Module Two - Email

Delays, delays. Seeing as it's been.... 11 days since I've last posted something, I suppose I've ignored one of my tips for bloggers - "update regularly". If anyone asks I shall simply say that the lull was a part of my Cunning Plan, that I hope they've learned something from it and that any further details or explanations for the lack of posts are restricted due to the overall Cunning nature of the Plan.

Right. Email. Let's have a look at the reflective questions and reflect upon them a little, shall we?

"1. What information about a user's email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message?"

Lots of things, really. The email address itself can hint as to the users location and occupation - eg. ending with a .au pretty much says that email address is an Australian one. Similarly .edu.au implies a university/educational address, .gov.au implies someone with an Official Capacity In Government is conversing with you. Addresses ending in .com or .net don't mean much these days - anyone can get one - and .org was once supposed to be used for not-for-profit type organisations, but the lines have been blurred over the years by indifferent domain registrars.

Typing in the base domain of the email address in your browser (eg internode.on.net, which is my ISP) can often reveal the company or ISP the sender is associated with. Of course, typing in random domains can be hazardous to your computers health so avoid it if the message is obviously spam.

Delving into the headers of the email can tell you a lot more. The servers that the email has passed through,that date/time that happened, the originating IP address of the sender, the email client they were using. If you're having to track down some annoying git that keeps sending you abusive emails, the headers can lead you in the right direction, even if the reply address is incorrect.

"2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the 'cc', 'bcc' and 'reply all functions of email?"

CC is useful if you want to copy someone in on an email. That was the whole point of it, really. It indicates to the primary recipient that someone else is in the loop with them and that possibly they should be involved too. Normally in a business setting, you would inform the recipient that you're CC'ing someone else in and the reasons why eg. "I'm CC'ing Paul from Accounting in on this as he needs to keep track of out-of-budget expenditure. Let him know if anything else crops up." This introduces Paul, lets Paul know when he reads the email why he was suddenly involved and makes recipient aware of it.

BCC is not often ussed - in my opinion, it should be used a lot more.Why?

BCC - "Blind Carbon Copy" means that the recipients do not see the other people that the message is addressed to. So if you're emailing twenty clients the same message (about needing to discuss non-payments for example), generally BCC is the way to go, for privacy reasons. Sticking twenty clients in the "To:" field in that case is considered bad form - you're giving out the addresses of everyone to everyone else. Oh, you could just send separate emails to each recipient, but it's labour intensive, chews up a heap of bandwidth on your connection and you end up with 20 identical emails in your "Sent Items" folder. Just use BCC: instead.

Regarding "Reply All" - it's rare that I would use it, unless *everyone* has specifically requested to be kept in the loop. Usually I would single out the person that I am replying to and possibly cc someone else in. Having been the recipient of a "Reply All" storm in a corporate environment where six hundred people were in the To: field of an email, I can tell you it's not pretty:

Replyer #1: Re: Office Party, "Ok."
Replyer #2: Re: Ok, "What?"
Replyer #3/4/5/6: Re: Re: Ok, "What are you on about? Who are you?"
Replyer #7/8/9/10/11/12/....../45/46: Re: Re: Re: Ok, "Stop hitting REPLY ALL! ARRRRGH!"
Replyer #47-92: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ok, "You guys are idiots. Just don't reply!!1!!"

(repeat until system administrator has to put out the email server which has suddenly burst into flames)

"3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver?"

Mainly I would either establish what software they're using beforehand, or alternatively if I've already had an attachment from them I would reply in kind. If it's a document, an informal standard is Acrobat Reader. Most offices have this installed, the download for the reader is free for anyone and most importantly, *the formatting remains the same*

Anyone who's received a multi-page Word document from someone else knows how hopeless it is for reproducing faithfully what the sender wanted - in Word's case specifically, different printers means different pagination, so all the hard work the sender did in putting in page breaks,etc is just a jumbled mess when you open it on your end with your different printer. Not too good for that final submission.....

"4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose?"

I have a few filters, mainly for directing messages from moderate traffic mailing lists into separate folders. Keeps the main inbox tidy for day-to-day messages and makes it easier to browse through the mailing list messages at my leisure.

"5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?"

You bet I have. When you're trying to find that email from your architect amongst 4200 other emails in your inbox, it's a lot easier to just go check in the "House Plans" folder. Same for the "eBay" and "Flights" folders. My email client has a pretty good search function, but when your current email store goes back 5 years.... it's hard to remember a subject or sender specifically enough to find an email quickly. Folders help immensely.

Well, I'll leave it at that for this post and wander on to the "Email Lists" section.