For an overview of this series, see the debut post on my morning routine. Background I’ve been using email for more than half my life. While it was available to me in college, I didn’t begin to use it until I started at my job a few months after I graduated. That was 1994 and…
When I first began using email, it was entirely text-based. I used a variant of mh mail beginning in 1994 and every now and then, after trying to do something relatively simple in my current email systems, I long for the days of mh. Here are some things I miss about the old email system:…
Remember the game you’d play as a kid, where you couldn’t step on certain parts of the floor because there was lava there? That’s how I tend to treat my email inboxes: I process the stuff in there as quickly as possible and get it out. I am a big believer in the “Inbox Zero”…
When I got back from the gym this morning, I received the following email message at my work email address (which is unusual because our spam filters are pretty good) and which looks to me like a British approach to the Nigerian email scam. This kind of thing is a waste of time, clutters up…
I rarely check my spam filtered mail at work because I simply don’t care enough. If someone sent me a message that accidentally got caught by my spam filter, I naturally assume it was their fault. (It’s different on my personal email because fewer people have my address and the spam control software is much,…
Yesterday, regarding a presentation I am giving today: COWORKER: Should I attend? It’s up to you guys–I have no preference either way. ME: From what I understand, I am doing a 15 minute demonstration of the tool. I think I can handle it myself. Of course, you are welcome to join if you are interested,…
Yesterday, for the first time in a very long time, I received no personal email. I thought maybe my service might not have been working, but I sent a test message and received it just fine. (And my spam folder was still getting messages, but that doesn’t count.) I can’t recall the last time a…
I keep a lot less personal email than I do work-related email. I archive mail at the end of each month and just got around to archieving my July mail today. I figured it was as good a time as any to cull some stats. Since February 7, 2004, I have received 4,253 meaningful pieces…
I have complained before about how we are so flooded with information these days, that it is virtually impossible to keep up. I send out an email message to friends at work each year, giving an estimate of how much email I actually read versus what I receive. In FY2005, I read just over 1…
I now know why it seemed like I was never getting any email from Rich. I just happened to randomly check my email trash and saw that my spam filter trashed a reply from Rich because at some point I’d accidentally blacklisted his address. Whoops! Good thing I caught it. I whitelisted his account and…
Minor rant follows: How do people decide how many elipses to use, in particular when composing an email or instant message? Is there a different set of rules of which I am unaware? I often see people write things like: You’ll never guess what happened……….. Now, what made that person decide it was okay to…
Long day today, and another night filled with crazy and intense dreams. I couldn’t remember the dream I had last night until dinner this evening when something Jim said triggered a memory of what the dream was about. Today was the first day of the Crystal Reports training class and I think it went very…