Photo by uberculture

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This

I would love to take control of my email. *

I think about how much more time I would have for real work if I ever stopped writing filters for my Mozilla Thunderbird email program.

I spend a fair amount of time fooling with folders, tags, labels and saved searches.

All in the name of efficiency and order.

Who Am I To Disagree?

Experts say that email is one of the most popular services of the Internet.
Heinz Tschabitscher exhorts me to learn everything I can about Mozilla Thunderbird, while LifeHacker tells me that I really only need three folders and some GTD tough love.

Arrrgh!

I Travel The World And The Seven Seas

I can get my email just about anywhere. The real question is, “Do I want to?”

I’m sure the LOLcats will keep until my return.


more animals

Everybody’s Looking For Something

My least favorite emails are the automatic reminders to pay my bills.

Okay, I signed up for them, I’m just saying.

Some Of Them Want To Use You

Spam doesn’t bother me. Thunderbird squelches 95% of it. The Junk Folder has learned to grab 3% of what’s left.

That last 2% is really graphic pharmaceutical information.

Some Of Them Want To Get Used By You

I like email notifications that actually give me the message.

That’s vastly more useful than

Martha Makepeace has signed your guestbook.

See what Martha Makepeace wrote at:

http://www.ryze.com/go/Mitche11

Sometimes, it’s not the email that wastes my time, it’s the notifiers.

Some Of Them Want To Abuse You

The Storm Worm lurks behind every CNN Alert.

Sadly, real threats are masked by all the foolishness circulating the Internet.

I’m not trying to beat anyone up (‘cept maybe cousin Pete), but please:

Do not urge me to boycott Exxon.

Do not warn me not to answer the cell phone if it displays ACE-?

I’d rather not read about the health hazards of Aspartame.

It’s okay to tell me about a virus or other threat, just make sure you verify it:

Some Of Them Want To Be Abused

Whenever I get a phishing attack, I forward it to the appropriate authorities.

No, really. PayPal and EBay both want you to let them know about these nasty emails.

I send them to [email protected] or [email protected].

Why do I bother?

I tried to warn one company, to no avail:

Dear Folks at Slide.com,

I am forwarding this phishing email.

I forgot I WAS registered and was about to click the unsubscribe link.

(My subscription status is not the point, but explains why I would click over.)

Thunderbird saved my bacon.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Allen

This is what came back:


Subject: [Slide Community Support #83340] Presumed PHISHING Email [Fwd: Test your music IQ with new quizzes on Slide TV!]

From: feedback [at] slide.com

Reply-To: feedback [at] slide.com

Precedence: bulk

To: mitch [at] morphodesigns.com

Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:23:34 -0700

[Name Mercifully Withheld]

Slide Community Support

http://www.slide.com

Duh.

Cheers,

Mitch

* P.S. October 22, 2010 – I think the tide has turned. Not a single hoax this year. Plus, a friend of mine actually did the Snopes verification before sending this virus warning.

I continue to fight spam and blog about it.