The first item on our list is the angry e-mail. E-mail provides a crucial benefit over face-to-face communication: you have a chance to carefully choose your words and compose an eloquent message. But e-mail can also inspire a confidence that may be lacking in live communication.

This can lead to the angry e-mail, and sometimes it’s all too easy to write things you would never say. There’s probably a reason you would never say those things, so it’s important to keep that in mind before pushing that Send button. Once you do, there’s no way to get that message back.

So if you’re angry, upset, or irritated in any way, it may be best to step away from the computer for a break. That way, you will likely cool off or relax and have a better frame of mind; after all, you probably don’t want to burn any important bridges.

Next, let’s talk about the plague of electronic communication: the forwarded chain letter. We’ve all gotten these and may have even been tempted to pass them on at some point. I mean, let’s face it: if we pass that message on to at least ten friends, we could suddenly inherit millions of dollars. And if we don’t, it could mean bad luck for the next seven years. But that is more than likely not going to be the case.

Chain letters were annoying enough when they arrived as paper mail, but in that form they cost money to send. With electronic mail, which is mostly free, chain letter forwards are even more prevalent, and just as bothersome.

Some of these messages make you feel guilty if you ignore them, or even threaten karmic disasters if you fail to pass them on to a specified amount of recipients. And then there those that imply technical catastrophes if you don’t click on something or delete a certain file. Please, friends: don’t fall for those.

So, you might ask: what is the best way to handle these unwanted messages?  First of all, delete the message, especially if it is the kind that threatens technical disaster or asks you to click on a link. Second: if they are coming from a relative or close friend, ask them gently to not include you on the list for those e-mails unless they directly know the source.  Remember, this may be the only entertainment dear Aunt Sally has.

Our dear friend, the Cybercouth Tiger, sent a note about a few other aspects of e-mail etiquette that he wanted to share with us. Here is what he had to say:

One of my avocations is playing stand-up bass in an amateur jazz ensemble. We have six musicians in the band, but using electronic calendaring is impractical for us.  As a result, our rehearsals and gigs are scheduled via e-mail messages. This would be quite acceptable but for a few irritating habits of the members in the percussion section. They don’t seem to grasp the concept that only the band member serving as our organizer needs to know if they can or cannot attend a particular date. Being drummers (and in bands, it is always the drummers), they use Reply to All when Reply was all that was needed. We all get enough superfluous e-mail from spammers and bots without getting it from percussionists, too.

On top of this, the stick-wielding troglodytes don’t understand that typing in all capital letters is rude. I often must restrain myself from replying to them (not using Reply to All, of course) that, “ALL CAPS IS FORTISSISSIMO.  PLEASE STOP YELLING!” While the decorum of a jazz band would never allow me to comport myself in such a manner with my band mates, I count it a privilege to be able to help you avoid the percussionists’ errors and harmonize with the groups with which you work.

Thanks for the advice, Cybercouth!

The tips for this week center around these ideas and a few others that will help you avoid behaving like a troglodyte, or any other unsavory character.

• Reply to All With Care – Using the Reply to All feature in Outlook and Notes
• Think Before You Send – Understanding Outlook’s message recall feature
• Don’t Shout – Avoiding the use of all caps
• Unread Letters – Manually marking messages as read or unread in Outlook
• Need a Receipt With That? – Using read receipts in Outlook and Notes
• Break the Chain – Dealing with chain letters in e-mail
• Read it Later – Manually marking messages as read or unread in Windows Mobile

Enjoying these tips?  Have any suggestions for future podcasts?  Stop over and write a review of the podcast on iTunes, or drop us a quick note on Twitter @productiveUcast.

That’s all for this week.  Until next time, remember to make Miss Manners, the Cybercouth Tiger, and Mom proud of your e-mail communication.

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

But when I got to college and needed some money, I found myself taking a job as a cold-calling telemarketer. As I dialed each number, I always envisioned a family trying to enjoy a peaceful dinner and being rudely interrupted. It’s happened to me countless times, too.

With a mobile phone as my primary line, I don’t hear from telemarketers much these days. But there’s a new annoyance in their place, one that plagues my Web surfing more and more with each mouse click: pop-up ads.

Much like the door-to-door salesman and the telemarketer, these ads are rarely a welcome intrusion, and they always seem to be advertising products or services that I neither want nor need.

Not all pop-up windows are ads, but those that are can sometimes be more than a harmless nuisance. Some of these pop-ups contain malicious code that can infect your computer with viruses or spyware. Usually, all it takes is one click, and that means anywhere on the window. This is why you should never attempt to close one of these windows by clicking on the “X” button in the top right corner. Instead, use the keyboard shortcut Alt+F4, which will safely close the active window.

The Internet is a dangerous place. Sometimes you set out to do a bit of care-free cyber surfing, but then a giant wave of harmful pop-up ads appear and suddenly you’re in over your head in shark-infested waters! And then there are the shrieking eels! Wait…I lost the analogy.

I think what I was trying to say is that most, if not all, of the major Web browsers come equipped with some very valuable tools to help keep you safe while you’re browsing the Internet. There is usually a pop-up blocker, and this can be customized to allow certain sites to display pop-ups while others get blocked.

Another great feature is the lock icon, which shows you whether you are on a secure Web site. This can help you avoid becoming a victim of phishing, an Internet scam that tries to lure you into giving personal information to a fraudulent Web site that has been designed to look like a banking site, for example. If you can recognize the common tricks of phishing sites, you’ll be on your way to safer surfing.

This week’s tips will show you where to find these features and how to use them. The tips include:

• It All “Ads” Up – how to use the pop-up blocker in Internet Explorer and Firefox
• Locked and Loaded – using the lock icon to tell if you are on a secure Web page
• Getting That “Non-secure” Feeling - deciphering a common Internet Explorer warning message
• Phishing: Don’t Take the Bait – learn all about phishing and how to avoid it

The links for these tips can be found on the blog entry for this week’s podcast at www.productiveUpodcast.com.

That’s all for this week. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast and the tips, be sure to head over to iTunes to write a review for us. And don’t forget to drop us a line on Twitter @productiveUcast.

Until next time, we hope these tips will help you recognize the Internet equivalent of walking down a dark alley at night. See you next week!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

In the world of geek, there are few things more humorous than a sketch by the famous British comedy team Monty Python. One of my favorites is the Spam sketch, in which a man and his wife go out to breakfast and nearly every item on the menu contains Spam. Most items contain Spam multiple times, such as “Spam, bacon, sausage, and Spam.”

This may sound familiar, even if you’ve never seen the sketch. I’m sure you’re no stranger to being bombarded with spam in a different sense: in your e-mail. If you own an e-mail address, spammers have probably discovered it by now and have started flooding your Inbox with junk messages about replica watches, adult websites, and a wide array of pharmaceutical drugs.

Some of the more malicious spam messages include “phishing” techniques, which try to trick you into giving away personal information such as passwords into banking sites. It’s actually kind of sad to think that someone has so much free time to devote to so insidious a task. Why not use that time more productively, such as by volunteering at a local homeless shelter, or by playing Mario Kart on Nintendo Wii?

Most e-mail clients, including Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notus, provide tools to help you weed out and eliminate these junk messages. You can usually set up a filter that will automatically scan your incoming messages for certain words or phrases that are common in spam e-mail; those messages will get sent to a Junk E-mail folder so they’re not crowding your Inbox. You can sometimes even create a blacklist to block certain senders from getting spam to your Inbox.

In addition to these built-in features, there are other ways you can fight spam. For instance, it helps to be able to recognize when a message is actually just a sneaky attempt to fraudulently obtain your personal information.

So for the tips this week, there are some that show you how to use Outlook and Notes to block unwanted messages, along with some tips that will help you identify spam and phishing messages.

This week’s tips include:

• Does Your Inbox Have a Little Junk in the Trunk? – Configuring Outlook’s Junk E-mail options
• Rules to Rid Yourself of Rubbish – Using QuickRules in Lotus Notes to block junk mail
• Blocking and Junk – Blocking mail from specified senders in Outlook
• Keep it Out – Blocking mail from specified senders in Notes
• Spam Wars – What to do with messages that include “unsubscribe” links
• Forwarding and the Spam War – How to deal with forwarded chain letters in e-mail

The links for these tips can all be found on our blog at www.productiveUpodcast.com. If there are any topics you’d like to see covered in an upcoming edition, let us know in an iTunes review, or reach out to us via Twitter @productiveUcast.

That’s all for this week’s podcast. Until next week, just remember: you can’t have “egg, bacon, Spam, and sausage” without the Spam, but you can have an Inbox without spam. See you soon!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

This week’s edition: “The Cybercouth Tiger Returns.”

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from our friend and loyal listener, the Cybercouth Tiger. Today he joins us with more tips for how you can observe common courtesy when communicating at light speed.

Delighted, as always, to be here. Productive U listeners, I come to you today to present some simple methods for minding your manners in e-mail.

When I was just a cub, my mother instilled in me the most basic elements of good etiquette. I was taught to properly introduce myself when meeting others, to keep my stories brief so as to allow others a chance to participate in the conversation, and to refrain from being a snitch to the others in my streak.

In the cyber world, carelessness will allow you to offend more people faster than ever before, but those simple lessons from my cub days can still be applied to help you avoid doing so.

I pose a conundrum: you receive an e-mail from a business associate (let’s call him James) who proposes a meeting to discuss an exciting opportunity to advance on the corporate ladder. He informally concludes this correspondence with the following statement, “Call me to discuss. -j.” Hands trembling with nervous excitement, you lift the telephone receiver and prepare to dial—but alas, you realize you have no contact information for this individual!

Oh, James. Your pitiful e-mail signature offers nary a method for contacting you; indeed, it lacks even your full name. Loyal listeners, I beseech you: take the time to compose an informative and comprehensive e-mail signature to be appended to your outgoing mail messages. Be sure to incorporate basic identification and contact information such as your full name and the best way to reach you. On a business e-mail account, this should include your telephone number, and a fax number if applicable. Your recipients will thank you, and I will personally applaud your courteous efforts.

Now a word about brevity. While an e-mail signature is clearly beneficial for those messages that require a body of message text, let us now observe how a brief message may not even necessitate a body. In such cases where only a short message needs to be conveyed, consider typing it directly into the subject line, followed by the acronym “EOM.” For those not in the know, this stands for “End of Message.” To your recipients, it means, “Don’t even bother opening this message, since there is nothing more to read.” Once they catch on, however, it will sound much more like, “I’ve extended the courtesy of being so concise as to eliminate the need for you to open this e-mail message. Please use that extra time as you see fit.” I feel compelled to inform you that I’m paraphrasing here; I can only assume they might actually be thinking something similar.

(I elaborate further on the topic of e-mail brevity in a recent letter I sent to the computer support staff at Productive U Podcast. You can read it here.)

While we’re on the subject of subjects, I might add this recommendation: never send an e-mail with a blank subject line. Common features in most e-mail applications include the ability to sort and search for messages according to their subject text. Quickly locating a message with no subject can become quite an ordeal. Do your fellow e-mailers the simple service of including some informative text in the subject line, so that they may properly prioritize and categorize your message.

Lastly, dear listeners, we are far past due for a discussion regarding CC and BCC. Allow me to clarify the purpose of these oft-abused fields.

When you include an e-mail address in the CC field, you are notifying your direct recipients in the To field that others are listening in because this message might also pertain to them. CC should not be used as a means of coercion. I recently observed an instance in which a manager was suddenly CC’d on an e-mail conversation between two co-workers. The intent in this case was to notify the manager of some petty squabble that was arising between the two co-workers. If a referee is required to resolve a dispute, there are proper channels that should be used. If a referee is required to resolve a dispute, there are proper channels that should be used. Don’t simply invite someone’s office superior to the conversation as a mediator.

Similarly, the BCC field should not be used to secretly or sneakily include a recipient on an e-mail message. While it is true that the addresses in this field remain hidden to all recipients, the actual purpose of this feature is to protect the privacy of your recipients when sending an e-mail to a group of people. Wanting to prevent everyone’s e-mail addresses from becoming public property on such messages is an acceptable use of BCC.

I shall now take my leave of you, but you can expect to find me here again. When there is a lapse in cybercouth, the tiger shall pounce! Of course, I prefer to educate rather than pounce, so I will return to share more tips to help you avoid becoming a cyboor. Cheers!

Links

• Create an e-mail signature: Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007
• Show the BCC field: Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007

We’d like to thank the Cybercouth Tiger for sharing his netiquette advice with us, and we’d also like to thank you for listening! If you have any comments for us, feel free to share them at www.productiveUpodcast.com.

Don’t forget to visit us on iTunes! While you’re there, you can write a review of the podcast. Or, see what we’re up to by following us on Twitter @productiveUcast.

See you next time!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

Part of the appeal of e-mailed messages is the quickness with which the information is delivered.  It is fully in keeping with the purpose of an e-mail to get to the conclusion as quickly as possible.  It is not only allowable, but may actually be preferable, to start out by saying that the butler did it.  Placing a summary with the conclusion at the beginning of the message allows the reader to estimate his or her need for the detailed information, prioritize the consumption of the details, absorb the detail more quickly and serves as a useful reminder should the message need to be reviewed at a later date.  There are times when the body of a message should contain only a summary with a conclusion.  Voluminous, detailed information, particularly if proper understanding depends on alignment, may be better as an attachment than in the message itself.  Please keep the conclusion to yourself when others are reading or watching a film, but get to the point quickly in your e-mail messages.

Now, about your little habit of carrying on conversations while in the cinema…

Not only might such a faux pas cause you problems, think about the cognitive dissonance (aka brain buzz) mixed signals can cause for those who give you the gift of their attention. Just as you would behave differently in face to face situations depending on who was present, it is important to manage your multiple on-line personas and the communication that flows through them so that the content and tone is appropriate to the people with whom you are interacting. You might think of each on-line persona as having a specific style of dress. Shorts and a t-shirt on Facebook. Business cas’ or better on LinkedIn. Twitter? Definitely tie dye and faded jeans.

Enjoy being virtually anyone you want to be, but please avoid the cyber crudity of sending mixed signals.