Four time-saving Webmail tips
January 31, 2005
A Webmail account is the only Internet
email account open to most Filipinos, since the overwhelming majority
use Internet cafés,
not Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Those with email addresses
from their ISPs, however, can also benefit from Webmail. The
advantages are well known so I won’t go into them. What I will do is
give out a few tips to make you Webmail experience more enjoyable and
productive.
Before I proceed, I might mention that some ISP mail
servers have Web interfaces. Even if your ISP doesn’t provide
Webmail, you can still access your POP/IMAP mail (including corporate
mailboxes, provided they aren’t behind a firewall) from Mail2Web
– the interface isn’t as polished as that of the major Webmail
services but it should suffice.
Scan your inbox for obvious spam, then delete them
immediately. Here are a few indicators for obvious spam:
-
strange characters in the Subject:,
which are most likely from an “alien” character set -
the Subject: addresses you by your
email address, e.g., in my case, either descasa or silverlokk depending
on the mail account -
an empty RE: in the Subject:, especially from someone you don’t
know -
feeble attempts to foil spam filters by inserting characters
into the filter triggers, e.g., Vi*agra
Apart from saving you the annoyance, deleting spam before reading
it saves bandwidth. Most spam are HTML-encoded mail, which are about
two or three times larger than plain text.
If you participate in discussion lists, set your delivery
method to digest. That way, you get only one mail message
containing up to 25 posts from the mailing lists. Otherwise, you’d
have to open up each post from the mailing list, then return to the
inbox. It’ll take a little effort to respond to a post, but it’s
worth it. And here are a couple of corollary tips if you’re replying
to a digest:
-
Please, please delete the
posts in the digest that are not part of your reply. For example, if
you’re replying to the 5th message in the digest, it makes no sense to
quote those messages before and after the fifth. It’s extremely
annoying to read a one- or two-line reply to a digest followed by a
quote containing all the messages of the digest. Just quote message #5,
then delete the rest of the text. -
Edit the subject line to reflect the subject of the message
you’re replying to. A Subject: line of “RE: Digest Number…” is not
informative or helpful.
As an aside, you can set your delivery method to Digest by some
automated method – i.e., you don’t have to ask the list owner to do
it for you. The way to do this depends on the mailing list. More
precisely, it depends on the mailer software the list uses. When you
first subscribed to the list, you should’ve gotten a message giving
you instructions on such things as setting message delivery method or
unsubscribing. Under no
circumstances should you send such requests to the mailing list
address. Several dozen, perhaps hundreds, of people who can’t do
anything about the request will read it.
Open up the messages that interest you in separate tabs. If
your browser isn’t tab-capable, open the messages in separate browser
windows. This is especially useful for those on dial-up – after you
open those messages, you can then disconnect. You can even read a
message in a separate tab while another message is loading. It’s
natural for gmail because there’s an icon labeled “Separate
window”. Other Webmail services have a “Print View” that should
open up the message in another tab or window.
Store your bookmarks online, e.g., at SaveMe.com.
That’ll save you from typing in the URLs. This tip, though, might be
less useful for those with only one Webmail account, or for those who
access the Internet from the house.
So, you have tips of your own?
Previous Comments
Thanks, Angelo. I'll think about that tip and maybe release an update on this entry "Five Webmail tips". 
I can certainly see the merits of using only one email address. OTOH, that makes it a mite tedious to forward a post from one mailing list to another if you're using two email addresses to subscribe to the two. I suppose you could forward it to email address B, and thence to mailing list B. What I do have is one personal address I give out only to family and close friends, a business address I give out only to business associates, and a gaggle of other Webmail address that I can't keep track of 
Regards
Posted by descasa at April 17, 2005, 2:18 amAll comments are moderated. Your comments will not appear here unless approved by the blog owner. Thank you.
Gmail's interface is quite a good time-saver, particularly with how it organizes email (per thread and not just per item/message). While other email clients also support such a way of sorting email, Gmail seems to have worked it out well. Hence, I directed all my mailing lists to my gmail account, for less clutter. =)
Another tip: I'd recommend against using only one email address for personal use and for subscribing to mailing lists.
Angelo
Posted by jangelo at March 26, 2005, 3:53 pm