Posts Tagged: email

Miscellaneous — 3 Comments
26
Sep 07

Motivate Yourself with FutureMe

FutureMe.org A year ago, I used a free service at FutureMe.org to send an email to myself in the future. I had completely forgotten about it until it came through the other day. Here it is, with obscenities and personal info removed.

Dear Nick,

It’s Sept. 24th, 2006. Hopefully when you read this you will have achieved the goals that I’m setting today!

1) Be earning (deleted)
2) Have saved (deleted)
3) Have bought a (deleted)
4) Have a baby on the way if not already!

If you’ve done these things, then good for you! If not, get off your (deleted) you lazy (deleted)! What happened to you over the last year? No excuses! Get back to work. You used to be really into it, you know. How about that crazy November in 2005, when you were (deleted), writing the (deleted)and working at (deleted), too? You were relentless mate. Don’t lose it now! You’re a born winner, but you’ve got to put your back into it.

Love from yourself,
2006 Nick

I’m glad to say I achieved all the goals I set for myself, and will be using FutureMe.org again this year to get me motivated once more. Maybe you should try it, too. Another neat thing you can do is send an email to someone else at a specified point in the future. How about sending birthday messages or love letters for someone to receive ten years from now? The possibilities are endless!

Technology — No Comments
26
Nov 06

No more spam with Mozilla Thunderbird

Update: When I got Windows Vista, I switched again. Now I’m using Windows Mail (Dec. 2nd, 2007).

The last few weeks had seen my spam-count sky rocket. I think the extra exposure I gave my sites with some pretty heavy advertising campaigns must have pulled in as many spammers as honest visitors. I guess I’d been averaging about 60 spam emails a day and ‘delete’ had become the most overused key on my keyboard.

Today I decided enough was enough. I had so many spam filters set up in Outlook Express that I just couldn’t keep track of what I was blocking, and I nearly lost one of my artists (for ESL-Kids.com) when her email got caught up with all the spam. I thought she had stopped contacting me and vice-versa.

A search on Google for “Email program” brought up a number of links for Mozilla Thunderbird, a free open-source alternative to Microsoft’s dated software. After reading that Thunderbird uses Bayesian analysis to intelligently detect spam, as well built-in RSS capabilities and the ability to import address books and mail folders from Outlook Express, it was an easy to decision to download it.

Although I use Internet Explorer 7 to browse the net, I always keep Mozilla’s Firefox close at hand should IE cause me problems. Because Firefox is a great web browser, I figured I could trust Mozilla with their email application…. and I’m so pleased I did!

First download it from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/, install it and launch the program. You’ll be asked if you’d like to import your address book, mail and settings from Outlook Express (or other application). If you agree to this, Thunderbird will take a moment to import and set things up and that’s it! You can customize a bunch of stuff if you like, but otherwise you’ll be up and running in minutes – spam free!

Ok, so maybe I’m exaggerating a bit there. Your junk mail will still come but Thunderbird will automatically mark it as spam. However, from Junk Mail Controls in the Tools menu, you can request the spam be deleted or moved to a ‘junk’ folder… and deleted later.

So with all that spam taken care of, you can spend more time reading web feeds! In Thunderbird, simply add a RSS News & Blogs account (from Tools -> Account Settings)and start subscribing to your favorite sites (maybe the one you’re reading right now?).

I’ve only just started using Thunderbird, but I feel like I’ve gotten off my bike and onto the Shinkansen. No more spam, and all the web feeds I want, right in my inbox! I’m kicking myself that I didn’t do this earlier!

Whether Microsoft can improve on Outlook Express enough to surpass Thunderbird when Vista is released next year, I don’t know. They impressed me with IE7, so I’m hoping for great things. In the meantime, it’s Thunderbird all the way!

Technology — 2 Comments
5
Oct 06

Japanese phones, email and old people

I’m starting to get really fed up with email. I get over 200 messages a week and usually only a handful of them are not spam. Cleaning out the spam has become a daily part of my routine, much like brushing my teeth, taking a shower and washing the dishes. If I don’t do it every day, my inbox will just grow ugly stuff. So I was surprised to read Nate Anderson’s article called “Teens: E-mail is for old people“.

Is e-mail only for the old? That’s the contention of a string of articles published in the last four months, the most recent appearing today in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle says that in a study last year, “teenagers preferred new technology, like instant messaging or text messaging, for talking to friends and use e-mail to communicate with ‘old people.’” The Mercury News says, “For those of you who have just figured out how to zap spam or manage your inbox, prepare for the bad news: E-mail is, like, so yesterday.” And then there’s USA Today, which makes the claim that “E-mail is so last millennium.”

So, at least in the States, it seems young people prefer instant messaging and MySpace to email, but how about in Japan?

Japanese mobile chat rooms!Well, mobile technology is where it’s all happening and for most young people, the cell phone or keitai is the ultimate communications device. Text messaging is almost obsolete now as all phones use standard email, but there’s so much more. Check out the picture from my keitai’s manual and you’ll see that ‘chat room’ style conversation is now very much the norm.

Or why not send a video message? My low-end cell phone let’s you send video mail and I think high-end phones even allow for teleconferencing, not to mention the use of Microsoft Word and Excel!

Let me quote Chris Heathcote from his blog about keitai technology:

Whenever you think mobile phones are getting a bit boring, or you want to see the possibilities, or what’s going to happen in the next few years, there’s only one place to look: Japan.

One of the latest features of new keitai here is the ability to use it as cash. Walk into a convenience store, grab what you need, go to the counter and swipe your phone over a bar code reader and the cost will be added to your next phone bill. You can even do the same at vending machines! In fact, with GPS, full music audio capabilities, high-quality digital camera functionality, 3D games and full internet access, young people are passing up on buying a computer altogether – they just use their “phones”!

I don’t know about email being for ‘old people’ or not, but I do know that with a growing number of elderly people in Japan, cell phone manufacturers are falling over themselves trying to make keitai with oversized buttons, screens and fonts, so it might not be too long before there’s a whole generation of silver-haired instant messengers.