Using all @, e-mail rudeness. Why not to send e-mail to the whole address book.

Recently a user of a Livejournal community put up a bitch post about someone being rude to her after she sent an all @ e-mail that didn't apply to all @. The argument devolved into a 'best practise' versus 'user perception' mud slinging match that went no where.

The good thing is it gave me the opportunity to think about and explain why IT departments have the policy they do.

You may think it's a small thing to simply delete an advertisement for a car or an announcement about the baby. But the cost is much higher than simply clicking a mouse button and here are my 5 main reasons as to why:

1. It wastes time. I read somewhere that a person has a maid because he can always make more money but can never make more time. Your individual mail might take 30 seconds of reading and deletion time but the others that are encouraged by your abuse of the mailing system will also do the same thing. Remember, behavior is often reinforced by peer groups. Be the better person.

2. It wastes storage space. Each of those tiny little e-mails you send will hide themselves on the server and possibly in forwarded mail boxes. Much like option 1, 2kb of data isn't much in itself but can stack rather highly after say 1,000 of the same. Especially considering the 2kb copy is generated for 20 to 20,000 people. That adds up.

3. It's rude. It might be easier for you to send out this one e-mail to everyone but would you also take a disabled parking space? I mean it's closer to the doors of the supermarket. You're putting someone out because it's easier for you.

4. It wastes your IT department's time. Similar again to option 1 instead we have to then enforce rules about our policies and when it's appropriate. Want that new faster Internet access installed and wonder why it's taking so long? It's because we're spending time sorting out little things like reprimanding people for advertising their phones on the All @ list.

5. It wastes bandwidth. Those messages must travel over the network and the effect is, again, cumulative. Wondering why the network is so slow at 9:00 am? It's because you're all sending messages to all @ and those messages are being read. That data has to be transferred via the existing infrastructure which is limited.

So, you now know why it's not appropriate to send out all @ mails. When is it and why?

1. When the information really is pertinent to all employees. In the past when managing mail servers I sent out mails to let people know about scheduled downtime. I sent them to let them know about issues, or to document certain changes so everyone had a reference point. I sent them for commonly asked questions regarding the network (common meaning 20+ people had asked the question.) I sent them to explain outages. In sum, I sent e-mails to all @ when everyone either wanted or needed to know the answer and resolution to a question or problem.

In other non-technical cases this would be for year end profit announcements or company wide celebrations.

2. When there's a possibility of work diversion or questions being asked. For example, when a branch office loses it's phones or e-mail access. There's a possibility that information will need to be passed on to provide a good service.

Overall, as I tried to get across to random Internet user, it's a matter of consideration. You can give all the statistics you like about storage, bandwidth and time but it's really a matter of taking the time to make your messages pertinent. People might not even realize how good you're being.... but you'll know and the techies will quietly love you for it.

The Women of the East Side: MIT sexy geek calendar

I'm not an enormous fan of 'geeky women' calendars of any sort. It's hard to do in a way that represents the females of any genre. In the case of the Camarilla calendar, I'd say only a few of the girls in there actually were indicative of the type of women you have gaming.

As for my profession and side-lines, I've found women gamers and tech calendars to be 80s style soft focus affairs that are really better left alone. The last few I've seen were tacky and did absolutely nothing for the rest of us who have to come into work every day without the notoriety of being featured as a 'sexy geek.'

I was (and still am surprised) to see that MIT seem to have it spot on.

The women featured are all part of the engineering department and not as receptionists or administrative staff.

Whilst there are some little lacy bits under the lab coats, not a single one seems to be 5'10" with thighs 2 inches in diameter and airbrushed to shit. They all look pretty damned natural to me and I'm satisfied wouldn't give the rest of us complexes about our physical qualifications for IT work.

So, realistic photos of women in technology and the proceeds go to a scholarship fund? They got me.

Aesop and the lost camera

The Crab and Its Mother


A CRAB said to her son, "Why do you walk so one-sided, my child?
It is far more becoming to go straight forward." The young Crab
replied: "Quite true, dear Mother; and if you will show me the
straight way, I will promise to walk in it." The Mother tried in
vain, and submitted without remonstrance to the reproof of her
child.


Example is more powerful than precept.


I was reminded of this particular fable after reading the sad tale of the people who found and wouldn't return someone's camera. The situation just sucks and the logic is laughable. The kid has diabetes so to teach him there are good things in the world they steal from someone else?

Ugh. Sounds like a great lesson for Jr. The idiots.

This also proves one of my other points: 'Stupid is international.'

Vanquis Vanquished

I live in a relatively low income area. When I typed in my postal code for the nice people that do the ACORN profiles, red lights started sounding and every insurance premium I've been considered for jumped by 50%. Including the one that says 'stuff you may have stolen.'

I do feel like I know a little something that the money lenders don't, that is if they're going to steal from someone, it's not going to be a person they consider as poor as they are. They're coming from your middle management ass.

The rather interesting other side effect of living in a poor demographic is the offers I receive for credit cards. At the moment Mr. Me and I have a nice 2% with a considerable balance. But this was taken out in Mr. Me's name, not mine.

I have very little credit, so without knowing my income, lenders are forced to guess as to what I could possibly be approved for.

Like Vanquis:



I hope they rot in hell for offering these kinds of cards to a potentially vulnerable population. I'm sending their application back letting them know exactly how I feel about their er, competitive, interest rates.

Bless them for using pre-paid return mail...

The brain on some love

eideneurolearningblog has a great picture of how the brain is when it's in love.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Fun with Wikipedia: What's the connection between the Lessemsaurus and Herbert W. Spencer?

It's simple really. The Lessemsaurus was named after Don Lessem who loved dinosaurs which were the feature of Jurassic Park, which had music composed by John Williams who worked with Herbert W. Spencer.

How are Pargas and Glossodia connected?

Glossodia get all of their food from Mycorrhizal fungus which tends to grow on the roots of plants which were divided originally by Aristotle from animals. Aristotle also first proposed the idea of different types of climatic zones, which later included temperate. Finland and its island Pargas are in a temperate zone.


The random wikipedia function is awesome.

Yahoo! Can't reply to e-mail in IE 6 problems

The response I've just received is this:

Hello,

Thanks for writing to Yahoo! Customer Care.

Please be aware that this response is automatically generated and
answers frequently asked questions about:

I HOW DO I SEND A MESSAGE
II MY MESSAGE IS NOT RECEIVED OR BOUNCED

If you do not find what you are looking for, please reply straightaway
to this email for more assistance.



I'm sure I don't need to point out how amusing this is.

Logon/Reply to mail problems with Yahoo! web mail

I've had Yahoo! accounts since its very inception as a web mail provider. Throughout that period, I've had various problems with my mail and it being deleted due to inactivity. But nothing like I've had over the last year.

Problem 1: I can't login to Yahoo! mail using Firefox. I type in my account name and password to be told that the next server can't be contacted. I've gone through the JavaScript ticky boxes, cleared the first Greasemonkey extension and then tried again. All to no avail, my mail still eludes me in Firefox.

Problem 2: But that's ok right, I'm a Windows user. That means that I always have a spare browser. As much as it's not my preference to use it, IE is still there. It's even been upgraded to 6 to make up for problems with the Microsoft File Transfer Manager that we use for the MOC site. Up until recently, this has been working just fine. And then it hit last week, I can login to my Yahoo! mail via IE 6 SP1, but I can't reply to any e-mail.

I've done a little skim through Google for both problems and haven't found fixes for either one. It strikes me as a little odd, considering the mutual one upmanship between Google and Yahoo!, you'd think they'd make an effort to solve what appears to be known issues. But no.

Yahoo!'s customer support options seem fairly ridiculous as well. I do a search for 'can't reply' and it comes up with a FAQ explaining... how to respond to an e-mail. Because, you know, that's useful. I've bit the bullet and used their online form, which has no 'other' option.

I've chosen 'why can't I reply to e-mail?' Here's hoping to a speedy solution.

This is what I've sent:

I'm having problems replying to e-mail. When I select the reply button from Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1, nothing happens. There is a small exclamation point warning in the bottom left hand of the Window saying that some parts of the page didn't load properly.

I have cleared my cache and cookies already.

Please advise.

Pretty clear right? Then why do I have a feeling of doom?

Justine Jacobs wants to be a model

Oh damn you LJDrama. There really hasn't been anything on that site for months. So now I'm forced to go looking for old drama.

This young lady had an affair with a teacher from her school. Looks like she wants a career change.

Hopefully people trying to cast her as being holier than thou won't come up with this.