Is that email chain letter a hoax?

http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBStupids.shtml - always check it out before forwarding that lost child, the spider bite, and others. 

 

For additional reading that is a hoot, look up http://www.scamorama.com and read what kind of letters you could be getting and how some recipients respond.  HeeHee, it is funny.

 

Knowing how to use the email - smartly

I am being spammed.  From all angles.  I had an email account that I used to get information on a trip to Mexico. I was looking through a site and thought the information was good and sure, send me email updates.  Ok, this group and I know it was the group because what I do is change my name or add something to my name, and all the SPAM has that same identifier.  At least 200 a day went to the email account.  I had in one month over 2000 junk emails. What a bummer.  Every once in a while I try to open the account and am surprised when I can but most of the time it is locked out.  All because of one situation where I was asked to submit my email address.  Of course the account has no spam blockers so that can affect how many I get.  Whereas earthlink, yahoo, lycos and some others have spam control. 

Remember I stated that I put some identifier in the request. Well that works if you have a system that allows you to specifically block certain words, etc. 

I love a good joke and some of the videos that come to my desk are great.  And so far I have not been spammed by friends with a lot of stuff, but I was reading in Sunday’s paper about a guy who’s mother sends him upwards of 200 emails a day of various stuff.  I like the one about the missing child.  That keeps coming around  - it is a hoax.  A flat out lie.  Of course I get those emails from Africa that expects me to help them out if I would be a the foreign stand-in.  Called the 419 group.  Interesting.  

 

Here are some tips – have a number of email addresses.  Besides the one at work and everyone knows it is strictly for work issues and notifications etc, establish an email for friends, one for family, one for those inquiries, and one for the jokes, etc.  Let people know which one they can use for certain emails. 

On complaint a guy had was that someone sent a picture of a family member and the document (jpg) was so large it took nearly an hour to download (dial-up).  Another request that you might want to make is that if someone is sending you pics to ensure they have zipped it or reduced the size of the document.  Photoshop allows you to change the size and much more user friendly.  That is why you might want an email that is strictly for pics.

Another solution – if the sender wants you and everyone else to see a picture of the grandkid, have them set up a Blogg right here and there they can post pictures and jokes and other stuff.  Then they can send you a hyperlink to the site.   Now they won’t be able to post mpegs and wavs but if they really wanted to, they could get a web site and set it up there. 

 

Here are some links that might help: http://www.onlinenetiquette.com/  or better known as netm@anners

 

If you are looking for additional email accounts, besides, hotmail, yahoo, and lycos, also look at survivormail.com, mucho.com, and others. 

 

See following article(s) from the Gazette, Sunday December 4, 2005

Business section: Brushing up on your e-mail etiquette can improve your communication skills

 

BY JEFF ELDER KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

 

   here’s an old adage: No one thinks they’re a bad driver. Here’s an updated 21st-century version:
   No one thinks they send annoying e-mails.
   Plenty of us do.
   Consider these findings from the Pew Internet and American Life Project report, culled from Princeton University research conducted from 2000 to 2002:
   23 percent of Americans who use e-mail at work say e-mail has added a new source of stress to their lives.
   22 percent of work e-mailers say e-mail has caused misunderstandings.
   16 percent of work e-mailers say e-mail encourages gossip.
   E-mail has revolutionized communication. But it’s still very much an untamed frontier. Welcome to the E-mail Offender Rehabilitation Program. We’ll get you straight before you hit “Send” and offend again.
   Here are some common e-mail infractions identified by “netiquette” experts:
   Do you send out jokes and “you gotta see this!” Web sites to a range of people?
   PROBLEM! You’ve just distributed your friends’ e-mail addresses to people they don’t know, exposing them to spam and viruses.
   Do you send out cute e-mails to your entire office or department?
   PROBLEM! You’ve just required your co-workers to sift through more e-mails and made it difficult for them to know what interoffice communication is important.
   Do you load up your e-mails with elaborate personal signatures that include favorite quotes or even graphics?
   PROBLEM! You’ve just burdened your readers with superfluous information that wastes their time.
   About 31 billion e-mails are sent globally each day, according to “How Much Information 2003,” the fact book sent out by the University of California at Berkeley. How many of those e-mails would have benefited from adhering to appropriate tone or structure?
   Knight Ridder staff member Brandy L. Bourne contributed to this article.
Experts say there are three types of e-mails with distinctly different rules.

THE CLOSE FRIENDS E-MAIL


Your spouse, your closest friends, your siblings, your parents: These are the people to send jokes and “you gotta see this!” e-mails to. Hard as it may be to believe, not everyone shares your sense of humor. Even this small group of people will not enjoy everything you send them.

THE OFFICE E-MAIL


Don’t add to people’s workload. That’s the main rule of e-mails sent out to a group of coworkers. Keep them short, sweet and to the point. Follow these tips: Make the subject line factual and brief. In clear, concise sentences, deliver the pertinent information within the e-mail. If you don’t have an electronic signature on your e-mails, provide your name and phone number. Proofread the e-mail several times before sending it out.

THE PUBLIC E-MAIL


Occasionally we have to send out e-mails to all the parents of the soccer team, or to everyone in the homeowners association. You might try writing your public e-mails with a who, what, when, where structure. This structure can be extremely helpful to readers. WHO: All members of soccer team. WHAT: Team photo. WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 4, at noon. WHERE: Playing field 2. QUESTIONS? Call Coach Lombardi It’s often a bad idea to include personal statements in a mass public e-mail.
   
Angry responses


   Studies show that one attribute of e-mail that most distinguishes it from other forms of communication is its ability to evoke heated emotion. Misinterpretation can lead to rapidfire exchanges known as “flaming.” Here are some tips for avoiding a flame war:
   Think before you write. If you’re angry, DO NOT put an address on your e-mail. Simply compose an e-mail that is addressed to no one and save it that way. This can be therapeutic and prevent you from firing off something regrettable.
   If you receive an e-mail that makes you mad, read it again. Make sure you’re not overreacting.
   Separate opinion from fact while reading an e-mail so you can respond appropriately.
   When communication is tense or unclear, pick up the phone — or better yet, go see the person.
   Be concise in your messages. Flaming tends to happen when you write to excess.

Handling ‘the one that    got away’


   OK, so what happens when you do write something mean and send it off? Admit it, right away. If possible, apologize in person or at least on the phone. This will help to break the chain of aggressive e-mails, and will convey to the other person that you took the transgression seriously.
SOURCE: Katherine Reynolds, Yale University

Before you hit ‘send’


   Complete this mental checklist when you send an e-mail:
   Is this e-mail a “flame”? Never send an e-mail in anger. It could stay around forever, and haunt your professional or personal life.
   Check the “To” field. Is this really who you want to send the message to?
   Have you spell-checked the message? Does it contain any error that could reflect badly on you?
   Is the message too informal for the people you’re e-mailing? Does it waste their time?
   Are you insulting or criticizing someone who could see this message later? Is the e-mail simply unfair or unkind to that person?

 

 

‘Frequent forwarding’ can strain relationships

 

By DAN CHARNAS COLUMBIA NEWS SERVICE

 

   NEW YORK - Every day, Rob Evans’ e-mail inbox fills with pictures of missing children, warnings not to flash his headlights, alerts about the worst computer virus and promises of a $50 Applebee’s gift certificate simply for forwarding the offer to nine people in his address book.
   The electronic avalanche began five years ago, and Evans, a 32-year-old marketing executive from Vineland, N.J., knows there’s no spam filter that can help him, not when those e-mail messages come from a person whose address he’d never block.
   His mother.
   “When she finally got on the Internet in 2000,” Evans said, “it was apparent that she was essentially forwarding everything she got.”
   Call it “friendly spam,” the kind you can’t filter away. This strain of junk e-mail comes not in automated waves from mercenary merchants but from people you know: parents, mothers and fathers, friends. Even more daunting than the onslaught is the prospect of confronting a loved one about it, a move that can put the relationship at risk.
   “People are tired of getting this stuff,” said Judith Kallos, author of “Because Netiquette Matters” and host of the Web site www.NetManners.com. Because e-mail hasn’t been used widely for more than a decade, Kallos says people haven’t developed the necessary social tools to deal with cyberspace communication. “They think they’re doing something nice and thoughtful” by sending those e-mail messages your way, she said.
   But it often comes across as the opposite to anyone who struggles to keep important messages from being lost amid the miscellany. When it’s our childhood friend or Aunt Millie in Minneapolis, it’s easier to press the delete key than to put them in the hot seat or read what they’ve sent. But when the crush of messages clogs accounts and blocks bandwidth, people on the receiving end may have to speak out. And if the frustration has been building a while, the words that come out may not be so nice.
   When Michelle Thomas-Johnston was 29 and living in rural Georgia, she communicated with friends via e-mail, sending jokes and attaching the latest pictures of her son. One day, she received a brusque reply from a college friend with a dial-up connection who couldn’t retrieve his business messages during the hour it took to download her family photo.
   “I have to admit,” Thomas-Johnson said, “I was a little hurt.”
   The upside of e-mail, though, is that a person can disappear quickly, with no packing and no forwarding address. When the college friend changed his e-mail address, he never informed Thomas-Johnson of his new one. It took her six years to track him down.
   Close relatives can be the worst offenders. Joan Minsky, 72, of Pittsburgh, used to forward whimsical e-mail messages to her brother Norman before he asked her nicely to stop sending them. “He likes to be kept in the loop,” Minsky said, “but I think he resents the jokes. He writes comedy for a living; maybe he thinks I’m trying to help him out.”
   Some family members take a polite request to curb their spam enthusiasm as a slap in the face. Kallos tells the story of a woman whose mother hasn’t spoken to her since her daughter pointed her to e-mail etiquette tips on Kallos’ Net-Manners site. “Her mother won’t even see the grandson anymore,” Kallos said.
   Part of the problem is that frequent forwarders don’t think of themselves as spammers, and not just because they’ve never been confronted, but because they see themselves as victims of friendly spam from others.
   After Stacy Shaneyfelt moved with her husband to Oklahoma, she used e-mail to stay connected with distant friends. When a friend made an offhand comment about her forwarding habits, Shaneyfelt was thrown off guard. She’d always tried to respect her recipients, at least more than some of the friends who had ignored her own pleas to not send spam to her during her vacation.
   Busy people beleaguered by barrages of spam wonder how their friends find the time to send it all, especially because many of them claim to lead productive lives.
   “I work three jobs,” Shaneyfelt said. “It bothers me that people think I have nothing better to do.”
   But some frequent forwarders are a marvel of sophistication. Jordan Joy, a 27-year-old from Manchester, Conn., sends at least 50 e-mail messages a week to family, friends and colleagues. He even has developed a system for maximum impact and minimal offense.
   “I have them set up into groups,” Joy said. “To the girls and my mother I mostly send the inspirational stuff. The universally funny stuff is another group.” The more adult-oriented content he sends “to the guys.” No one, he says, has told him to stop forwarding.
   For his part, Rob Evans gave up trying to reform his forward-clicking mother. Instead, he got even. One day, he sat down and composed an e-mail titled: “Fwd: Your car’s blood pressure — BE CAREFUL!” Inside, he forged an alert reminding drivers to wash the undercarriage of their cars weekly during the winter months.
   “Gaskets that usually allow for pressure to release can become clogged by the salt used to melt ice and snow,” Evans wrote.
   “This pressure can build up to dangerous levels causing explosions and can be fatal to the passengers in the vehicle. Last year alone 47 cars exploded in Wisconsin.”
   He then sent it to his mother, who, according to Evans, replied: “Well, I know if you sent it to me, it must be real.”