Email is Dead for Me
After a less-than-rousing response to a conference in which I invited 18 male friends who live locally, and got only two responses at all, I sent a second, perhaps ill-advised second email the following week, exactly seven days later, asking, “Hey, what gives? Why no response?”
Here’s what I sent (hold your breath - it’s a bit rough, but remember that most of the recipients were people I’ve known for over a decade - all men):
Peter Patera Strikes Back - at Spam!
A fellow blogger, Peter Patera, took a little time (okay, a lot of time) spam-baiting a Sri Lanka spammer into carrying on the most insane email conversation I’ve ever seen. You should read his account if you can afford the time. As I commented there, “If we all join hands and stand our ground, the enemy will flee back to Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Budapest, and other forbidden territories.”
Peter’s emails are tongue-in-cheek and clearly meant to reveal his true intent. But the spammer carries on the conversation, sending Peter all sorts of files and attachments, and in the end, doing five terrible website mockups - for free. All to try and win Peter’s business at a dirt-cheap rate of $14/hour.
New Year Resolution: Learn How to Subscribe to RSS Feeds
In the blogging world, we all subscribe and read feeds regularly. So, if that isn’t you, and you don’t “get it” or think it is some technical trick, I encourage you to pay attention for a minute.
The Old Way
If you don’t use a feedreader, you are missing out. You are forced to do one of two things to stay on top of things: subscribe to things via email, or remember to visit certain web pages with regularity. Both have intrinsic problems.
Email interrupts your day. Email should be reserved for business-like items, friendly quick exchanges, and the like. It should not be for news and updates. Not anymore.
Ron Paul Spam is Real
Despite my being questioned the other day as to the legitimacy of getting Ron Paul spam mail, it has now been fully confirmed. ARS Technica reports that the pattern of Ron Paul spam discovered by the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Computer Forensic Research department was “disturbing”. The story at Digg has been dugg over 850 times as of this writing - with over 550 comments comprising the normal vitriol and banter typical of anything having to do with Ron Paul.
Ron Paul using Spam Emails to Get Out Message
I’ve been receiving spam messages today supporting presidential candidate Ron Paul - all from unreal email addresses. One was even from a fake CompuServe email address. What a throwback. Turns out CompuServe is still in business as part of Netscape. Who knew?
Anyway, the spam messages have no website links, so they are getting through the filters handily. One wonders if Ron Paul’s enemies are behind this - since the messages make him look about as bad as a Presidential candidate can look. Typical of the type of rhetoric Paul supporters rant about, as I recently wrote about, the message is filled with wild claims, poor grammar, and the inability to stop long enough (or breathe) for a paragraph break.
Is Social Networking Finally Breaking Down?
I’m done. With social networking. I canceled both my Facebook and MySpace accounts last week. Why? It’s over. The dream of social networking. I’m convinced that people just don’t “get it”.
TechCrunch reports on a ridiculous new site called LifeAt. It’s supposed to be a social network for building residents in New York City? What’s next? A special website for people who ate at the downtown Mickey D’s last week? It has finally gone beyond the curious grouping of people with similar interests. Young with young. Professionals with professionals.
There are over 300 social networking websites available to sign up for about any interest you might have.
Have A Great Week - In 30 Minutes
Here’s some tips I use to have a great week. They can be done in 30 minutes before the next week begins and require almost no preparation. You just do them and presto! - you’ll have a great week. They almost always work, but I’d love to hear from others if they have ideas that can be added to this. It probably isn’t possible to do this every week, but when you need to have a good week, try these tips.
Defense
Organizing Sent Email
I’m having a really tough time finding a useful tool or system to easily organize sent email. Every “organizing your email” tutorial out there seems to focus on the deluge of inbound email and how to handle, process, and organize it.
An overlooked problem, it seems, is organizing your sent email. Typically, most of us, when we need to find an email we sent previously, just search through our email Sent folder. Thunderbird and Outlook are more than capable of doing this.
What if I just want to easily browse through the last 20 emails I sent someone?
My favorite spam email yet
Yes, it’s true: I actually read some of my spam email. Not the stock investment stuff, or the crazy sex stuff. But occasionally, I’ll get a spam email that has no links to any websites, no graphics or images, no nothing… except rambling text.
This is my favorite one so far that I got back on July 11. I haven’t modified it at all, except by changing the line breaks and adding some punctuation, so it looks as poetic as it sounds. I also got rid of a trailing “the” at the end of the missive. It was from a Lila Jorgensen.
Spam is Beyond Control
One thing many folks don’t seem to fully grasp is that if you want to be available, that is to say, if you want people to contact you, then you must allow spam in your life. I hate these Russian-originated stock quote spam emails as much as you, but it is a necessary evil in order that people can conveniently have an email address.
Often, I’ll see blog postings and various tech magazines give a list of dozens of ways to control spam. It is quite often more time-consuming and frustrating to implement those ideas than it is to just let spam take its course.
Internet to Blame for Lack of Close Friends?
Techdirt pointed out that, according to Network World, the internet is partly to blame for our lack of close friends these days. It is an interesting study that was done that shows that although people might have hundreds of friends on social networks like MySpace and Friendster, they have fewer close friends then ever.
Close friends are defined as someone who you can talk about “important matters”. I suppose that varies from person to person, but it still rings true to me that people are definitely more scatter-brained and less-focused than I can ever remember.
FAQ’s
How do I reconcile my religious beliefs with yours?
Great question. I have no idea what you are talking about though. In all likelihood, this is why you and your fellow cult members are being hunted down like rabbits.
Are there any Handheld Phones worth buying?
I’ve been helping a client setup a Treo 600 to send and receive email and I started getting curious about these devices. I’ve owned two PDA’s over the years, but after I got rid of my last one a few years ago, I vowed to wait until I could better integrate the device with a phone. I just wasn’t going to be one of those guys who carry a PDA, a phone, a laptop, a thumb drive, etc… you know who you are, guys.
So, I jumped online to see what the latest offerings are and I have to say I’m very disappointed in what is available.
Separating Contacts by New Age and Dark Ages
One interesting thing I did during my recent switch from Outlook 2003 to Thunderbird was to also go through all my email contacts. Anyone who had never sent me an email or replied to an email of mine in the past few years, or who did so traditionally late (like months later), I deleted their email address and made a separate address book for them called “Phone Only”. I have no idea what is with these people. They either hate me and have no spine to say so, or maybe they get an email address and have no clue how to use it. I’m not talking about people with wrong email addresses or mailbox full folks. Some of them actually used to be pretty good friends.
The Switch to Firefox and Thunderbird
Well, after a long day’s work, I took an extra hour to make the switch to Firefox and Thunderbird. It is part of my long-term goal to ween myself off of Microsoft’s products. I’m pretty much an Excel expert so I don’t know how I’ll last in the long run. I’ve been using Firefox for a long while now, but I made it my default browser and imported all my settings and my favorites. Very easy.
