Pet Peeves

I always hate when people (you know who you are!!) send me an email and address me within the message, however, my name is in the "CC" field. A BIG pet peeve of mine. I asked our Product Manager, Nell-Marie, (she is our technical writer guru) a while back if there were any particular rules about this, and she pointed out some common rules about it.

So, I am sitting here at 4am in the morning because I can't sleep and was reading up on some old emails. And while I am catching up on my ADPi emails I stumble upon a particular message from Executive Office that addresses this pet peeve of mine. I thought I would share their entire list of basic rules of email etiquette.

1. Think about the audience. Each e-mail you send should reflect the tone and level of respect appropriate for your audience.

2. Clearly summarize the content of the message in the subject line. This is especially important when conveying dates, times or any other key information. (You mean the subject line, "hey", doesn't cut it??)

3. Keep the message short and focused. Each message should only cover a few key topics. Many people won’t read past the first few sentences. When sending a longer e-mail, summarize what topics will be covered at the beginning of the e-mail. (I love the part "many people won't read past the first few sentences".....so true!)

4. Include name and contact information at the bottom of the message. Using an automatic signature is a great way to convey this information. This is a courtesy to the e-mail recipient. Include a number for follow-up questions.

5. Check the e-mail for spelling errors. It is embarrassing to send a message full of errors. (definately....er, i mean, definitely!)

6. Don’t assume the reader can understand the tone intended in the e-mail. Tone is not apparent in e-mail. Be clear about statements and make sure the message won’t be misread. (Very tricky.)

7. Limit attachments. Remember that attachments take a long time to open and take up a lot of space. When sending an especially large attachment, clearly indicate what is being sent so the user can determine when to open it. (especially true for recipients with dial-up....poor fellas)

8. Limit the number of messages sent. When sending several messages per day, the reader will have a hard time finding the most important messages. (So that's their excuse, eh?)

9. Use CC and BCC appropriately. When sending a message to a small group of people, place the people who are primarily receiving the message to in the “To:” field; anyone who is being copied for informational purposes only should be included in the “CC:” field. When sending to large groups of people, include their names in the “BCC” field to avoid having a large header with everyone’s name at the beginning of the message. (Listen up everybody!)

10. NEVER send something in e-mail that wouldn’t be said in person. E-mail can be saved and forwarded. E-mail isn’t a private form of communication so remember to be very careful. (yes, be VERY careful...)

and one last additional tip from me:

11. ALWAYS double-check the person to whom you are forwarding an email!

Just Plain Dumb

I often wonder if the ability to blog will evolve into something as simple as thinking of the post and it magically blogging itself. If this were the case, I would have many more posts to entertain my my fan-base of 2 people. lol.

So anyway, Kev and I were thinking about the possibility of taking the kids to Disney World or to the new Aquarium in Atlanta next year for a family vacation. We were pricing out the flights out of Roanoke on Expedia just to get an idea of how much the flight would cost us and we were dumbfounded.....

A flight from Roanoke to Orlando, with a connection in Atlanta was only $322/person.

However,

A flight (either non-stop or connection in Dulles) from Roanoke to Atlanta was $507/person.

That is just plain dumb!!

From My Friends At Google

On Monday I received (via FedEx) a package "From Your Friends at Google":














Of course, I immediately think, "What the heck did I order from Google? CAN you order stuff from Google? What the heck is this?"

So I open the box (in front of Kevin since he signed for it at work) and find:

Then I say, "Wow! A CD case! This is pretty cool!" But then I shake it, and say, "Oh! Maybe it's a nifty tool case with really tiny tools in it!" So without a moments hesitation, I open the little red case to find:


WOW!

So let me run down the items included in this case:
4-port USB Hub
Rechargeable, Wireless, Optical (Mini) Mouse
USB Charger for Mouse
Earpiece headphone
USB Flashlight (really cool looking thing that extends/bends in almost any direction)
128MB flash drive
Keychain for flash drive
Detachable lanyard for flash drive
Soft Black (velvety) case for something...not quite sure for what...maybe the mini mouse?

A bunch of really cool stuff! So your next question may be, "Who do you know at Google"? Well, I don't know anyone at Google. Unless you count the person that my husband knows that got a job there that used to work for a company near by us. And if you count one of my coworkers that got through 2 interviews there....those are the closest two people that I know at Google. So anyhow, as luck would have it, I am actually the contact person for our company for the PPC (pay per click) program through Google AdWords. Haha! Who knew that such a point of contact would ever have it's benefits??

With the amount of money we give them for PPCs, the entire company should have received one!! ;-)

PS - later that same day I received this lovely card through the USPS:

Happy Holidays!!!

Snowshoe

Kevin and I just returned from Snowshoe this weekend and it was such a blast!! We stayed at the Rimfire Lodge and it had to be in the best location on the resort. It had an underground parking garage and ski lockers so that we didn't have to carry our skis all the way to our room. The room had a gas log fireplace, a balcony over-looking the village and a full kitchen. The room was perfect! The skiing conditions were absolutely amazing. Friday night was rather cold and they were making snow, so riding the lifts was a little frigid. But Saturday was perfect! The temperature was great (even got a little warm!) and the slopes weren't too crowded. There were prob too many snowboarders than I normally would like to see out there, but still, not too bad. It was Demo Days this weekend, so they had a ton of vendors out showing their stuff. I thought I try snowboarding, but decided against it. Then I thought I would try some shorter, more shaped skis, but after the Rossignol vendor “de-burred” my personal skis I was once again in love with them and didn’t want to take the time to fill out the form to demo another pair.

The worst part about Snowshoe, is of course, the drive. It takes about 4 hours for us to get there. I wish it was so much closer so that we could make a day trip out of it and go more often….but oh well. And of course after you go for the first time during the season, you just want to keep going back! And coincidently, as I am writing this blog, my friend Jil invited Kev and I to an extended weekend getaway at snowshoe in February……hmmmmm……… :-)

a few blurbs

these are a few of the things that i have wanted to blog about and haven't had the chance. since i am still waiting for my IMAP switch to finish up, i thought i would just write some quick blurbs:

1. dealing with sick newborns is not fun. it hasn't been that bad, but when your morning is already crunched for time, giving a breathing treatment seems to take up too much time. you do it anyways, of course.

2. tailgating can be fun, but it can also drain you. again i ask, why do we put ourselves through it? it's amazing to think how much effort it takes to prepare for & clean up after tailgating

3. we beat our total sales goal for webmail.us for the month of november! sweeeeeeeet!

4. don't ask for a bigger christmas tree, it's not worth the extra effort. well, it probably is once it is finished

5. are anxiety attacks really that bad for you?

6. let's go hokies!!!! good luck in the ACC championship this saturday

7. florida state has the most annoying crowd chant or whatever the heck it's called, the tomahawk crap has got to stop.

8. webmail.us hired an HR coordinator/adminstrator.....THANK GOD!!! and congrats Marisa! :)

9. working with a bunch of boys creates an interesting atmosphere

10. SNOWSHOE on the 9th!!! yes!!!! yippee!!!! can you tell that i am excited for this? kev and i leave on the 9th and don't come back until the 11th. thanks mom for watching the kids ;)

11. my uncle is still in iraq :( he won't be able to dress up for santa claus this year for all the little kids at our family christmas dinner

12. if the hokies go to the orange bowl, i really want to stay for new year's in miami, but i realize that this is not feasible, oh well.

13. is there such a class called "dealing with jealousy 101"? if so, sign me up.

14. apparently the reindeer donner is actually donder....who knew??

15. i was honored to attend a wedding-gown fitting (today actually) for my friend beth barnett, soon to be beth barnett-boebel. the gown was absolutely beautiful. thanks for asking beth!

16. only 6 more minutes remaining on my IMAP switch-a-roo (11:48, btw)

17. scratch the workout session tomorrow morning

18. if you are the accounting manager or you oversee the billing system for salesforce.com or 37signals.com, please drop me a line, we need to chat

19. our developers are spoiled

20. we get an entire week off in december!!! yay!!! (i guess all employees of webmail.us are spoiled....hehe!)

21. jordan has to be the cutest little kid in the world....of course when she is not behaving badly

22. sales people are a unique breed

Do You POP or IMAP?

For those of you that have noticed, I haven’t posted a blog in a long time. There are many reasons for not posting, the top most reasons being that my son has had RSV (he is finally getting better!!) and I have returned to work (which keeps me very busy, which turns into being very tired). So I have had many thoughts as to what I would like to blog about during my little hiatus and it’s sad to say that I will restart by blogging about something that all my computer nerd co-workers would appreciate (for once!).

I have finally taken on the daunting task of switching to IMAP. AGGHHHHHH!!!

Ok, for most people this wouldn’t be such a big ordeal. However, as my drama-laden life has it, it’s a big thing for me. I think I have been popping (without leaving a copy on the server) my email from my email-hosting company (of which I am an employee) for about, oh, um, since the day I bought my laptop in June………..of 2004. And I am not one of those nifty email organizers that keep their emails and folders cleaned up. I think I save just about everything, well almost everything. So needless to say, I have a bunch of email to move. Most of the emails that I have, I need for work purposes, especially since I am in Finance/Accounting.

If you are not for sure how IMAP works, you can go here for a great explanation. Pretty simple stuff.

So anyhow, I asked Kevin what would be an easy way to do this. And of course his first response is to laugh at me and then ask why. In a nut-shell (on the way to pick the kids up after work today) he says, “Well, you can just drag and drop the emails with Outlook.” Which of course I interpret as, “You mean I can drag my email message from one folder in Outlook, to my IMAP folder in webmail?” WOW!! Talk about technology! So then I say, “You mean to tell me that you guys can create a tool to allow drag & drop between a desktop client and webmail, but not drag & drop within webmail itself??” Unknowingly at the time that we were talking about two different ideas he was like, “it’s not like we built the feature, outlook has it all worked out” (or something of that nature).

Once I get home (and feed Andrew, wait for Kevin to get back from returning to work because of some emergency, get Jordan some cereal in a bowl with some milk with a towel on the recliner (in her words), RSVP to a friend’s Christmas party, start a load of laundry, put the clean dishes away, put the dirty ones in the dishwasher, clean up the stack of mail that’s been sitting on the counter all week, straighten up the kitchen, get Jordan another bowl of cereal, and then greet Kevin) I get to try out the nifty little drag & drop feature that will make my life so much happier!!

HA!! It doesn’t work! So of course I demand another explanation of the process. It turns out that I had to create an IMAP user profile in Outlook, then drag & drop the emails between those two user folders….within Outlook. Ok, now that makes way more sense!

I have been moving my emails to my new IMAP folders for about 2.5 hours now. One of my folders was so large that I was getting server timeouts, so it had to be done in batches! lol!! I am on my last folder, my Inbox, which really means “pack-rat box”. If anyone from my engineering/support team reads this and informs me, “you could have done it an easier way than that!”………..your kitty dies!!! >:-[

Most of you are probably wondering by now, why am I doing this? After almost 3 hours I am asking myself the exact same question……

11:25pm and still going…yikes! I better get some sleep before the baby wakes up!!