10 E-MAIL TIPS



	If you've been on the Internet for any length of time, you 
have surely found your e-mailbox jammed with all sorts of unwanted 
and inaccurate messages, passed along by well-meaning but gullible 
folks who thought you ought to know about some purported virus or 
technology threat.

	That's why I'm passing along a piece of e-mail I received 
this week from a webmaster friend, Adam Miller, about this 
very issue.

	Save this. Print it out. Forward this message, instead of 
the next warning about some bogus Internet scare.

	I don't know who originally authored this. My friend 
found it in an Internet newsgroup.

	But it's right on. It hits all of the most common e-mail 
hoaxes I've seen.  It's called "The E-mail Facts Of Life":


1. Big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill Gates 
is not giving you $1000, and Disney is not giving you a free 
vacation. There is no baby food company issuing class-action 
checks. You can relax; there is no need to pass it on "just in 
case it's true". Furthermore, just because someone said in the 
message, four generations back, that "we checked it out and it's 
legit", does not actually make it true.


2. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking 
up in a bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears 
it happened to their cousin. If you are hellbent on believing the 
kidney-theft ring stories, please see:

http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm

	And I quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has 
repeatedly issued requests for actual victims of organ thieves 
to come forward and tell their stories. None have." That's 
"none" as in "zero". Not even your friend's cousin.


3. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And 
even if they do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can 
get a copy at:

http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html

	Then, if you make the recipe, decide the cookies are 
that awesome, feel free to pass the recipe on.


4. We all know all 500 ways to drive your roommates crazy, 
irritate co-workers, gross out bathroom stall neighbors and creep 
out people on an elevator. We also know exactly how many 
engineers, college students, Usenet posters and people from each 
and every world ethnicity it takes to change a lightbulb. 
So don't tell us in an e-mail.


5. Even if the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain 
plutonium that went to particulate over the eastern seaboard, do 
you REALLY think this information would reach the public via an 
AOL chain-letter?


6. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever, 
ever forward any e-mail containing any virus warning unless you 
first confirm it at an actual site of an actual company that 
actually deals with viruses. Try:

http://www.norton.com http://www.norton.com/.

	And even then, don't forward it.


7. If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual content of 
your message, you're probably going to Hell.


8. If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write e-mail, turn 
off the "HTML encoding." Those of us on Unix shells can't read it, 
and don't care enough to save the attachment and then view it with 
a web browser, since you're probably forwarding us a copy of the 
Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway.


9. If you still absolutely MUST forward that 10th-generation 
message from a friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight 
miles of headers showing everyone else who's received it over the 
last 6 months. It sure wouldn't hurt to get rid of all the ">" 
that begin each line. Besides, if it has gone around that many 
times - we've probably already seen it.


10.Craig Shergold in England is not dying of cancer or anything 
else at this time and would like everyone to stop sending him 
their business cards. He apparently is also no longer a "little 
boy" either.


	Those ten points just about cover it all.
