More e-mail advice
19/06/07 10:28 Filed in: BitDepth+
This
post follows on from BitDepth 581, which you can find
here...
Here's three extra bits of advice that will come in useful in lubricating your e-mail correspondence.
Attachments
Everyone will, sooner or later, have to attach a document to an e-mail. It might be an adorable photo of your grandchildren or a key proposal that needs to be in someone's in-box before noon, but e-mail protocols and the vagaries of various systems really don't care.
As a general rule, most e-mail addresses that are set up by businesses have limits preset on the size of files they will receive. That makes sense for the business, which automatically cuts down on the size (and overall volume of bandwidth required) of the e-mails coming into their systems, but can be a royal PITA when you need to send a PowerPoint presentation that's over the typical two megabyte limit.
Most people can view a photo at 640 x 480 pixels quite comfortably on their monitors, so there's no need to send a picture larger than that via e-mail. Popular photo management software such as Picasa and iPhoto can prepare pictures for transmission automatically for you.
If you've got a file that's just too big for e-mail transmission to your recipient, try one of the free websites designed to solve just this problem. I recently used DropSend to help a client send me two 10 megabyte files. I'll normally post images for download directly to this website to get them going in the opposite direction.
That said, e-mail websites like Yahoo and GMail have been increasing the maximum size of the e-mails they allow through their servers, so you may find web mail to be adequate for your needs.
Signatures
Signatures can be eminently useful in business correspondence, allowing you to add pertinent contact information directly to the end of an e-mail automatically every time you hit send. I'm constantly amazed that people who won't leave their home without a stack of cards will fail to use a proper "sig" with their e-mails.
Try to be appropriate with your signature. I've actually got five of them, each a pop-up menu away, and I choose the most appropriate one depending on the context and destination of each e-mail.
BCC
Most e-mail clients offer a To: and CC: field for e-mail recipient's addresses, but when you're sending e-mails to many recipients, it's considered common courtesy to use the (sometimes hidden) BCC field. An e-mail sent using the Blind Carbon Copy field hides a long list of recipients from each person who gets the e-mail (they see only their own address), but sends it off to all of them. This way you can communicate with a number of people who may have little in common with each other other than you and keep their e-mail addresses private. I use this system to send my weekly BitDepth e-mails, though on at least two occasions I've dragged my e-mail group to the wrong field. Still, it's the thought that counts and you should think about BCC unless everyone on your recipient list already knows each other.
Here's three extra bits of advice that will come in useful in lubricating your e-mail correspondence.
Attachments
Everyone will, sooner or later, have to attach a document to an e-mail. It might be an adorable photo of your grandchildren or a key proposal that needs to be in someone's in-box before noon, but e-mail protocols and the vagaries of various systems really don't care.
As a general rule, most e-mail addresses that are set up by businesses have limits preset on the size of files they will receive. That makes sense for the business, which automatically cuts down on the size (and overall volume of bandwidth required) of the e-mails coming into their systems, but can be a royal PITA when you need to send a PowerPoint presentation that's over the typical two megabyte limit.
Most people can view a photo at 640 x 480 pixels quite comfortably on their monitors, so there's no need to send a picture larger than that via e-mail. Popular photo management software such as Picasa and iPhoto can prepare pictures for transmission automatically for you.
If you've got a file that's just too big for e-mail transmission to your recipient, try one of the free websites designed to solve just this problem. I recently used DropSend to help a client send me two 10 megabyte files. I'll normally post images for download directly to this website to get them going in the opposite direction.
That said, e-mail websites like Yahoo and GMail have been increasing the maximum size of the e-mails they allow through their servers, so you may find web mail to be adequate for your needs.
Signatures
Signatures can be eminently useful in business correspondence, allowing you to add pertinent contact information directly to the end of an e-mail automatically every time you hit send. I'm constantly amazed that people who won't leave their home without a stack of cards will fail to use a proper "sig" with their e-mails.
Try to be appropriate with your signature. I've actually got five of them, each a pop-up menu away, and I choose the most appropriate one depending on the context and destination of each e-mail.
BCC
Most e-mail clients offer a To: and CC: field for e-mail recipient's addresses, but when you're sending e-mails to many recipients, it's considered common courtesy to use the (sometimes hidden) BCC field. An e-mail sent using the Blind Carbon Copy field hides a long list of recipients from each person who gets the e-mail (they see only their own address), but sends it off to all of them. This way you can communicate with a number of people who may have little in common with each other other than you and keep their e-mail addresses private. I use this system to send my weekly BitDepth e-mails, though on at least two occasions I've dragged my e-mail group to the wrong field. Still, it's the thought that counts and you should think about BCC unless everyone on your recipient list already knows each other.
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