Tech Tuesday- Etiquette and Keyboard Tips

A request was received last week about some email etiquette for forwarding emails and replies.

Sometimes you receive an email that you want to share with your friends. That is all well and good, but there are some guidelines to follow. Rather than just clicking on the Forward icon, you need to take a moment and clean that email up. (and if you are not willing to clean the email up before you send it-don’t forward it)

Subject- make sure it doesn’t just say Re: In fact, it is best in all emails that you send to put detailed information in the subject line. This will save your readers time. What if they have received that funny cat video five times already? This way they will know and won’t have to spend time opening the email.

Remove old addresses and any text you don’t need.- After you click on forward all the addresses are in the body of your email. Sometimes pages of addresses from all the forwards are in your email. Delete all that information. It does become a privacy issue when these addresses are forwarded on and on. 

Files- Be careful what you forward and the size. Again, you don’t want to send on any viruses. The size of your attachments can be a problem. On videos, it might be better to just send the URL rather than the video for size sake. Also, note that the IPhone and IPad do not open Flash Player. Flash Player has issues with the operating systems on these devices and will not work properly. Apple will not use it on the IPhone and Ipad until Flash Player addresses those issues.

Reply All Button- Before you use this button, ask yourself, “Does everyone need to read this?” Probably not. So either don’t reply or email the one person that needs your input. 

If someone does a favor for the group, email that person personally. Everyone does not need to see your thank you. This is the same in texting. If you receive a group text either answer back to the group the info they need to know or just the person asking the questions. Do not start a new conversation with a person in the group text and have the group wondering what the heck you are saying. It is best to use Reply All and Group Text very, very sparingly. I have learned this the hard way.

Now that you are ready to type your etiquette ready emails with your IPhone or Ipad, here is a video with some good keyboard tips to make that task easier.