How-to: E-mail--Wait, I thought I already knew all that...

Sure, e-mail is easy--been using it for years. New gidgets and gadgets come and go, but the basic steps stay the same. And yes, I do know e-mail etiquette, thank you very much. Nothing new for me.

Okay, I'm going through the foot tall stack of articles and such on my desk and found a couple of articles that reminded me of stuff I knew, but had taken for granted. I thought I would throw it out for you and see if there's a heretofore undiscovered rabbit to be found in this old-hat technology.

YOU DID KNOW THAT TYPING IN ALL CAPS MEANS YOU ARE FRANTICALLY YELLING FOR ATTENTION, right? And you're watching what you write, correct? Or did you learn the hard way that sending an e-mail to your colleague detailing just exactly what you thought of your [insert appropriate word here] boss from work e-mail might not be the best idea? Maybe you have experienced receiving an e-mail with a subject line about the Smith case and upon opening it you find that your partner replied to a former e-mail about the Smith case, but it now discussing his preference for Chinese for lunch. I myself am guilty of forgetting to put anything at all in the subject line (those of you who receive library notices from me know exactly how that feels--sorry!). Laura Stack wrote 12 tips for better e-mail etiquette for Microsoft Office Online. These tips from Laura are excellent reminders of how to make e-mail better for everyone.

Another article that mentioned e-mail is from a blog called I Heart Tech by Adriana Linares. She writes in a post about law office technology that "as a professional service provider your e-mail address should reflect who you are and the name of your law firm. ... An AOL, Yahoo or Hotmail address is not very professional and should be reserved for use by friends and family, not your clients." She goes on to suggest a method for securing a domain name that will reflect you and your firm as opposed to your favorite freebie e-mail service.

Adriana's post is short, but offers other great ideas on using technology in your office better: new equipment, detail & file management, and scanning & faxing.