How to Tame Your E-mail Monster

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Ubiquitous, effective, efficient, simple, annoying, maddening, perturbing, frustrating, and indispensable. All are adjectives that can describe e-mail. Most of us have a love / hate relationship with our email.

Like a hammer, e-mail can be used to build or to wreck. E-mail is a tool that can be used to improve your communications or confound it. It can be a time saver or a time sucker.

Your effective use of e-mail will put your time where it is most effective. Many of us find that e-mail and the Internet can be a black hole, exerting an irresistible, almost manic, pull on our productivity.

Here is proof. In my last column I suggested that you should only check your emails every 90 minutes. My own e-mail and (to a lesser extent) the comment section of the Insurance Journal Web site was blue with disdain. Many told me they have to check e-mail every 90 seconds in order to keep up. From the name-calling you would have thought that I had questioned the virtue of the reader’s mother!

Ninety nine percent of the e-mail we all get can be addressed quite well, making clients quite happy, if we respond within a business day. If you can respond faster, great. Frankly, with many of the people I encounter, I’m just glad to get a reply without having to send a reminder!

Constant checking of e-mail saps productivity. Most of our work requires some level of concentration and attention. Being in the middle of 10 tasks means that you are constantly trying to figure out what is what, draining away time and contributing to errors.

Here are some more email time wise ideas:

• Happiness is an empty inbox. When you check your e-mail, empty your inbox. Your inbox is for new mail. You don’t leave mail in your post office box do you? When you get a new note delete it, reply to it, or put it in a folder for later reply. Trying to work from your inbox is like trying to manage your snail mail sitting in the mail room.
• Your e-mail address should not be from Yahoo or Hotmail – probably not Gmail either. I am amazed at how many professionals do not have their own e-mail address. Bush league. Skip the e-mail style gimmicks. Don’t add backgrounds, moving icons, or garish colors. Simple, clean, and neat.
• Use the tools included in your software. Most will let you filter messages. Some put messages into folders and others attach labels. Your software can take notes from your inbox and put them into folders for future review. My e-mail moves the newsletters I subscribe to to a “Read Later” file. I never touch them until I’m ready for them.
• Bing! Turn off the new-message indicator. You really don’t need to know that you have a new e-mail.
• Never send an e-mail without a descriptive subject. The subject line is what grabs your reader’s attention and helps you (and your corespondent) find the e-mail six months later. Be descriptive.
• Hold off on “reply to all.” Does everyone really need to see that you said thanks?
• Watch your tone. Are your messages perceived as curt? Explain yourself clearly. Never use “happy faces” in business e-mails!
• Include a signature file appropriate for the recipient and your business. Almost every e-mail you send should have all your contact info at the end. Phone, website, fax, mailing address at a minimum. Include some biographic info if you like – no random quotes – inspirational sayings – or Hotmail solicitations! Dump the smiley faces and the environmental pleas too.
• Temper your temper. Never hit send when you’re angry. Stick the diatribe in your draft folder overnight and re-read it in the morning.
• The pause that de-stresses. Set your software so that e-mail is delayed a few minutes before actually being sent. Most of us have had the experience of hitting the send button only to immediately want to add or delete something to the note.
• Touch each e-mail in your inbox once – reply, delete, or, if you have to, put it aside for further work. If you do put it aside you only get to touch it one more time.
• Use spell check. Why anyone sends an e-mail anymore with “teh” instead of “the” is beyond me. Use the technology you have available.
• Don’t rely on spell check. Their, there, and they’re all pass spell check. Only one is correct within a specific sentence.
• Short e-mails are almost always better than long e-mails. The habit of succinctness is vastly and overwhelmingly underutilized in today’s world of commerce.
• Limit the number of topics you cover in an e-mail. Everyone scans e-mails rather than reading them. Hit on a few topics. Use frequent and short paragraphs.
• Sometimes, a phone call is better.

HP Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-in-One Printer

Today I offer you this article to discuss. Will be glad to find your opinion about this!

HP’s Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-in-One Printer is a color inkjet multifunction printer with one truly new feature: the ability to access Web-based applications for viewing and printing items on the machine. It’s a cool concept, but it’s not quite polished: The initial apps have some frustrating limitations, and we found small bugs in the programs–and even in the device itself. Given the unit’s high purchase price ($400 as of 10/27/09), I was expecting a smoother start.

As a traditional MFP, the Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web performed competently in our tests. Using default settings, it printed plain text and graphics at better-than-average speeds of 8 pages per minute and 3.7 ppm, respectively. (HP’s specs of 33 ppm for text and 32 ppm for graphics were derived from draft mode.) Print quality was fairly smooth and realistic, just a little grainy on plain paper.

The MFP includes a 100-sheet, letter/legal input tray and a 20-sheet photo tray, plus a 50-sheet output tray. The automatic duplexer is an especially nice feature. Connectivity is generous, including USB, ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Slots accommodate CompactFlash, Memory Stick, SD Card, and XD-Picture Card, and the unit also has a PictBridge port. Ink costs are average, running at 4.4 to 4.8 cents per text page and 12 to 15.5 cents per four-color page, depending on whether you use the standard or high-yield inks.

The Web-based apps are underwhelming because they’re merely canned, limited versions of certain Web sites. For instance, in Google Maps, you can type in an address, view the location in map or satellite mode, and print the results in a few different layouts. (Driving directions? HP says that feature is coming.) USA Today’s app lets you select and print a type of news (such as sports or weather), but you can’t preview the contents beforehand. If you’re a Snapfish photo site user, you can view, print, and upload photos, but you can’t use the slideshow function–which would seem a natural fit for the MFP’s 4.33-inch, color LCD. HP says it’s considering this feature.

Those apps and a handful of other home-oriented ones arrived preloaded on our unit; you can download more from the HP App Studio site. HP says that a software development kit will be available in early 2010–now, that could be fun.

Note that the Web functions do not work unless the machine is connected directly to a network with Internet access. A typical installation via USB to your PC gets you nowhere (even if your PC has Internet access). This seems like an important point, but HP confirmed that it isn’t documented anywhere.

The LCD works intuitively as a touch interface. As a display, it has a few problems. On our unit, for instance, the preview feature for copies and scans kept stalling; HP says a fix is in progress. A message that appears after you change ink cartridges has oddly overlapping graphical elements, which HP acknowledges. The company is also checking on an error message that kept showing up in Google Maps displays even though nothing was wrong.

The Photosmart Premium TouchSmart Web All-in-One Printer definitely sets a new, if wobbly, direction for the category. I’ll be interested to see future apps, especially the SDK. I just wish that HP had worked out more of the kinks before shipping.

Try before you buy customer services

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Smaller centres invited to play with the ‘big boys’ thanks to hosted technology.

Call centres up to 50-seats are being offered a risk-free way of testing new technologies before migrating to an IP (Internet Protocol) set-up, with a hosted version of CosmoCom’s contact management software from new firm, Quick Contact Centre (QCC).

The QCC technology is designed to unify phone, email, web, SMS and fax communications, and offers functionality such as intelligent skills routing, self-service IVR (Interactive Voice Response) and multi-contact call recording. Paul Titcombe, director at Quick Contact Centre said that with deployment typically taking less than 48 hours, the chance to pilot services without huge IT projects makes it a compelling product for centres with limited resources.

“QCC’s service is also the perfect solution for companies looking to run short term campaigns or trial contact centre concepts, while centrally managing and reporting on multi-site operations – including those operations of outsourced partners. Now the small-to-medium size contact centre can benefit from the same diverse and sophisticated features previously available to only the ‘big boys’,” says Titcombe.

Twelve per cent of internet users have no security software as two thirds of users lack fraud awareness

Here is a useful info about scamming. Read… and be aware!

As National Identity Fraud Prevention Week reaches it mid-point, a report has revealed that 64 per cent of people admit that they throw sensitive documents in the bin without shredding them.

Also, 12 per cent of people said they used the internet without having any security internet software in place. The research from National Identity Fraud Prevention Week and featured on the Metro website, showed that the threat of identity fraud is real and current, according to spokesman Tyron Hill.

Hill said: “People are either naive or they continue to ignore the advice that could keep their identity, their finances and their reputation safe.”

Jonny Wilkinson, security expert at Websense, said: “Twelve per cent is a worryingly large number of employees without adequate security software. It highlights a significant gulf between the protection in place and the protection needed in today’s Web 2.0 enabled world.

“A company’s workforce will regularly interact with a range of websites, social networks and other information-sharing programs. The exchange of data is constant and, especially in the current economic climate, data is power.”

However Phil D’Angio, Director at VeriSign, commented that despite the low numbers, UK consumers are gaining knowledge of online threats. “As ID fraud continues to rise, consumers are increasingly aware of the fact that they could be a fraudster’s next victim,” said D’Angio.

“Recent research commissioned by VeriSign found that 82 per cent of consumers are reluctant to shop from websites that do not display signs of enhanced security. It’s no longer enough to offer behind-the-scenes protection for your online customers – they need to see a visible commitment to their safety when transacting online.

“Customers need recognisable signs which prove that that if they buy from your website, you are taking every possible step to protect them against online crime. The proof is in the pudding – if they have any doubts over to the security of a site, retailers risk losing their custom as they seek safer places to shop.”

Internet Never More Dangerous: Study

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Report finds a 585 percent spike in fake anti-malware and security software programs in the first half of 2009.

Malware, phishing sites and phony antivirus software programs are not only proliferating at a record pace but becoming more sophisticated each day — to the point that going online is now more risky than ever before.

That’s according to the latest data security report released this week by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG).

The group, whose members include such big names as Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, WalMart and EMC’s RSA security division, said in its report for the first half of 2009 that hackers and phishers have turned the Internet into the Wild West, targeting PCs, company Web sites and mobile devices with scams that are as creative as they are destructive to personal and corporate data security.

“The Internet has never been more dangerous,” said APWG chairman David Jevans. “In the first half of 2009, phishing escalated to some of the highest levels we’ve ever seen. Of even greater concern is the skyrocketing sophistication and proliferation of malicious software designed to steal online passwords and user names.”

The report found that the number of detected malicious anti-malware programs and fake security software applications that actually infect user machines surged up 585 percent between January and the end of June.

New phishing Web sites detected in June rose to 49,084 — the most since the 55,643 sites discovered in April 2007 and the second-highest number recorded since APWG began reporting on phishing sites. The number of hijacked brands and Web sites an all-time high of 310 in March.

APWG researchers working at Panda Labs’ research lab counted more than 152,000 different strains of bogus anti-malware apps in June, up from slightly more than 22,000 such applications in January.

The number of compromised PCs also continued soaring. The report found that more than 11.9 million computers were infected in the first half of this year, up a staggering 66 percent from the same period last year.

Things are so bleak that APWG decided to create a new metric, using data collected by security software vendor Websense, to measure the growth of three separate categories of sophisticated malware.

Those include one category it calls data stealing and generic trojans, consisting of malware that sends information from an infected machine, controls the machine and opens backdoors on it. That’s become a major threat to online activity: Researchers have suggested that hacked PCs aren’t just giving criminals access to user data — They’re being used in botnets that are responsible for the vast majority of all spam.

The group also singled out “crimeware,” which is code designed to attack the data held by financial institutions. And then there’s “Other,” which is defined as commonly auto-replicating worms and dialers for telephone chargeback scams.

“Due to evolution of attack sophistication, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate and report on attacks that are specifically designed to steal customer banking information,” Dan Hubbard, Websense’s CTO, said in the report. “Additionally, attacks that only for credentials from popular social networking, Web mail and gaming sites can lead to attacks for banking theft and crimeware.”

Microsoft Releases Free Antivirus Software

Here are some good news about protecting our PCs. So enjoy and protect yourself.

Microsoft today broadly offered its much-awaited free anti-malware service, making it available after a limited three-month, three-country beta test.

The service, Microsoft Security Essentials, previously code-named Morro, is now available for download in 19 countries and eight languages, on computers running properly licensed copies of the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems. A spokesman said additional markets and languages would be added this year and next year.

The test sparked hearty interest among recession-weary consumers this summer; the 75,000 testing accounts for United States users were snapped up in about a day. The beta was also conducted in Brazil and Israel, where spots were also devoured quickly.

Microsoft said in November that it would begin the free service and end retail sales of OneCare, a more comprehensive product that wasn’t a big seller. The software giant’s antivirus technology has performed well in independent tests, and the new service has gotten high marks from testers for usability and its light demands on PC memory and horsepower.

The product has not been terribly appreciated by security-software industry, however, which fears Microsoft’s marketing might. Some players also decry the suggestion that the product provides users with the essentials needed to keep their computers secure, because it provides only malware scanning and not a variety of technologies, like firewalls and protection from potentially malicious Web sites, that are needed to deal with many of today’s top Internet threats.

Microsoft retorts that the product is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather to provide a basic level of protection to the largest number of people around the world — particularly in emerging markets — who don’t use security software at all, often because of the high cost. Moreover, the company has built a firewall into modern versions of Windows and provides some defenses against malicious Web sites in Internet Explorer 8.

Security Essentials is available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States.

Parish schools take learning to Internet

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LAFAYETTE — The Lafayette Parish School System will launch its newest campus in October.

The Lafayette Parish eCampus will offer 43 online courses to help high school students stay on track for graduation and provide more course electives to students.

“We’re hoping to assist those students who may be falling behind a little bit so we can keep them in line with their graduation cohort and they can graduate on time,” said Louise Chargois, Lafayette Parish School System director of curriculum and instruction.

The program is also expected to alleviate the scheduling conflicts faced by students involved in extracurricular activities such as choir and band, she said.

“We’re also targeting those students who want to get ahead of the game,” Chargois said.

The 43 courses include core education courses and electives such as psychology and sociology classes that may not be offered at area high schools, said Jarrett Coutee, director of the Lafayette Parish eCampus.

The program is expected to launch in October on Lafayette Charter High’s campus. Registration has not started, but will be revolving with a cap of 25 students at a time.

The online courses are self-paced, so a student could begin a course and complete within a few months, Chargois said.

The Lafayette Parish eCampus will be open from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. and students have the option to choose from three different two-hour sessions.

A training for those certified teachers who will work with students in the program is planned for next week.

Coutee recently visited schools in Houston and San Antonio that utilize Education 2020, the software chosen for the Lafayette Parish eCampus.

The course content includes downloaded videos of instruction by highly qualified, master teachers, he said.

The software enables the student to pause teacher lectures or go back and cover areas they may not have understood, he said.

Opera releases test version of new mobile browser

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HELSINKI, Sept 16 (Reuters) – The world’s top mobile browser maker, Norway’s Opera Software, released on Wednesday a test version of its mobile browser, Mini 5, promising new features, easier usage and new design.

“Opera Mini has been the main driver for growth in Opera in the last years. Version 4.2 is old and they need to develop it,” said John Strand, chief executive of Danish consultancy Strand Consult.

Companies usually release several successive test versions of their browsers so they can incorporate user feedback in a series of improvements before their final launch. Microsoft launched its latest desktop IE8 browser in March after a year of public beta testing. [nN18309713]

Opera is used for about 25 percent of global Internet traffic from mobiles, followed by Apple with 22 percent and Nokia 21 percent, according to Web analytics firm StatCounter.

But the competition is heating up as Google has entered the market and Mozilla Foundation prepares to. Nokia’s shares are pretty much flat for 2009, while Opera’s are up about 22 percent for the first nine months.

Opera sells its browser to many cellphone makers and operators, and consumers can directly download it for free, while the Apple and Nokia browser’s ranking reflects only its users surfing the Internet.

The latest version aims to ease web surfing with speed dial, tabs and a password manager.