Computer and Web Articles

Hello there all you Thunderbird users!

Put these hotkeys to use and you’re sure to become a quicker, more efficient e-mailer:

• Shift + J = Mark a message as “Not Junk”
• J = Mark a message as Junk
• M = Toggle between marking a message as Read/Unread
• Ctrl + O = Open a received message
• Ctrl + R = Reply to a message
• F = Go to the next message
• N = Go to the next unread message
• P = Go to the previous unread message

Although you may be tempted to take big, pretty flyers or your professionally-designed advertisements and plop them into your company’s e-mail newsletters, I’d like to strongly suggest that you refrain from the temptation.

Why? Three main reasons.

1. First, your recipients may move on to other e-mails before your image fully loads - meaning that they never see your message.
2. Second, servers are far more likely to reject e-mails containing large images.
3. Third, many e-mail programs (such as Outlook) block images by default; this means that a portion of your recipients would see nothing more than a big broken image (a box with a little red “x” in it Ðjust like what we talked about in the Q and A section this week.)

This is a tough one.  Some people feel peeved when their e-mails aren’t responded to with confirmations, thank-yous, or other forms of acknowledgment. On the other hand, plenty of folks feel equally annoyed when they *do* receive e-mails saying nothing more than “Got it.” Or “Thanks.” Or “Will do.” Or “Great link.” Or “I agree.”

As these one and two-word e-mail replies can be viewed either as polite responses or as petty time-wasters, the task of training e-mail recipients how to reply to *your* communications remains entirely up to … you.

If you don’t mind these types of short e-mail responses, you need not do anything - you’re all set.

If you do mind these types of short e-mail responses, start ending your e-mails with a short sentence along the lines of “This is just FYI, so no need to reply.” This simple technique will substantially reduce the number of ‘pointless’ replies you receive in your inbox.

• www.jimdenevan.com — Absolutely lovely art. No paint involved.
• http://www.iwantsandy.com — Free automated virtual assistant that’ll send you reminders, keep track of to-do lists, and keep you organized.
• http://tinyurl.com/j4vd4 — Flowers. Leaves. Grass. Fruit. Colors. Trees. Snow. A rainbow of nature screensavers for you to choose from.
• http://www.boxcloud.com — Very affordable, super simple online file-sharing. No more e-mailing huge files or dealing with ftp logins and passwords.
• http://tinyurl.com/2p7duo — Two GMail features that few people know of that’ll help you make your inbox spamproof.

You use it every day, so why not learn a few shortcuts that’ll be sure to save you time when using Outlook? Here are some Outlook shortcuts I picked up from various articles on the web this week:

• Ctrl + Q — It doesn’t matter what folder you’re in — Inbox or otherwise — hitting this key combination will mark your highlighted message as either read or unread.
• Ctrl + Shift + C — The quick and easy way to add a new contact to your address book.
• Ctrl + F — A very much underutilized shortcut, Ctrl +F will forward whatever message you have highlighted.
• Ctrl + Shift + B — The mouseless way to display your Address Book.
• Ctrl + Enter — Be veeeeeery careful with this one!! Some people love it, others hate it so much they disable it completely. I’ll let you choose how you feel about; this is the shortcut that instantly sends out the message you’re typing. (So if you’ve ever been writing an e-mail and it suddenly seemed to “send itself,” now you know what may have happened …)
• Ctrl + N — If you take away anything at all today, try to remember this fundamental shortcut, which simply opens up a fresh new e-mail for you.

Now I’ve never used www.RemoteControlMail.com myself, but I’ve seen a few rather complimentary reviews of it, and the service looks like it’d be quite useful - so I’ll just give you the quick summary and you can then determine for yourself if it’d be useful to you or not.

Remote Control Mail aims to help you manage your postal email just as easily as you manage your email. The site proffers to bring postal mail into the 21st century by allowing you to “view scanned images of your sealed envelopes online, and with a few mouse clicks have your mail securely scanned into a PDF document, recycled, shredded or mailed to you or someone else.”

The website maintains that the service is just as valuable for personal use as it is for business use. It isn’t free, though.

To learn more, visit www.RemoteControlMail.com.

Attention all Gmail users: use the following tips and you’ll be on your way to Gmail greatness:

• Enable your keyboard shortcuts by clicking on the Settings link (top of your screen, on the right), then clicking on the General tab. See the Keyboard Shortcuts area?
• Make sure the “Keyboard Shortcuts on” option is selected.
• Once your keyboard shortcuts are turned on, use those shortcuts! If you’re reading an e-mail and determine that you’d like to reply to it, just hit the “r” key on your keyboard.
• Alternatively, if you want to forward an e-mail you’re reading, simply tap the “f” key on your keyboard.
• Hit your forward-slash key (/) and your cursor will instantly jump into the Gmail search box.
• If you’re in the middle of composing an e-mail, but decide that you’d like to save it and work on it later, click on the “Save Draft” button in Gmail (usually located between the Send and Discard buttons). Later, when you’re ready to work on it again, go to Drafts, located under Sent Mail and above All Mail, click your message, and keep typing.
• Remember that you can easily set up a signature that will go at the bottom of all your e-mails by going to Settings, selecting the button next to the edit box in the Signature section, and typing in the text you’d like to have in your signature.
• If you’d like to be whisked immediately to your Contacts list, hit the “g” key, then the “c” key.
• If you ever access Gmail from a computer other than your own, make sure to login to https://gmail.google.com — note the extra “s” after the http. Logging in at this address means your Gmail password is kept safe and secure, and (other than that creepy guy sitting next to you who keeps glancing furtively at your monitor) your e-mails are kept private.

I’m going to take a wild guess and say that, at one point or another, you’ve experienced this issue: e-mails coming in from friends, family and business associates are treated as junk mail.

If you’re using Outlook 2007, all you need to do to ensure that this doesn’t happen in the future is to add the e-mail addresses of trusted senders to your Safe Senders List. E-mails from senders on this list will never be treated as spam.

Oh! And here’s a great Outlook 2007 Safe Senders List trick: Click on Actions, choose Junk E-mail, choose Junk E-mail Options, then choose the Safe Senders tab. Look down toward the bottom. See the option that reads “Automatically add people I e-mail to the Safe Senders List”? Check it!

Now you can rest assured that all the friends, family and business contacts you e-mail will never have the e-mails they send to you treated as spam.

Do your e-mails regularly find their way into your recipients’ spam filters?

Though you’ll likely be surprised by few of the following phrases, keep in mind that using any of them in your e-mail subject lines make you a prime spam suspect in the eyes of most modern-day spam filters.

Some of the prime spam filter trigger-phrases include: fast cash, web traffic, online marketing, incredible deal, free gift, free info, earn extra cash, increase sales, limited time offer, info you requested, information you requested, internet market, financial freedom, weight loss, home based, apply now, eliminate debt, extra income and free membership.