Hi SHARE Folks -
I saw this on another list, and I think it's really good information.
It's not about animals, but it's important for all of us who send or
receive lots of emails. I sift through several hundred emails every
day, and many of them are just awful! :-) Maureen
How to forward email properly
JUST FOR YOUR INFO.
Someone who is a computer expert received the following directly from
a system administrator for a corporate system. It is an excellent
message that ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us who send e-mails. Please
read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow
proper procedures.
Do you really know how to forward e-mails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT.
Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it?
Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from
the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail
addresses & names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of
addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for
some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that
virus to every E-mail address that has come across his computer.
Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send
junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he
will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that
inconvenience over a nickel! How do you stop it? Well, there are
several easy steps:
(1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses
that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right,
DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut
them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You
MUST click the "Forward" button first and then you will have full
editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If
you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the
message at all.
(2) Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use
the To: or Cc: fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the BCC:
(blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is
the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail
address.
If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your
address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and
that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will
automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients in the "TO:" field of the
people who receive it.
(3) Remove any "FW :" in the subject line. You can re-name the
subject if you wish or even fix spelling.
(4) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are
reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to
read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the
actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to
open many e-mails just to see what you sent.
(5) Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a
position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it
to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be
forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email
addresses. A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple
of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid
names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support
the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended
recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter
than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition.
(Actually, if you think about it, who's supposed to send the petition
in to whatever cause it supports? And don't believe the ones that say
that the email is being traced, it just ain't so!)
One of the main ones I hate is the ones that say that something
like, "Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great
run across your screen." Or sometimes they'll just tease you by
saying 'something really cute will happen.' IT AIN'T GONNA
HAPPEN!!!!! (Trust me, I'm still seeing some of the same ones that I
waited on 10 years ago!)
I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed...
could be why I haven't won the lottery.. except that I haven't bought
a ticket anyhow!)
Before you forward an 'Amber Alert', or a 'Virus Alert', or some of
the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you
forward them. Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net
for YEARS! Just about everything you receive in an email that is in
question can be checked out at Snopes or TruthorFiction. Just go to
www.snopes.com or www.truthorficton.com. It's really easy to find out
if it's real or not. If it's not, please don't pass it on.
So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.
Finally, here's an idea!!! Let's send this on to others (but strip my
address off first, please). This is something that SHOULD be
forwarded.
Have a Great Day!
Posted on SHARE Yahoo group Sep. 26, 2006