to make, number them. It makes replying a whole lot easier as I can refer to the numbers.
If you have a great link to share, don't just stick the URL in the e-mail. Include a short description of where I'm heading.
You want to attach a bunch of photos to your message? Cool, but if there are more than four or five, Zip them into an archive. 7-Zip is a freebie and will do the job nicely.
Those images you were about to send me? They'd better be small because I don't want a dozen 4-megabyte photos of your last picnic. Before you send them, use an image resizer. Microsoft has a free one for XP as part of its Power Toys collection (direct download); there's a version for Vista, too.
I know how much you love sending 10-megabyte videos of elephants imitating Picasso. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing them--but attaching a video in e-mail is so last century. If you look I'll bet you'll find it on YouTube. This tip is especially important when I'm traveling with my notebook, cramped in the car in front of a realtor's office, snatching their slow wireless connection, and watching the download progress bar crawl across the screen.
Tip: Sending Big Files. There are alternatives to attaching large files in e-mail. Fire up your browser and head for YouSendIt. You upload your file -- up to 100MB--and YouSendIt informs me by e-mail that a file's awaiting. I can download it at my leisure.
My AV program scans incoming e-mails, so while I get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I know that your antivirus program is screening your outgoing e-mails, I don't need see its blurb at the bottom of your e-mail. It's easy to turn the message off -- just poke around in your AV program's settings.
When you reply or forward an e-mail, it's helpful if you stick one or two descriptive words in front of the original subject so the recipient has an idea of what's in store. For instance, I use words such as "Update:", "Confirmation:", or "Really dumb:".
My gosh, I've really gone over my limit in this newsletter and I'm still not done. I promise more e-mail tips next newsletter. (And no, in real life, I don't say, "my gosh." That was my editor's idea. I would have said, "WTF, outta space already!?")
Expert Help Follow-up
Last week I offered to post your recommendations for getting online help.
Andrew Knutson's brilliant, and now oh-so-obvious suggestion will increase your odds when doing Google searches. Add "solved" or "fixed" (you don't need the quotes) to the search term. Andrew says, "it really narrows your answers." I agree.
Marty Kastriner uses AllExperts. He says: "You'll be greeted by a collection of topics that stretch from arts and humanities to TV and radio -- as well as computing and technology. When you get to the topic you want, a group of 'experts' will do their darnedest to help you with your problem."
T.A. Perkins, Jr. swears by FixYa for researching PC problems "Lots of good tips there," he says.
Holy Mackerel
What does the FBI have in common with Steve Bass? Easy: We both still aren't enamored with Vista. Yep, according to TomsHardware, the FBI is unenthusiastic about putting Vista on their notebooks. Security's the issue, they say. [Thanks, Bassim, nice lead.]
What I'm Reading
This week I'm listening -- to Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline. Dave's a regular at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and there are a whole host of ways to listen to the show.
Time Wasters
I have enough to keep you busy for at least a couple of hours. Patchworkz alone is good for an hour.
Quick change artists are entertainers just outside the magical realm. These two, performing on "America's Got Talent" are great fun to watch. It's interesting how she somehow she gets thinner and thinner...
Quick change artists remind me of Bian Lian, also known as Change of Masks or Face Changing, a part of Chinese Opera. (Read more). Watch a video of a Bian Lian artist; here's a longer video with some great close-ups. And no, I haven't a clue how they do it.
Apple's first Macintosh turns 25 and here's a question for you: Which boots up faster, a Windows XP laptop or a Mac? And no, it's not just any Mac. It's a 25-year old Mac with a single-button mouse that boots from a floppy. Watch the video.
The name was too cute -- Patchworkz. How hard could it be? Too bad I underestimated the game; I spent way too much time playing with it. [Thanks to Bonnie in Canada for this time killer.]
Sending Me E-Mail?
I'll bet you will, and you'll make sure to say you send only impeccable e-mails, the kind I love to read. That's cool, of course, but that's not why we're here. It's to get you to forward this newsletter to a long-lost cousin, your brother-in-law, and your bowling partner. Too complicated? Then just copy and paste to the signup page into an e-mail: http://www.techbite.com.
_____________________
Steve Bass is getting ready for your flawless e-mails at feedback
Steve Bass is still on the PC World masthead and is publisher and Content Chief at TechBite.com. He's also the author of "PC Annoyances, 2nd Edition: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Personal Computer," available on Amazon. Buy another six copies today.
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TechBite is a joint effort of Steve Bass (in 80-degree Pasadena) and Mike Kronenberg (in miserably cold Denver).
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