My 2¢ Worth

hile the war in Iraq rages on, there are still some unscrupulous webmasters out there armed with their own weapons of mass destruction.

  case in point: as I was making my rounds surfing the Net today, I suddenly found myself confronted with a Xupiter search bar in Internet Explorer. While not malicious (at least I don't think so), I didn't ask for it, don't need it, don't want it. At least I had the option of turning it off, but you can't uninstall the darned thing. The un installer doesn't work. Oh joy!

n the business front, things are beginning to slow down somewhat. Therefore I am prepared to make some lucky person a very sweet deal!

he first person to contact me is going to receive Web design at the unbelievable price of $35 per page for new design work or $25 to rework existing designs.

  can only make this offer to one of you, so send that E-mail now! Only the first person to contact me will get this unbelievable bargain. The rest of you pay regular prices, which are still the lowest in the business. Now we'll see who's reading this E-rag :-).

y the way, this deal does NOT apply to current clients. You're already getting a bargain and you know it...

Feature Article

Tips for Effectively Communicating Through Email

by: Aaron Turpen Aaronz WebWorkz

For most everyone in business, whether for themselves or working for someone else, email has become a large percentage of their communications. For most people, the workday begins by logging into their email client and retrieving email. The first few minutes of the day are occupied drinking coffee and responding to emails received.

For some businesses, email is the most critical type of communications - surpassing even the old standby, the phone.

No matter how often you use it, email is probably an important part of your personal and corporate communications. Despite this, many are not trained or do not understand the proper "etiquette" involved in using this powerful tool. After all, you can send and receive emails to and from any part of the world is seconds, but if you aren’t using the medium well, you may not be communicating effectively.

Here are a few tips to enhance your email communications that will save you time, increase your effectiveness, and make you appear much more professional.

1. Make your subject line actually mean something.
I’m amazed at how many people use subject lines like "Cool" or "Good Stuff" to describe their email. These types of messages invariably end up at the bottom of my "to read" list in favor of more descriptive subjects such as "Project Quote Needed" or "CGI Problem."

2. Keep your message short.
Of all the email rules, this is the one I break most often. I am, after all, a good talker and since I type 80wpm, I can translate this into long emails. This is not usually a good way to communicate. I compromise by making sure the gist of my email is inside the first few sentences and go from there.

3. DON’T TYPE LIKE THIS
That’s considered yelling and is very rude and annoying. Enough said.

4. When you reply, include some sort of "recap" of the prior message.
When responding (replying) to a message, make sure that at least enough of the original message is included that the receiver will remember what was being said. If you’re an AOL user, this is even more important since AOL’s email client does not quote the original email by default.

5. Watch your spelling
Use a spellchecker if you can, but watch your spelling. Common typos and other "hurried" mistakes can really undermine your professionalism. Take the extra few seconds to re-read what you’ve typed at least once before you hit the "send" button.

6. Don’t use HTML email unless it’s REALLY necessary.
I can’t count the number of emails I receive with those nifty "themes" included - graphical backgrounds, sidebars, signatures, etc. Funny thing is, most of them appear as an email with a bunch of graphic file attachments and probably don’t look anything like what the sender expected. I usually make sure to thank the sender for sending me their clipart, even though I really have no use for it.

7. Use the BCC tag to send your jokes, chain letters, etc.
I can’t stand seeing an email that starts off with a huge chain of "To" and "Cc" emails at the top. Not only is this unsightly, it is also an open invitation for the one bad apple in the bunch to gather the emails for his/her SPAM list. Send the email to yourself and include all of those people in the "Bcc" field (Blind Carbon Copy). This way, each recipient sees only his or her email and yours. Much cleaner and much safer.

8. Answer email quickly.
Obviously, this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Don’t ruin your productivity by jumping every time the email sound is made on your computer. Make sure, however, that you answer email in a timely fashion (within a working day is best). I personally check email first thing in the morning, mid-day, and at the end of the working day. I also periodically check during the day as time permits or as a distraction to freshen my mind.

9. Use a signature file.
Your email signature, which most email clients can insert automatically, is a great way to communicate not only who you are, but also what you do. I keep a list of rotating signatures which include quick (one-line) marketing copy and a link to my website. In this way, no matter who you send email to or when, you are letting them know who you are and even where you are.

10. Don’t believe anything that someone forwards to you.
In my experience, 99.99% of the stuff you receive in your email announcing that some big company is giving money to people who forward the email for a test; announcing that some guy in any country starting with "N" needs you to "store" millions of dollars for him; or that if you send this email to 100 people, you’ll have good luck, love, or whatever else - is B.S. Save the rest of the world (and your friends) from this crap and just delete it when you receive it.

These tips should get you on your way towards more effective communication. Email is a great tool, but is generally not used very well. By streamlining your use of it, you can make your corner of the ‘Net less cluttered and much more useful!

**************

Aaron Turpen is the proprieter of Aaronz WebWorkz, a provider of online services to small business including Web Development, Hosting, and Consultation. Aaronz WebWorkz publishes a free newsletter featuring articles for the small business owner/manager.
www.AaronzWebWorkz.com

Apply CSS formatting to printed pages

If you've ever print previewed a CSS formatted Web page, you may have been surprised to see that the page no longer contained any of your carefully crafted CSS formatting. That's because, by default, CSS formatting only applies to the screen rendering of a Web page.

To make sure a printer also applies CSS formatting to a page, you'll need to indicate to which media you want the formats to apply. To do so, add a media attribute to the <style> or tag, like so:

<style type="text/css" media="screen,print">

Now, when you print the Web page, the printer applies the CSS formatting too.

* Get these syndicated tip feeds for your web site, free. *

Second Article

Customise your Send To menu

by: Dianne Reuby First Web Builder

Question : How can I open my file in a different program - easily?

Answer : Customise your "Send To" menu

Windows "associates" files with programs according to the file extension and the software installed on the computer. So "myfile.doc" will be associated with your default word processor, "any.gif" will be associated with your default picture viewer or editor.

Great - just one click on the filename, and it loads the program. What a time saver!

But what if you don't want the file to load in its' associated program?

For example: my PC has quite a few .html files (web pages) stored on it. Some I've saved when surfing, some I've created. Windows associates these with my browser - after all, where else would you want to view a web page?

Quite often, in my web page editor! Or if I just want to make a small change to one of my pages, in my text editor. So, load the program, choose File, then Open, search for my directory and file, and ... what was I going to do? Can't quite remember, now!

You don't have to go this route. In Windows 98, if you right-click on a file, you get a pop-up menu. One of the choices is "Send To". You can easily add items to this menu, so that you can load in a file in the program of your choice rather than the default program.

Here's how:

Open Windows Explorer, and find the Windows directory. In this directory you'll find the Send To directory. Click on this to open it.

On the menu bar, choose File, New, and Shortcut. You'll get a dialog box asking for the path or location of your program - click the browse button and find it on your hard drive, then choose OK. Click the "Next" button, and give it a name. If you want it to be the first item on your Send To list, you can use an underscore, like this : "_MyProg".

Click "Finish" and you're done. Now, when you want to open a file in a program other than its' default, just right- click, choose Send To, and the program you want.

Happy site building!

**************

Dianne Reuby is co-author of the e-book "First Website Builder". Dianne created and runs the First Web Builder site, dedicated to providing ebooks and tips for new webmasters. Visit FWB at firstwebbuilder.co.uk/

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