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Is Your Email Address Blacklisted?

tag : Email. Address. Blacklisted.

A lady emailed me yesterday very upset over the fact that her friend's Internet Service Provider (ISP) wasn't delivering important email messages.

This lack of delivery caused a real problem for the two of them with ruined plans, missed appointments, and just plain inconvenience.

If you don't use email, this might not sounds like a "big deal."

But this problem of non-delivery has dramatically affected the way businesses use email and is now about to reach epidemic proportions for consumers using email.

To put things into perspective, imagine if every time you dialed a friend's phone number you had no idea whether it would ring or not.

Now imagine how frustrated you would feel over time if you kept dialing the same number and it never rang for you, but others could get through and your friend's phone number never changed.

That's exactly how you'll feel when your personal emails start getting blocked for seemingly no reason.

Sunday, April 15, 2007 | Views 116 | Comment(6)

More Cool Web Tricks

tag : More. Cool. Web. Tricks.

If you ask most people what frustrates them most about the Internet, many of them will tell you "It's the little things!"

It seems like all the great tricks and tips that make people exclaim "STOP! How did you do that?" never make it into any manual (at least where I can find them).

My father (and co-author of "Turn Words Into Traffic") calls it the "reverse oral tradition" of computing, where children teach parents the survival skills of PC life.

Well, if you want to look good to your kids or buddies around the water cooler, check out the following cool web tricks.

Cool Google Tricks

Virtually everyone knows that Google.com ranks at the top of most people's search engine lists, but it does a lot more than just tell you where to find vitamins or information on George Washington's wooden teeth!

Need a map to a specific location?

Type in the address, city and state of virtually any location in the US, hit the search button, and Google serves up several different map providers across the Web.

Sunday, April 15, 2007 | Views 94 | Comment(0)

Is the IronPort Whitelist Actually An Extortion Tactic?

tag : IronPort. Whitelist. Actually. Extortion. Tactic.

It appears that Mr. Gates' prophetic prediction that charging marketers to send email across the Microsoft email networks (MSN and Hotmail) to cut down on Sp*m is about to come true.

According to CIO Today, Microsoft is now employing "IronPort Anti-Spam Technology."

"IronPort" is a paid "white-list" for people who send "mass email" (including newsletter publishers, ezine publishers, affiliate managers, mini-course operators, and basically anyone who has a list of opt-in emails).

If you send any type of email where you do a broadcast to everyone on your list, this applies to you.

If you want your email broadcasts to get through their filters, you must pay a hefty fee and post a "bond."

Here are some facts about this developing story:

1. They charge by how much email you send a month, but the minimum charge is a:

$375 Application Fee, plus

$500 Annual License Fee, plus

$500 "Bond" fee.

That's $1,375.00 just to get in the game.

Sunday, April 15, 2007 | Views 87 | Comment(0)

10 Tips for Tech-Writers

tag : Tips. Tech. Writers.

Tech-writing is a tricky business. It's not a very high profile industry, so there's not much support around. Follow these 10 quick tips, and you'll be well on your way to a satisfying tech-writing career.

1) Follow a sensible career path?

• STEP 1: Start in a team

• STEP 2: Stay only just long enough

• STEP 3: Manage yourself

• STEP 4: Manage a team

• STEP 5: Go contracting (depends on the market)

2) Knowledge is your lifeblood - learn the politics of your company. Know who knows what. Find someone who consistently gives you timely, reliable, technically accurate answers, and get their name tattooed on your shoulder! Every company has at least one. And they may not be in the project manager/product manager/customer/programmer roles. They are generally the people who've used the product in the real world, and dealt with real world customers.

3) Communicate WITH, not AT. Tech-writers don't have enough power to get away with communicating at.

Sunday, April 15, 2007 | Views 80 | Comment(1)

Tech-writers: A Necessary Evil

tag : Tech. writers. Necessary. Evil.

New to tech-writing, or thinking about starting? The key to success is recognising that tech-writers are a necessary evil.

Tech-writers are necessary because someone has to write the user doco. The programmers and managers sure as hell don't want to. This is actually part of the reason that you're evil, too. In my experience, most programmers and managers think that they could write the manuals if they wanted to? they just don't want to. They might not write all "flowery" like the tech-writers, but what they write is correct.

Unfortunately, that's quite often all that's important to programmers and managers.

There is a feeling within the software environment that accuracy = quality. Audience analysis, doco readability, consistency, usability, active and passive voice, commas in a list of three or more items? All of these things are relatively unimportant to everyone but the tech-writer. Oh? and the user.

In a world where accuracy is all important, a lot goes over the head of the dummy. I don't know if it's intellectual snobbery, but programmers and managers seem to think that if they understand it, so should the user. It doesn't matter whether or not they do? they SHOULD! Stupid users! Maybe it's the geek's ultimate revenge?

Sunday, April 15, 2007 | Views 90 | Comment(1)