2. Using electronic mail (it isn't as straightforward or reliable as you think). CONTENTS: 2.1. Messages often disappear without a trace. 2.2. Many email programs create by default messages that are hard or impossible to read with other email programs. 2.3. Identify yourself and give a subject--don't assume your email program did it for you. 2.4. Incoming mailboxes may not be backed up. 2.5. Forwarding email, or what to do when you go on leave. 2.1. MESSAGES OFTEN DISAPPEAR WITHOUT A TRACE. Email is faster than mail and cheaper than telephoning, but it is unfortunately not as reliable as either. If your message is not delivered, you are supposed to get back a message saying so, but messages sometimes in fact vanish without a trace. If you get no reply, it could be because the addressee didn't bother to reply, but it could also be because your message never arrived, because his reply disappeared, because he has moved but nobody ever closed his old account, because your message was discarded by a spam filter, because your message was overlooked amid a torrent of spam, because the machine you are emailing from has been blocked as a spam source (happens with email from China) or for political reasons (happens with email to China), or for other reasons. 2.2. MANY EMAIL PROGRAMS CREATE BY DEFAULT MESSAGES THAT ARE HARD OR IMPOSSIBLE TO READ WITH OTHER EMAIL PROGRAMS. Except by prior arrangement with the recipient, messages should be sent in 7 bit ASCII. This means using only the characters on a standard English language keyboard. It excludes all accented letters and all curved apostrophes and quotation marks. Messages should _not_ be in HTML (web page format), in Microsoft, UTF, 8 bit, etc. character sets, encoded, or in Microsoft Word or other proprietary binary formats. For example, I do not accept Microsoft Word documents under any circumstances, since I don't have software that reads them. Also, some spam filters reject HTML messages with no plain text part. The web page "http://www.expita.com/nomime.html" explains how to configure many email programs to send plain text. Messages should never contain lines with more than 79 characters. Some printers will not "wrap" lines, or will wrap lines in the middle of a word. Printers may behave much worse, either truncating lines without any warning that anything is wrong, or putting a black blob whenever the length of a line exceeds their limits. See "http://www.uoregon.edu/~ncp/email.html" for further information about formatting email so that all recipients can read it properly. 2.3. IDENTIFY YOURSELF AND GIVE A SUBJECT--DON'T ASSUME YOUR EMAIL PROGRAM DID IT FOR YOU. Some mail programs do not (or usually do not) show the name of the sender of a message, only an account name, and sometimes the message headers do not include a real name. It is therefore always a good idea to include your full name in the text of a message. This is important if your account name is something like "mike" (first name only) or "ncp" (initials only), and especially important if it is something like "IFQJ100" (no relation to your name at all). If this is not done, the recipient of your message may have a hard time figuring out who you are. Always include an informative subject line. Among other things, this reduces the chance of your message being rejected by a spam filter, or of the recipient assuming it is spam and deleting it unread. Here is the part of the subject line of an email message I received that is displayed when I look at my mailbox: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Sympat". It looks like spam. If your email program generates subject lines like this, you should do something about it. 2.4. INCOMING MAILBOXES MAY NOT BE BACKED UP. I have been warned that on some systems (probably including most UNIX systems), the storage area for incoming mail is not backed up very frequently. This means that messages left in your incoming mailbox may be lost in case of a disk failure or similar problem. (For example, on one system I have used, if the hard disk is damaged, then your own files would be restored to the state they were in less than 24 hours before the crash, but your incoming mailbox might only be restored to the state it was in a month before the crash.) 2.5. FORWARDING EMAIL, OR WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU GO ON LEAVE. This section describes four methods that I know of for dealing with electronic mail when you are away from your usual address. Not all of them are available at all sites. (1) Submit a temporary change of address to the directory. This can always be done, but is slow (up to three months delay), possibly resulting in the loss of much mail. (2) Arrange to have mail forwarded. On a UNIX system you can set this up yourself (type "man forward" for the manual entry). On other systems you may have to have your system administrator do it for you. This method is very convenient but requires having an account at the new place before leaving the old place. You may also lose mail during the return trip. (3) Use the "vacation" program (UNIX) or a similar program if your system has one. The UNIX vacation program will automatically answer incoming mail with a predetermined message. (Do "man vacation" for details.) Possible messages could be "I will return on " or "I will be away until ; my temporary email address is
." On a UNIX system you can set this up yourself, and also use it in combination with (2). (4) Check mail on your permanent account by remote login. The big advantage is that you don't have to change your address. Unfortunately, there may be a noticeable delay between the time you type a character and the time it shows up on your screen. Furthermore, sometimes the delays become very long, or sometimes you can't get through at all. If you are primarily using methods (2) or (3), this alternative provides a way to start or stop automatic forwarding or response by remote control. Many computer systems now require ssh rather than telnet for security reasons, but sometimes it is hard to find a ssh program on Windows machines. To find out more about what is possible on your particular system, talk to your system manager.