Click Here to See the Full Newsletter

Noticing another (the first being the gray text on white background) trend and it ain’t good. More and more newsletters require you to click a link for the full newsletter. To make the situation worse, some of these are in — ack! — Acrobat pdf format! I like Acrobat files, but not for e-mail newsletters. … Read more

7 Steps to Catch up Quickly after a Break

I took my first break in ages — that didn’t include an illness or a holiday — for a few days last week for spring break. We went to San Marcos and San Antonio and visited Wonderworld, Sea World, and the Riverwalk. Wonderworld contains a dry cave created by an earthquake on the Balcones Fault … Read more

When Good Newsletters Go Bad

The wizard in The Wizard of Oz and the guy behind the curtain pretending to be him have different personalities. Which one would you rather listen to? The wizard who comes across as larger than life and unreachable, or the guy hiding behind the giant green face, a person like us? Companies that publish newsletters … Read more

Thank You in E-mails

The previous post discussed the value of saying, “Thank you.” But it’s possible to overdo it especially when it comes to e-mail. “Here’s your weekly report.” “Thank you,” said the reply. Add up all the thank you e-mails for things like that and it makes for a cluttered inbox. Sometimes a thank you e-mail has … Read more

Dealing with Email and IM Overload

Inbox Overwhelmed? proposes filing for e-mail bankruptcy by simply deleting a bulk of e-mail messages. That sounds drastic, but it worked for some people. The opposite worked for me. I started using a GMail account as a backup e-mail address, the one for forms and registration. At first, I managed the GMail account like I … Read more