It’s Virtually Done (IVD) Blog

One thing that I’ve learned from being online a lot over the last few years: emails don’t always get through to the recipient. I have about 10 email accounts. I troubleshoot email delivery issues for my clients who have tens of thousands of clients combined and broadcast several emails weekly. Emails do not always get through. 

Maybe I’m not telling you something that you already don’t know. But every day I hear from people that are surprised that they don’t get an email that they are expecting. And a few times a month, I don’t get emails that are sent to me. People prove this to me by forwarding the email that they sent to me that I didn’t receive. This used to surprise me. It doesn’t faze me any more. 

Where do all the emails go: spam filters, junk folders, cyperspace? All of the above. Websites go down and mail servers go down, and when they do, sometimes the emails get lost.  

Most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) use sophisticated software to make sure that junk email doesn’t make it into your email client (e.g., Outlook). Sometimes their software doesn’t get it quite right, and they screen good email that you want to get. It’s not just the large broadcasts that get blocked. 

With Comcast, my provider, I can view my screened mail via the web. It’s a hassle, and most of the screened mail is junk, but occasionally emails from friends are there and it is very frustrating that it doesn’t make it to me.  

We have the spammers to thank for all of this inconvenience. The lesson I learn from this is that if you don’t hear back from someone after a time, give people the benefit of the doubt: they may not have received your email, really.

Have you made the conversion yet? I got a new computer, so I was very excited to add Office 2007. (By the way, I didn’t bundle it with my Dell computer order, instead I bought it separately, and saved quite a bit.)

It was quite a shock making the transition. Here’s an example. I needed to print something in Word. Easy, right? I couldn’t figure it out. That’s right! I was in a hurry and needed to do it fast. I accessed help, and figured it out easily after that, but I couldn’t have figured it out without using the online help.

What do I like? It’s beautiful, logical, and very icon driven. I look forward to figuring out all of the features.

There’s one feature that I’m still getting used to in Outlook, and that’s the preview pane. I’ve never used the preview pane before, but it is very convenient to know what the email is about ahead of time, particularly with the volume that I get. The problem with it though is that it “opens” the email, and so I think I’ve read it completely and dealt with it, although I haven’t. This is more my problem than Outlook’s — I’m just mentioning it.

It was time to get a new computer. Don’t deny the signs because you know what they are: