Email

IBM makes web accessibility for blind users a social effort

Blake — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:58:10 -0400

arstechnica: IBM has launched a new initiative that it hopes will vastly improve the web browsing experience for visually impaired users. The Social Accessibility Project is a service that aims to make web pages more accessible for screen readers without altering the code of the page, the software for which is available in beta form today through IBM's AlphaWorks. If enough people participate in the project, then IBM's software could become integral to blind users' everyday surfing.

White House Threatens to Veto Bill to Modernize Presidential Records Act

Blake — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:22:25 -0400

On Wednesday, just as the Senate passed sweeping new legislation to modernize a 30 year old federal surveillance law, President Bush signaled that he would swiftly veto a bill approved by the House earlier in the day that would overhaul the Presidential and Federal Records Act to ensure emails and other government documents are preserved in the age of the Internet.

The measure was passed by a vote of 286-137, more than a year after several Senate and House investigations discovered that the Bush administration apparently purged millions of emails and that dozens of administration officials used email accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee to conduct official White House business in what appeared to be a violation of the Presidential Records Act.

I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip

Anonymous Patron — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:20:37 -0400

Luis Suarez of I.B.M., With the help of social networking tools, he has cut down sharply on his daily e-mail. "I stopped using e-mail most of the time. I quickly realized that the more messages you answer, the more messages you generate in return. It becomes a vicious cycle. By trying hard to stop the cycle, I cut the number of e-mails that I receive by 80 percent in a single week."

A month of spam: no help for sex life, but it enlarges the inbox

Blake — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:14:43 -0400

If you ever wanted concrete proof that the "Don't share my information with other companies" and "Stop emailing me" options on a web site are often useless, it's here. It's impossible to know which companies share data and which don't, but registering with the "do not share my e-mail" option ticked didn't appear to reduce spam in any way. Some of the bloggers reported a drop in the amount of spam they were receiving on a day-to-day basis when they unsubscribed from certain services, but the trend is not particularly strong.

E-Mail, the Workplace and the Electronic Paper Trail

Blake — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:17:53 -0400

E-mail and other electronic communications have dramatically changed the contemporary legal landscape. By some estimates, more than 90 percent of the cost of a lawsuit today can come from sorting through e-mails and other electronic documents to determine which ones are relevant to the case.
Story @ NPR.

Make It Stop! Crushed by Too Many E-Mails

Blake — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:31:50 -0400

Make It Stop! Crushed by Too Many E-Mails: e-mail is at risk of killing its own usefulness. Daily e-mail volume is now at 210 billion a day worldwide and increasing, according to The Radicati Group, a market research firm.

The burden of managing all that e-mail has prompted a backlash. One extreme reaction is "e-mail bankruptcy," where users throw up their hands and erase their entire inboxes. Many admit the distraction makes it near impossible to get work done, or even socialize normally.

A Neat Email Tool

anderskb — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:34:49 -0400

I recently discovered Xobni ("inbox" backwards), a tool that seems like it might have a particular appeal for librarians. Xobni is a sidebar that works with Outlook and offers analytics, searching, email organization, a social networking method of organization and more.

Digital Deception: Cracking CAPTCHAs

Blake — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:42:48 -0400

The Washington Post: With a test, Web sites let people in and keep out computers set to unleash spam attacks. Now, computers are cracking the code.

E-mail management a mighty struggle for US agencies

Blake — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:30:10 -0400

One From NetworkWorld.com A report issued today the Government Accountability Office said that while of the four agencies it reviewed e-mail policies generally contained required elements, but about half of the senior officials were not following these policies and were instead maintaining their e-mail messages within their e-mail accounts, where records cannot be efficiently searched, are not accessible to others who might need the information in the records, and are at increased risk of loss.

Do You "Do" Email?

Blake — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:41:20 -0400

I was just reading a post on PUBLIB and noticed a pattern, I think that a particular author "does" email. That got me thinking, is email part of working for most people now, or is it still something that needs to be done separately? For me it's like eating, or breathing even. My email program is always running, there is no "doing" email, it's just always on. Email is not a distinct part of my day, it's how many reference questions come in while I'm at work, and it's how all support requests come in for LISHost. Email isn't something that can be put off until I have free time, it's how work begins. Because of LISHost I can't go more than an hour or two without at least checking on email, the servers and support requests; ever. While I know I'm probably an extreme example, even during a regular workday I wonder if people still "do" email. 5 years ago when I worked in a huge academic library I was surprised so many people would block out time special time to "do" the email.

So I'm curious, do you "do" email? How do you handle it? Do you "do" your feed reader or twitter or something else?