Your love of emails will determine your age...

I like emails. I don't fancy IM. I am not at Facebook. Does this mean my time is past? A long time ago before the coming of the Internet, populations around the world were communicating via letters and telegraph. We call letters "snail mail" now but then, it was considered highly advanced when compared to delivery by messenger pigeons. Today, individuals seldom write letters anymore. Only companies or formal matters require letters - and even this is changing. For quite a while, emails have been touted as the way to go. "Go electronic", many advocates urge. Communication via letters has almost vanished and it has been replaced by instantaneous emails. I love emails - because sending them is practically instantaneous and also because emailing is "asynchronous". I love the freedom of replying whenever I feel like or am able to. But recently, with the silly hype about Facebook and it being the next Google which is the next Microsoft, another age seems to be upon us. No longer are people (not only youngsters - even adults seem to be belting up for the ride) communicating via emails or even IM, instead, they do so through the various social networking sites they have signed up with and sunk their roots into. It is hard to imagine what is so fascinating about this relatively new mode of communication - not unless one pretends to be one of those egoistic and desperately attention-seeking selves that many there probably are (not to say blogging is totally lacking in these elements...). :P So do you like emails? If you do, you are probably too old for this world now. Adieu. PS.: Here's someone who feels like me. Update: I came across another article on this topic. This guy here wrote it 10,000 more beautifully than me. :P

Better to forget completely or remember wrongly?

One of my friends was remarking how a mutual acquaintance is currently in Philippines. Him: She's in Philippines now, didn't you know? Me: Eh... no. How did you know anyway? I didn't know you two are close... Him: Don't you remember that email she sent? She said she was in Philippines! OOPS. Did I forget something again? I quickly dug out *that* email and re-read the content. Hmm... she did mention she was in Philippines... how can I not recall this at all? But wait, the email says something else too... she was in the Philippines FOR HER SUMMER VACATION. So what happened was that while I completely forgot about the Philippines bit, my friend remembered a distorted version of it. My friend thought that she, an American, had long migrated to Philippines. What a big boo-boo if she reads this! :P Is it then better to forget something completely or remember it wrongly? Naturally if I get to choose, I would rather remember everything correctly. However in this case for instance, it is clearly better to forget completely than remember wrongly. Remembering part of it and knowing it is incomplete is fine - at least you have a general idea and know that you just need to verify it. But remembering incorrectly and thinking it is correct is disastrous! So in order of decreasing preference, I think it is better to: (1) Remember everything correctly. (2) Remember the gist of it and knowing your knowledge is incomplete. (3) Remember incorrectly and thinking you are right! That's why it is useful to store information you think you might need later on. Today, much of our communication is via emails. If you are using Gmail like me, you can take advantage of Gmail's inbuilt search engine. Say you had this conversation with someone offline and you think the information will come in handy. As soon as you get online, pen down all you need to remember in an email. Then very importantly, spend at least 5 to 15 seconds to put down all variations of keywords that come to your mind. It is worth pointing out here that if you can't find the email, it is as good as useless. Do be reminded that Gmail search is unfortunately still not as powerful as Google search vanilla. Where appropriate, I would suggest you put down both the plural and singular form of the word. And if need be, put down both the abbreviation and the long form. Stick to this "storing routine" and you will do just fine. :-)

Self Destruct Message

I came across this self destruct message service from here and thought it is pretty cool. Check out www.sdmessage.com to try it out for yourself. The name of this service seems to be... er... Self Destruct Message (SDM). So just take it literally at face value. :P Basically, you get the option to fire off a quick memo to someone without the hassle of logging in to your email account. It may be that you need to rush off quick and don't want to wait for the recently-slowing gmail to load. It may be that you are surfing on an unsecured network and don't want to risk exposing your email password. It may be that you really want to utilize the self-destructing option. Whichever, what this free service does is to send your message to your intended recipient as a hyperlink in an email. So the recipient will receive an email supposedly from you and he will have to click on the link to view the message that is only visible on the site for 60 seconds. There are 2 things though that I don't like about this service. Firstly, they collect and keep all our IP addresses. Secondly, their privacy policy also says that SDM reserves the right to communicate with everyone who has used this service "from time to time about important notices" and that "these communications are mandatory". 2 privacy ouches here. I admit that I read their privacy policy only after doing my experiment. So it seems that many people will be unknowingly captured in their mammoth mailing list. And sorry, there is no (easy) opt-out option available. This is only my first day trying this service so I have not had the chance to receive any mailings from them *yet*. I will be posting again if they start spamming me for fun. *hmph* Another word of caution is that you should use your discretion when sending possibly sensitive information over this service. Period. PS.: I have tested another similarly simplistic service at www.destructingmessage.com but the 2 test messages I sent appeared to have wandered lost. *gasp* New request: I would like to see a character counter too. Since there is a character limit, it would be more convenient if our character quota is shown dynamically decreasing as we type. This should be simple enough to implement. :P

8 Habits of Highly Ineffective Emailing

Got an email? Well, that's a silly question, isn't it? Of course you've got an email. In fact, you've got MANY emails. The Cranking Widgets Blog located at http://blog.crankingwidgets.com shares 8 Habits of Highly Ineffective Emailing. I will list just 3 here, and you can read the rest for yourself at http://blog.crankingwidgets.com/2007/04/09/8-email-habits . Saying Way More than is Necessary - This is one you won’t know the message has committed until at least a third of the way through it. If you find yourself thinking “for Pete’s sake, get to the point…” - you’ve got one of these messages. You see, many people like to treat email like a lazy Sunday afternoon conversation over mojitos - they drone on and on, giving you details and subplots that are only somewhat relevant (and decidedly unnecessary). If you’re a bit of a stickler like I am, these get round-filed with the quickness. Straying Wildly from the Topic - When the email subject reads “TPS Report Cover Sheet Format” and half-way through you’re reading about Tom’s lunch plans or the new policy on chewing gum in the break room, you know you’ve found one of these jewels. If the author of the email can’t be bothered to formulate a coherent message, a pox on them and their message. Shift+Delete (bypasses the ‘Deleted Items’ folder in most email programs - use with caution). Set the Priority to ‘High’ on Every Single Message - Ever heard of “The Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf’”? Same deal. If you think that I automatically jump to read every email with this indicator, you’re sadly mistaken. In fact, I’ll probably just roll my eyes and move on to the next email. Maybe I’m just jaded, but if an email is that important, maybe it ought to be a phone call or an in-person visit. But believe me when I say that, personally, I judge these messages very harshly and will often completely ignore them if they don’t present a situation that is actually of “high priority”.