As for missing legitimate e-mails, yes, that does happen occasionally, usually because Yahoo’s Bayesian analysis tosses them into the spam bucket. For that reason, I have Yahoo configured not to delete them immediately. I manually sort the spam bucket by subject and look through it quickly to see if anything there isn’t spam. If so, I tell Yahoo it’s “Not Spam”, which puts it into my Inbox.

I do find it a sad state of affairs that 98% of e-mail is useless traffic. So many routers burning so much power to ship it, then so many servers and PC’s burning so much power to destroy it. It’s as if everyone decided that there was nothing we could do if scrap metal dealers wanted to mine our freeways with explosives, and so we all started driving slow armored vehicles with terrible gas mileage.

@Daniel – That looks like a good way to do it. I’ve started going to mark.shead@domain.com because if someone knows my name, I don’t have to spell anything else to them over the phone.

But when entering an e-mail address at a web site (such as this one), I use something different: their_domain@my_domain. I find that this helps me track and filter spam if the site gets hacked or its database gets misused. The downside is that I have to set up my e-mail service to accept all messages sent to (anything)@my_domain, not just first_name@my_domain. That means it doesn’t filter out spam sent to (random characters)@my_domain, or kickback messages from distant e-mail servers rejecting spam with (random_characters)@my_domain as a spoofed sender address. However, it’s likely that even first_name@my_domain is or will be spoofed at some time, so I think I’m still better off.

I use post@danielvnielsen.dk (one could use mail, contact og something else). My domain is my full name.

My work e-mail is simply my initials dvn@workdomain.com

Let’s say you forward a harmless joke email to a friend who then forwards it on to someone else who then replys back to that person with say a link to something unsavory. That email can be sent over and over to hundreds of people and somewhere in buried in that now unsavory email is your first and last name.

Not to mention the privacy concerns. With the pace that emails can get replicated who knows who is going to wind up with your first name / last name and email address.

I know these may be extreme, but in this day and age I’ve elected to keep as much information about myself as private as I possibly can.

1) Only quote the parts necessary to understanding what I’ve written (cutting signatures, regards, greetings etc.)

2) I top-post, meaning I place the quoted bits above my corresponding reply. This makes for a more logical email, and you don’t have to have overflowing threads.

So I wouldn’t agree on sending the sig out only once. I think every message should have it, but I’m also in favor of a short signature. If you have the webspace, set up a contact page with exhaustive info, and a downloadable vCard.

Many folks think it unnecessary, but my emails have become known for the way it is laid out / formatted

1. firstname.lastname shows in the ’sender’ to the receiver

2. Subject: [Matter or reference]: Specific description of content of the email. Eg: If I am writing an email to an autorepair shop regarding my car the subject would show: [Nissan Maxima GLE, 2003]: Appointment for 60,000mile service

3. Content: Date is always inserted. (I use Thunderbird and it has a nice extension which inserts the current date on rt click – no need to type the date!) Many folks feel this to be unnecessary, but it has become a habit and IMO, lends to a little ‘professionalism’ to the email.

4. The receiver is always addressed by name, if known. Eg: Tom, or Harry or Ms Smith – as the case may be and the situation warrants.

5. Keep the message brief and to the point. I write my email in the same basic format of a letter. I dispense with the need to indent new paragraphs etc. No ‘all lower case’ or ‘all upper case’ since it’s only an email.

6. Signature:
Firstname lastname
|T: 123-456-7890|C: 456-789-0123|F: 789-0123-4567|

Thank you for an informative article.

Attachments:

– “file-1.doc” (Microsoft Word document, 123kb)
– “file-2.pdf” (PDF file, 234kb)

I use Martin Michel’s excellent Attache droplet to create the list automatically in Mail.app.

Cheers,
Paul Lagasse

–
Firstname Lastname
Company Name

Here is an example of what I think fits the bill and is informative enough not to be intrusive:

–
Firstname Lastname
Company Name