Before we begin, some news. My favorite digital camera website, www.dpreview.com, has been voted "Best Digital Camera Review Site" by Yahoo Internet World, and my favorite picture printing site, Ofoto (www.ofoto.com) has been voted both "Best Overall Photo Site" and "Best Digital Print".
My wife is finally getting into computers and e-mail. It's amazing! Here she is, married to Mr. Techie, and has hardly used a computer at all. Obviously, she asks a lot of questions, and she suggested I summarize some of the advice into a column. So, here goes - in no particular order.
E-mail travels to you quickly, opposed to the U.S. mail - known in these parts as "snail mail". Therefore, you should handle your e-mail in a timely manner. Read new e-mail frequently and reply quickly. An e-mail sitting on your ISP for a week is stale. If you are expecting a response to an e-mail that you send to someone, state what your requirements are.
Do not use all capital letters - this is considered SHOUTING.
Every time you reply, the original note is included. If you always click REPLY when sending a note because you are too lazy to click New and look up the name of the person you are sending to, you should realize that all the replies keep building up and creating a really big file. Use REPLY only when actually replying to (or referencing) the specific message you received. You can turn off automatic inclusions of the original if you wish, or just manually cut out the old text. When replying, if you copy in addition a third party, beware that they will see all the past replies. This can sometimes be embarrassing!
It is very bad etiquette to use a distribution list in the To: field of a new e-mail. If you do this, everyone on the list will have access to the e-mail ID of everyone you sent the note to. This violates privacy. Instead, use the BCC: (Blind Carbon Copy) field - the result will be the same, but the recipients will not be able to see who else is on the list.
Do not build up large distribution lists, and then send every little joke or cartoon you receive to the entire list. If I received jokes or files from everyone I know, I would be inundated with them. Along the same lines, do not pass on the virus warnings, requests for assistance ("Dying Boy Wants Stamps"), and executable programs you receive. Most of these are viruses themselves or at best outdated.
Do use a virus checker that examines your incoming e-mail. E-mail is currently the primary method for virus propagation. If you receive an undetected virus in an e-mail, you will just be sending the virus to your friends and infecting them.
Other than that, e-mail is great. It really helps me keep in touch with many friends and relatives. The Post Office has commented that the amount of personal mail sent is way down - I can certainly understand that. I haven't written an actual paper letter in years.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).