email | Ain't Complicated

Fake Facebook Email

It is not legit.

It’s spam, and likely of the bad kind.

Do not click any links in it.

In the image above, I made two clues be red font:

That first email address doesn’t look real persuasive as a corporate address, does it now?
That second email address ain’t me.

The third clue — the most important of all, really — lies in the links contained in the email.

Notice what shows up in the browser status bar (is that what it’s called down below?) when I put my cursor on one of the links:

Again, notice the red part. If you only read the first part of the URL, it looks like the link points to facebook.com — but you must keep reading till you get to the first forward slash. Then you’ll see the link doesn’t point to facebook.com at all.

If you didn’t know that yet regarding links, learn the lesson and remember it well!

PS: Thanks to the wonders of CSS, the above images are actually the same image. Click on either image above to see the full thing.

This Is Urgent!

Have you ever felt that way about responding to something or someone electronically?

Blog, Twitter, email, Facebook, forum, IM, text message, chat — having the option and capability to hit Reply right away seems to impose an urgency to do just that.

Most times, such urgency is an illusion untethered from reality. “Most times” — not in a 51% sort of way, but more like a 92% sort of way, if you get my drift. Yes, at the risk of overstating my case, I suggest to you that the urgency of most digital communication is a pseudo-urgency.

I suspect that most of the time, succumbing to such false urgency has little consequence beyond social pressure, inner tension, and time consumption. (That all sounds like something far more than “little consequence”!)

That aside, giving in to such imaginary urgency has far weightier consequences when responding in circumstances that roil personal relationships, easily impacting them negatively.

So I urge you to grant significant weight to my five essential guidelines for digital communication:

If you think your attitude will be milder in five minutes or five hours, wait.
If you think your wording will be more careful after an hour’s worth (or a day’s worth) of thoughtful editing and review, wait.
If you think your present circumstances are affecting you even though they don’t pertain to the message in question, wait.
If you think your choice of expression would moderate significantly face-to-face, wait.
If you think thinking about your response will change it, wait.

Otherwise, figure on falling short of constructive dialogue.

Unless, of course, you’re just engaging in weightless, inconsequential back-and-forth techno-babbling because you can and because you don’t know what else to do and because you want to.

Then you need a different set of guidelines. 🙂

A Peek at My Email

OK, now we’ll see how many hits that title snags!

Just so you don’t get your hopes up, though, this is all I’m going to show you:

You may click on it to read it in full size, if you wish.

So what’s the point of this post?

Why, I want to zero in on some things for you, that’s what! For instance, these three folders:

Mark Roth's emailbox -- a real, clipped screenshot

So much in the Trash — and most of it is spam! 😐

And most of what’s in Hold For Later is also spam. I’m saving it so I can use that info to fine tune the filters at a later date.

And of these five here in the In box, three are spam:

Imagine if all those were true (and not just two of them).

Me? Earning $50 an hour will doing the “pen blog posts” thing?

Me? Being in some Super Duper Important Who’s Who?

Me? Doing talk radio as a host and contacting people with “Talk Radio Invitations”?

🙄 Right.

How gullible do these email marketers spammers take me to be?

Rhetoric aside, even though the above images all appear to be reductions or clippings of the same image, they actually are the same image. Ahhh, the wonders of CSS (cascading style sheets). Maybe sometime I’ll tell you how it’s done.

(I’m anxious to get this finished, posted, and out of the way so I can post five more photos I took here at Luke and LaVay’s place near Madras, Oregon.)

Just Words

They're evidence. Make them count for good!

I stared. 😯

I was incredulous at the email. It was bad as a personal email. But sent to a multi-recipient list?!

Wow! Somebody was having a bad day! 🙁

Not only had the email departed the sender’s mind ahead of any grace and tact, it projected itself as mind-bogglingly dumb. I don’t mean that unkindly or disrespectfully. I’m simply saying its cargo excluded basic common sense.

The person who sent it issued a follow-up email 38 minutes later. It was an apology.

Very good! God bless him for his honesty, humility, and integrity.

But guess which email is more likely to be remembered?

Yeah. Too bad.

Words. Just words. Not sticks and stones, you know. But what dismay they can cause.

Words. Just words. Too often I want to excuse mine. And attack the other guy’s (if I deem them ill-advised or outright bad).

Words. Just words. But God doesn’t see the matter so lightly.

He will judge me by my words.

And by how they line up with His Word.

So….

“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart,
be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD,
my strength, and my redeemer.”
Psalm 19:14

Full of sweet, nourishing honey — not stinging bees!

This whole deal was one of those wretched teachable moments (can we come up with a different term already?).

The lesson above leaps forward as Number One (or more).

Other lessons?

Be slow to react to email. Come to think of it. Don’t react.
Be slow. There’s no rush. Especially if you’re having a trying day.
Email is forwardable. How far will yours go? That may not matter to you now, but it likely will in a day or two. Or in a minute or two. Or less.
Email lists have the added danger of being archived on the Web “forever”!

There. I don’t want to give them all. What other lessons do you see?

This was to post last evening…but I didn’t get back to my computer and the Internet in time.

This Is News?!

More importantly, is it news that the average American cares about?

And even more important than that, do you care about this?

The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said.

Then there’s this later in the story:

it is unavoidable that some innocent discussions of Americans will be examined.

Do you mind if something you say or write is examined?

How about anything?

How about everything?

“Oh be careful little tongue…. Oh be careful little hands….”

Yeah, that’s part of a children’s song that I and you would be wise to follow.

Source: E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress

Yeah…

…but what was I going to post?

Oh, that’s right! The title was going to be, “I Spit on It!” — but I’m not yet ready to post that one.

An earlier title for an earlier post: Self Living? — it was to be a follow-up to an overheard comment, “Everyone at ____ just lives for themselves.” I didn’t get that one done either.

So I’ll just tell you that I’m off to a slow start today. But I did post a Mexico flower picture and thought over at Panting Hart.

And I did have two cups of mild coffee. And there’s a cup of mint tea a-brewin’.

And I added more words to my email’s anti-spam blacklist, among them these: tips, crazy, pleasure.

See there — a riveting post, just like that! 🙄

Now for that tea….

(Over) Collection Agency?

In yesterday’s news from the New York Times…

Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.

But despite my repeated warnings on this blog, you continue to discuss all manner of stuff via email and phone. Don’t you?! Yeah, I thought so.

I, too.

“I don’t have anything to hide,” is such a lame defense or explanation or boast or whatever it is.

If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t mind telling me anything and everything about yourself. 😆