Top 10 Printer Tips and Tricks

Utilitarian workhorses of the computing industry, our printers are ignored until they run out of ink. Then we replace the tanks as quickly (and as cheaply) as we can and don't think about the devices for another few months. And as with monitors, we replace them only when they fail completely. Six-year-old printer? No problem. Dot matrix? Still functioning! This collection of tips and tricks shows you how to keep nozzles clear, print sharper pictures, test out your document formatting easily, and more.

1. Prevent clogs with a humidifier
An unpleasant fact of life for inkjets is that nozzles can and do clog. Anecdotal evidence gathered from e-mails to PCMag.com (and supplemented by similar complaints on the Web) suggests that they are more likely to clog if you live in an area with particularly low humidity. That's not a problem we run into in PCMag.com country, New York City, but cities built in the middle of the desert often boast humidities as low as 10 or 15 percent. If you live in an area with low humidity, and you're having a problem with clogging nozzles, you may be able to solve it by adding a humidifier to the room where you keep your printer. Not in a humid area but experiencing clogs nonetheless? Unfortunately, you'll probably need to replace the cartridge. After you do, think about printing a page or two every few days.

2. Fix smeary printouts
If you use an inkjet printer and see smearing on a page, it's typically because something is sticking to the printhead. If your printer includes the nozzles in the cartridges—as most HP printers do, for example—and you see smearing immediately after changing a cartridge, remove the cartridge and check to make sure the protective tape over the nozzles is completely removed. If some of the tape is still attached, remove it, being careful not to touch the nozzle plate.

3. Print in the right order
Most laser printers print pages so they come out face down. For a multipage document, this puts the pages in the right order when you turn over the stack. Most inkjets print pages face up, which will normally put the first page on the bottom of the stack, so you have to reorder the pages. A few inkjets default to reversing the print order, so the last page prints first and the first page prints last, and everything's in the right order. Many don't have that feature, however.

For those inkjets that don't have a reverse print feature in the driver, some programs offer printing in reverse order. In Word 2003, for example, you can choose Tools |Options, then the Print tab, and add a check to the Reverse Print Order check box. In Word 2007, you can choose the Microsoft Office Button, click Word Options, and pick the Advanced options in the pane on the left-hand side of the dialog box. Then scroll down to the print options, and check the Print Pages In Reverse Order box.

An alternative approach for Word is to tell the program to print the range in reverse order. To print a 24 page file in Word 2003, for example, instead of searching for the Reverse Print Order option, you can just choose File | Print, and, in the Pages text box, tell Word to print pages 24-1.

This alternative approach may also work for some programs that lack a reverse-print option but offer the option to print a range of pages. Don't try using both approaches at the same time, however, or use either with a driver that also reverses the order. Just as two negatives equal a positive, two commands to reverse order will cancel each other out.

4. Reduce bloatware
Some printers (particularly all-in-ones) install a lot of software that you don't necessarily use and may not want. The possibilities range from a utility that automatically checks for driver updates to a graphics program that you don't need. To minimize unnecessary software, look for a Custom option when you install your next printer, rather than using the Typical or Recommended option, and then pick just the software you want to install—the minimum requirement being the driver itself. In some cases, you can download a minimal installation file from the manufacturer's Web site and skip the CD altogether.

5. Test out formatting
It's often useful to create a text document in Word, to test a printing or formatting feature, for example. To create as much text as you need quickly, simply type =rand(p,s) in a paragraph by itself, with p indicating the number of paragraphs you want and s the number of sentences in each paragraph. Then hit Enter. Word 2003 and earlier will create the text using the sentence The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Word 2007 uses different text, but if you prefer the earlier version, use the command =rand.old(p,s). Word 2007 offers still another variation of dummy text: the command =lorem(p,s).

6. Check which is the default printer
Some printer installation programs assume you want the printer you're installing to be the default, and set it as such without asking. Others leave it to you to set it as the default manually by going to the Printers and Faxes dialog box (or Printers dialog box, depending on your version of Windows), then right-clicking on the printer name and choosing Set as Default Printer. Given that there is no standard, it's a good idea after installing a printer to go to the Windows dialog box and check the settings, so you won't be surprised by what happens (or doesn't happen!) the first time you give a print command after installing a printer.

7. Maintain consistency with PostScript
Typically today, you don't have to worry about printer languages, but there are exceptions. A case in point: The big advantage of PostScript has always been that line breaks, page breaks, placement of graphics, and the like don't change when you print on a different PostScript printer—something you can't guarantee with other printer languages. That's worth knowing about if you need to create a document to print on more than one printer. If you care about format consistency, stay with PostScript printers if possible. If it isn't possible, convert the document to a PDF file, and print from Acrobat.

8. Print monochrome documents as black-only
Few printer issues are as annoying as trying to print a monochrome document in a hurry and getting an error message that the printer won't print because it's out of some other ink color. Before you take a sledgehammer to the printer, take a careful look through the driver. Many—unfortunately, not all—printer drivers include an option to print using black only, or equivalent options to override the refusal to print. If your printer's driver doesn't offer a black-only option, you can always make sure that you have a supply of ink cartridges on hand.

9. Improve quality with the right paper setting
One of the most common reasons for complaints about inkjet output quality is that the driver is set for the wrong type of paper. Different papers require different amounts of ink and different proportions of ink colors to produce the correct final colors. Setting the paper type tells the driver which color tables to use. Some inkjets are supposed to recognize the paper type automatically, but the feature doesn't always work. So if you're not getting the results you expect, don't give up on the printer until you've made sure you're setting the driver manually for the paper you're actually using.

10. And speaking of the right paper
The paper you print on can make a real difference in how your output looks. All other things being equal, whiter, brighter paper makes text and line graphics crisper and colors more vibrant, because the human visual system sees colors differently depending on the surrounding color—in this case the paper color. For inkjets, the paper also determines how much of the ink gets absorbed into the paper and whether it bleeds into the surrounding area or stays in the spot where the drop hits paper. So if you care about how your output looks, stay away from cheap copy paper, and invest some time and money experimenting with other choices.

Money Earning Tips in Internet

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Freelance & Work from Home
AbleStable.com	Directory providing a very broad listing of creative professionals, from artists to web designers, programmers, illustrators and music composers.
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EditFast	EditFast provides a free service to skilled proofreaders, editors and writers. If you are selected for a project by a client or by the EditFast administration you will be notified and that project will be directed to you.
Free Business Services	A collection of free and non free business services on the Web, such as: online payment services, cheque / check printing services, import / export companies, Websites and programs related to mortgages and real-estate, day trading companies and online stock brokers, business-to-business portals.
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Telework Association	TCA is Europe's largest organisation dedicated to the promotion of teleworking. Over 2,000 people and organisations have joined them since they started in 1993. The TCA believes that teleworking can benefit people by increasing the quality of life and improving access to work.
WorldLancer Outsourcing Academy	Job listings and jobs online for a variety of projects. "Buyers" can post job listings for free. Freelancers can find jobs online and get paid for their work.

How to Delete Accounts from Any Website

The words "I wish I could quit you" take on a whole new meaning when you want out of a relationship with an online service. Sure, you once thought you and Facebook or MySpace would be together forever, but eventually terms of service change, end-user license agreements mature, and, well, you're just not in the same place anymore.

Sadly, not all Web sites and social networks are created equal when it comes to breaking up. With some, it takes only a couple of clicks to say good-bye. If you stop paying, that goes a long way toward ending it with a few sites. Others make you jump through more hoops than a tiger at the circus.

No matter what you call it—deleting, canceling, removing, whatever—when you want to be rid of an online account, you'll find most sites don't feel obliged to make it too easy for you. So we've cut to the chase as much as possible to give you the links, the tips, and in the worst cases, the fax and phone numbers you need to sever ties. Did we miss a service you want out of? Let us know. And if you've managed to quit a service not in this story, be kind and share your tips.

Social Networks

Classmates.com

Another site linking up you and your alma mater–mates and another lawsuit: One user claims he was told by Classmates that several people were trying to contact him. He wasn't able to find out who—not until he paid. Then he discovered the actual truth: No one was trying to find him, at all. Rather than get mad, he got litigious.

Even if you don't feel scammed, you may feel annoyed—maybe you hated high school. And college. Canceling with Classmates is pretty simple—if you've got the free account. Those users can log in and remove themselves anytime. Visit the Member Support Email Contact form, pick a reason you're leaving, and click Yes. That's it.

If you've paid—base cost is $15 for three months—you've got a Gold Membership at Classmates.com, and that makes it a little more complicated. Contact the Member Support Team and someone will get back to you in e-mail or via live Internet chat. Classmates will dummy the account back down to free so you can do the removal. Another method is to set the account renewal option to "manual" so that it doesn't automatically debit your credit card; instead it automatically reverts to free when your Gold Membership runs out.

Can't get satisfaction online? Classmates.com can be reached at 425-917-5000. I tried it, hit 1 for customer support, then 2 for a question about the Web site, and got an operator after 4 minutes. She said she can cancel any account.

Facebook

Recent issues with the Facebook terms of service—which would have given Facebook rights to everything you post there, for the remainder of time—had some users threatening to pull out. Which is probably why Facebook recanted on the changes and suddenly embraced democracy for its guidelines.

If you're still steamed, you have a couple of ways to leave FB behind. First is simple "deactivation." Visit your Facebook Account page and click the "deactivate" link at the bottom. Facebook will make an attempt to guilt-trip you into staying by pointing out just how many of your social-network friends won't be able to keep in touch. It even displays pictures of people you're in photos with, playing on your emotions with captions such as, "Mark will miss you" and "Wendy will miss you." Sure they will. Then how come they never poke me?

Once you've cleared the tears from your eyes, you'll notice another message on-screen, wherein the Facebook Team points out that you shouldn't deactivate because of that silly old terms of service change. That "was a mistake we have now corrected." Too much hullaballoo.

Soldier on. You have to provide a reason to deactivate, whether you'll be back or not, and you can also opt out of getting e-mails from Facebook while deactivated. That's the trick: Deactivation is not the same as deletion. Your account simply becomes invisible. Your friends on Facebook will all think you bailed. However, you have the option to reactivate it in the future, without losing any photos, notes, or pokes.

True deletion of a Facebook account means losing all of those—so be sure you have local copies of photos and notes before you take this step. You can't reactivate. Here's the link to the Delete My Account page.

Friendster

Yes, Friendster still exists. If you were an early adopter of social networks, you may still have an account there doing nothing to get you new, real friends (like those you have on Facebook!). Time to cancel.

Assuming you can remember your log-in, do so and click Settings. Scroll down and find the Cancel My Account link. On a new page, you'll find the Cancellation Form in the middle. You need to provide your e-mail address, password, give a reason you're canceling, and check off the "Yes, I want to cancel my Friendster account" box. You can even list what new social network you've moved to, just to make Friendster feel bad. Refresh the window, and if you were logged in to Friendster before, you shouldn't be now. Say "so long" to any data you may have uploaded, assuming you can remember what it was.

LinkedIn

It could be argued that LinkedIn is the most useful social network around, especially in this day and age of job networking. That doesn't mean you won't want to cancel with them. In fact, LinkedIn specifically suggests that if you have multiple accounts, you should close one to consolidate.

To close an account, log in, click Account & Settings at the top of the page, then click Close Your Account (under Personal Information). Give a reason you're leaving—most sites want to know what they can improve, or did wrong— and then click Continue.

You have time to reinstate your account, if you regret the deletion. Contact Customer Service and confirm your e-mail address to do so. LinkedIn doesn't give out a number, but the link to contact them is on the bottom of every page. I found the number anyway: 650-687-3600. When you ask for customer service, you'll probably get sent to a recording.

MySpace

Canceling your MySpace account is easy—when it works. When it doesn't, things get a touch arcane.

Sign in, click the My Account link, then click Account, scroll down to the bottom, and click Cancel Account. Keep in mind, there is no reactivation. Go through with the cancellation and you can't bring back your account—though you can create a new account using the same e-mail address you used before. That's won't restore your previous music, pictures, and blog posts, however.

It should be that simple. But MySpace has some caveats. First, the account might remain visible for a while. Days, even a week, maybe. After that, if the MySpace page is still there, you may safely assume the deletion didn't go through. Now you need to e-mail help@support.myspace.com and ask for assistance.

Send a "salute" to MySpace support in the e-mail. That's a "handwritten sign with the word MySpace.com and include your MySpace Friend/Profile ID number." Hold it up while having your picture taken. Attach the digital photo to the e-mail or at least send MySpace a link to where the picture can be found online. This salute may prove you're you, but that will matter only if you've got a picture on your MySpace page for the support team to compare it with.

MyLife.com (formerly Reunion.com)

MyLife.com wants to bring people from previous school classes together. Unfortunately, it tends to be aggressively annoying, with a constant barrage of e-mails once you sign up. The earlier incarnation, Reunion.com, was even the subject of a lawsuit under a California anti-spam law (the suit was dismissed).

If you're not part of the class action, here's how to get away from the constant claims of acquaintances trying to track you down. It's tricky to find even in the MyLife.com help documents, where at one point it says "delete account" but there's no actual entry with that term. It switches to "remove account" on the actual help article.

First, you do have the option to change your e-mail settings so that you get fewer or no messages from Reunion.com. But Reunion/MyLife also claims it "may take up to 10 days for changes to take effect." Why on earth should this remotely be the case? Supposedly because "some may have been prepared for delivery already." That only fuels the desire to delete the account. So here are the steps: Log in, click My Account on the top right, find the Delete Account link, and click OK to confirm. This can't be undone; you'll lose all mailbox data, profile info, and photos.

Expect to get e-mail messages for a couple of weeks. If the spams continue after that, call customer service at 888-704-1900, even on weekends. Hit 4 for questions about premium membership. Then 3 to make changes. You can cancel both free and premium accounts through this number

The Age of Touch Computing: A Complete Guide

Your Audi slides up to an ATM and—mhzzzz—your window rolls down. There's a gleaming LCD staring at you. What's your first thought? Just a few years ago, it would have been to press a keypad and start your transaction. Today, there's a paradigm shift: You touch the screen instead. The computing world hasn't caught up to the banking, grocery, and casino markets quite yet, but that's about to change.

In 2009, touch computing will go mainstream.

Since the idea first arose, in the eighties, several products over the years have attempted touch control. For example, Dell released the convertible Latitude XT notebook in early 2008, to a mixed response: It was often easier just to use a stylus. Philips has experimented with touch in devices like the Pronto, for controlling your home-theater system with just a finger push. Marketing kiosks, home security systems, airport check-in terminals—many devices support touch in some way.

The hardware comes in two flavors: resistive and capacitive. (See our interview with designer Sabrina Boler for a technical description of how these work.) Resistive screens such as those used in tablet PCs or older mobile phones have been around for a while. Capacitive screens, in which a thin, conductive layer over the screen senses your finger movement, are newer. (There's also a much older "active digitizer" touch screen that supports only a certain type of digital pen.) Multitouch hardware can read several inputs at the same time; there's also a concept called "dual touch" which reads only two inputs.

Among those traditional products, touch is hardly innovative. What's changing is the interface: In the next few years, more and more devices will be legitimately touch-enabled with gesture controls for browsing though photos, tossing objects around the screen, flicking to turn the page of a book, and even playing video games and watching movies. In fact, Gartner analyst Steve Prentice told the BBC recently that the mouse will be dead in three to five years.

The most obvious precursor to real touch computing is the Apple iPhone, a seminal device that's still selling like candy on Christmas and has no obvious competitor. Pinching the screen to zoom in, flicking two fingers to zoom out—these gestures are replacing awkward stylus clicks on Windows Mobile devices and baaad keaypaed antiics on BlackBerry phones. There's a better way, and millions of iPhone users have found it. The Samsung Instinct, Nokia N97, BlackBerry Storm, and T-Mobile G1 are all helping to usher in the age of mobile touch devices.

8 Tech Predictions for 2009

The current economic crisis makes forecasting much more difficult this year than in the past, yet December still seems like a good time to ponder the year ahead. To that end, I've compiled a list of seven tech predictions—things I believe will happen over the next 12 months, plus one perhaps outrageous bonus prediction that could happen…if the stars align just right next year.

1. Windows 7 will bring tech out of the doldrums. Sales of PCs and other tech will be down in the first half of 2009, but when Microsoft delivers Windows 7 by Q3 (as many expect), it could catalyze the tech economy. This new OS will drive businesses and consumers to new PC and notebook purchases by Q4. Think it's just wishful thinking? In the past when Microsoft delivered a new operating system for mass consumption, sales of PCs and notebooks accelerated dramatically for a period of 24 months. This didn't happen with Vista, but it has happened with many other major releases. Let's hope that history repeats itself.

I'm not alone in this prediction, either; I've talked to several IT directors who confirm this view. Many enterprises balked at buying Vista but are hearing enough good things about Windows 7 to be open to upgrading once it comes out. The big issue will be 2009 budgets, and at the moment, a lot of IT budgets are frozen. Still, IT managers have told me that many of their machines are so old that they have to do some hardware upgrades just to keep their shops competitive.

2. The tech industry will be the first to recover. While the real estate and auto markets will be very slow to come back, the tech industry will recover fastest and be moving forward again by Q3. As stated above, Windows 7 could jump-start things, but technology has become so important to our business and personal lives that the employed will buy new notebooks, music players, and TVs if the economy merely stabilizes sometime in 2009.

3. The unemployed will start small businesses to survive—and will need PCs to make a living. We saw this happen during the last recession and also when some of the big companies downsized. Many of those laid off are professionals who could start specialty consulting services as well as new businesses of various types just to survive. PC technology and communications will most likely be at the heart of their new ventures.

4. Netbook sales will double in 2009. People want cheaper laptops, ones that provide more mobility. Manufacturers should sell about 18 million netbooks this year, and at least another 36 to 38 million worldwide in 2009. These products have driven down the average selling prices of traditional laptops; now full-powered laptops are in the same price range as netbooks. Consequently, users will be faced with a difficult choice when purchasing a notebook in 2009: extreme mobility versus full-powered functionality. But the biggest impact from netbooks will be at the vendor level. These lower-priced models have small margins, and that will impact their profitability in 2009. The drop in revenues will force the major vendors to move faster to create their own ecosystems—hardware, software, and services tied to these netbooks through some type of cloud solution—and use this as a way to develop new revenue streams.

5. Smartphones will gain market share. By 2012, 75 percent of all phones sold in the US will be smartphones. Earlier this year sales of cell phones and smartphones grew, but under the current economic climate, sales for the latter part of the year seem stalled. Still, about 1.2 billion cell phones will have been sold worldwide in 2008. They're simply indispensible tools, and in the next 12 months, smartphones such as Apple's iPhone and the RIM BlackBerry will gain a stronger foothold in the U.S. and Europe. By 2015, smartphones will represent as much as 65 percent of all cell phones sold globally.

6. Android will expand its reach. When we talk about Android today, we mostly discuss its role inside a "Google phone" such as the T-Mobile G1. Indeed, in the near term, Android's focus will continue to be smartphones. But by next holiday season we should see it in set-top boxes, digital televisions, and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs)—and perhaps even desktop terminals. In fact, Android could emerge as the biggest threat to Linux's desire to make the mainstream, and within the next three years Android could become a major OS in its own right.

For this to happen, Google will need to take a Microsoft-like approach to shepherding Android; the SDK needs to be much more solid, and the company needs to drive open-source components in a way that gives Android a consistent UI across all types of devices. And the Mountain View crew needs to take a page from Apple's playbook and create an easy way for people to get Android apps that are tested, approved, and trusted. If that happens, Android could become a most interesting broad-market OS—and could perhaps take on Windows in the future.

7. Apple market share in PCs and smartphones will grow. Even in a downturn, Apple will grow its market share by at least 2 points in 2009. The ease-of-use message and the complete ecosystem are attracting more new customers to Apple stores, and the company will gain new Mac users at the expense of Windows vendors. If Apple delivers a low-cost laptop sometime in 2009, as some rumors have it, its market share could climb even more than 2 points in the coming year. Also, Apple will continue to innovate around the iPhone and even add some models at lower prices to attract new customers worldwide. Apple knows that it is gaining ground on competitors and will use the competition's struggles in the coming year to its own advantage.

And for my outrageous prediction:

8. Microsoft makes a play to purchase RIM. If the Apple iPhone makes any serious inroads into the enterprise, Microsoft will make a bid for RIM and use it to enhance and solidify the company's enterprise smartphone position. Sure, new versions of Windows Mobile will be much richer in the future, but BlackBerry customers are almost as fanatical as Apple users. Microsoft would love to displace BlackBerry phones with Windows Mobile smartphones, and how better to get RIM's customers than by buying the company? Microsoft could then blend RIM into a service, which is where the long-term money will be someday.

Facebook May Affect Students' Grades

A study shows that Facebook users have lower grade point averages than students who have not signed up for the social networking website.

Social networking sites are addictive. They are addictive to an extent that they may start affecting your performance in the real world. According to a study, college students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grade point averages than students who have not signed up for the social networking website. However, more than three-quarters of Facebook users claimed that their use of the social networking site didn’t interfere with their studies.

The 25 Golden Rules of E-Mail

15. Don't open attachments or click links you aren't expecting
The number one way to get malware: Trust that an attachment sent to you is what the message claims. Even if it does look okay, it could be dangerous, since malware likes to play pretend. If anything looks even remotely incorrect, contact the "sender" first to be sure you know who actually sent it.

Likewise, phishing scams that send you to Web pages you should not visit often look legit. That's the whole point of them, after all. You have to think very carefully when you get a message from a bank, or PayPal, or any number of services. First, do you have an account there? Second, does the message actually refer to something you could have done? (Example: eBay phishers will tell you there's a problem with your auction—but do you have an auction running?)

16. Trim excess in replies
When you reply to a message, usually the original is appended below what you said. That way the recipient(s) can refer back to what was sent originally. While handy, this can be a pain when you're searching through e-mails later (your query will yield multiple hits because the same words are in so many messages). Worse, eventually a long conversation will have a thread that goes on for pages and pages.

At some point, take the time to cut some of the messages below. Better yet, just copy the most relevant part and paste it in above what you're typing. Use >>> in front of that section to indicate that it's from a previous message. Your succinctness will be appreciated.

17. NO ALL CAPS
This might be the oldest bit of netiquette around, but it's still important to point out to total newbies who shun the Shift key in favor of Caps Lock: TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS IS THE INTERNET EQUIVALENT OF SHOUTING.

If you truly can't handle mixed case, then go all lowercase. We'll call that a "style choice."

18. Know your audience
Multiple personalities are part of communication. You don't talk to your parents the same way you talk to your best friend, right? Don't believe you can write an e-mail the same way you talk, or text. Its 1 thng 2 typ ungrmmtclly whn thrs a 140-160 chrctr lmt. Let alone without vowels. It's quite another when you have all the space you need. It helps to look smart when making a point.

19. Don't e-mail angry
There are many things not to do when angry. Drink. Drive. Call your significant other, or your significant other's parents. Sending textual communication of any sort when peeved is also a big no-no.

There's always a chance that a missive from the boss, human resources, coworkers, or even family members can rub you the wrong way, if not cause outright rage. Do more than count to ten: Remember that not everyone is a nuanced writer, and for some people terse and to-the-point is the only way they can be. Your feelings don't enter into it—and they're not being malicious. Consider the source. Take a few hours or even a day to reply. If time is of the essence, call or visit them in person instead. Face to face, what could be an ugly confrontation may be quickly diffused.

Sending angry messages of complaint can be useful, but be constructive. We're no strangers here at PCMag to being told we're dunces, but we always pay more attention when the writer can articulate where we went wrong, rather than just calling us shills for Microsoft (or Apple or HP or Sony, depending on the story).

20. Recall/Undo a sent message
Sometimes you send an e-mail and see a typo just a moment too late. Or notice that you did a Reply All and didn't mean to (we warned you). Pushing a button to cancel sending is not usually an option outside of corporate e-mail systems. But you can work around that.

Gmail Labs, for example, now offers Undo Send. If you click that Undo link a few seconds after sending, the message won't go out. But be warned: You get only 5 seconds.

Microsoft Outlook can be set up to mimic this undo function as well, using a rule that defers sending by seconds or minutes. That way you have time to realize the mistake and go fix it first. You can set up the rule by going to Tools, then Rules and Alerts. Start a blank rule that will "Check messages after sending." Click Next until you're warned about the rule working on all messages—that's what you want. The next screen should have an option to "defer delivery by a number of minutes." Pick a number, click OK, then Next. Skip the exceptions, name the rule, and click Finish.

With Thunderbird, you can go to the File menu of a message and select Send later (hit Ctrl-Shift-Enter). That puts the message in your Unsent folder until you're absolutely sure it's ready. Go to File and select Send unsent messages to shoot them off.

21. Put rules to work on your inbox
Having a wild inbox without rules is no party—it's a sure way to organizational meltdown. No one likes to follow rules, but if your messages do you'll be happier. They'll end up in the right folders, with the right color-coding and status, and they'll help you get things done. Microsoft has written up a basic tutorial for creating rules in Outlook. Thunderbird calls the feature "Message Filters" and eloquently explains how to use them. Most e-mail programs have a variation that you should put to work.

22. Don't e-mail what you can IM (or text, or Twitter)
Not everything you want to say may actually be worthy of a full message. Take advantage of the fact those you want to reach may use an instant-messaging application or may be following you on Twitter. Use Meebo to sign in to every service you have simultaneously—even Facebook.

Of course, SMS texting is the closest short-form equivalent to e-mail. I'd guess 99 percent of what is sent via SMS would be a waste of time in e-mail. Texts aren't limited to phones anymore (though you can see our favorite texting phones here.) You can send an e-mail from a PC to a phone via SMS using the right format; you need only know the recipient's number and phone network. (See "The Best Wireless Carrier Shortcuts" for details.) If you've got a Google Voices account, use it to send and receive texts from the Web site to anyone in your Google Contacts list.

23. Declare "e-mail bankruptcy" once in a while
The term e-mail bankruptcy refers to the "debt" you owe people sending you a message. In theory, you're expected to respond to all messages, or at the very least read everything you get, right? Declaring bankruptcy gets you out of that debt.

Responding to everyone is impossible for those who get a hundred or more messages a day. The only way to survive such a deluge is to prioritize and hope you don't miss something. In e-mail, as in business, sometimes you just have to give in and accept that you can't do it. Declaring e-mail bankruptcy may be the only hope for your sanity.

That means one thing: Erase your inbox. Yes, select all and hit Delete, and you can pretend those messages never arrived. If you can live with that guilt, you're golden. (And maybe ready for a change in jobs.) Let your coworkers, friends, and family know via your blog or Twitter or however you mass-communicate that if they expected a reply on something important, they should resend.

24. Avoid confidential info
MySpace and Facebook and other social networks display our lives. But if you send something in e-mail to a single friend you expect privacy, right? Sure. If you're lucky.

Nothing is private on the Internet. When you commit something to text—or worse, to pictures or videos—and send it out, you've created something that easily can be sent on again. There's nothing to prevent pictures you send to a boyfriend from going straight to his online Facebook account, except the decency and care for your well-being you trust he has. You might believe in him now, but those pics will still be in his e-mail after your breakup. Same goes for spouses, business partners, and anyone else you might part ways with. Trust is nice, but thinking ahead might be safer.

25. Create a useful signature
Your signature (or sig) is the block of text at the end of your message that spells out who you are. Sigs can be as simple as a "Best, Eric" or as complicated as a replica of your business card, complete with links to a Google Map of your location, and more.

What's useful may be in the eye of the beholder, but at the very least include your full name (spelled correctly, so when a correspondent misspells it later you can justly complain), title or company, e-mail address, and phone number.

Everything else—a Twitter or IM address, for example—is gravy. And some information is useless. Fax numbers? Snail mail addresses? Who uses that? Okay, there is a real world where an address is pertinent, I suppose. In which case try a utility like Texter to create multiple sigs, some with all info, some with limited info. Then insert the one that best fits on a message-by-message basis.

The 25 Golden Rules of E-Mail

6. Do not use "Reply All" blindly
We've all seen those messages come in: Some stray person who got the same company-wide e-mail you received hits Reply All, and now everyone in the company has to see his gripes. Don't be that person. Especially don't be that person if you're going to gripe about someone in particular—it's almost guaranteed that your subject will be on the list of people getting the message. Sadly, that kind of thing happens all the time.

When sending a new message, don't go to an old message and hit Reply All (or even Reply). Start from scratch and use your own address book. Otherwise someone you don't intend may slip into the list.

7. BCC is your friend
CC once stood for "carbon copy." Some say today it stands for "courtesy copy." Either way, that's how you send a message to someone else along with your intended recipient. However you interpret CC, the "B" stands for "blind," and the BCC field is where you put in the names of those people you want to read your message on the sly. The people listed in the To and CC fields don't get to see who's included in the BCC field. Even the other recipients in BCC don't see each other.

It also serves another purpose. When sending a message to a very, very large list, always put all the addresses in BCC. That way recipients don't have to wade through a gigantic list of names at the top of the message—and you're not abusing everyone's privacy by revealing their e-mail addresses.

Better yet, no one has to suffer if one of those recipients pulls a Reply All snafu.

8. Subject lines matter
"Hi, how are you?" or "Check this out!" don't cut it as subject lines when people are receiving hundreds of messages per day. If you can't distill your message to five or six perfect, pithy words, you run the risk of not getting read at all.

Don't list that the message is from you in the subject, either. "Message from Eric" is redundant: The person knows it's a message and can see your name in the From field. The subject should be on topic.

And don't bury the lead. If the message is about something important, state it up front, in the subject line. If you can inject a bit of urgency or a deadline ("Reply by midnight about CEO firing") your message stands a much better chance of being read soon.

If you leave the subject line blank, well... you don't even deserve a reply.

9. One topic per message
We're all a few steps away from A.D.D. these days, and tracking multiple topics in a message—and responding to them—is difficult at best. Even if you can electronically chew bubble gum and walk at the same time, sticking to a single subject makes it much easier to search and refer to past messages when necessary.

10. Brevity is the soul of wit
How often do you read e-mail messages that are over three paragraphs long?

Neither does anyone else. 'Nuff said.

11. Send plain text if in doubt
Most e-mail programs can display messages in rich text—with all the formatting and special characters and images you desire. Messages can be as complicated as any Web page, but not everyone appreciates that. In fact, since spammers can use images embedded in messages as Web bugs, many people turn off the ability for a message to display any HTML or rich text. That's the default in some e-mail software.

Unless you know for sure that a recipient wants to get formatted e-mail, the better choice is to send all messages as plain text.

12. Run antivirus software
There's no excuse not to check every message you receive and send using e-mail software. Even free antivirus programs like AVG Free Edition can check every message you send and receive with Outlook or Thunderbird. Such scans of incoming and outgoing messages are a given with advanced AV tools. And we know you're running some type of anti-malware on your computer all the time—right? Keep those definitions up to date.

13. Avoid huge attachments
Once, sending digital files to people was done only by e-mail. It was the only direct conduit available. Now, you have a wealth of options for sharing. As files get bigger and bigger, it's best to take advantage of these options rather than clog up an inbox.

First and best option: Share a link rather than the actual file. That video of your stealthy ninja kitten is huge coming from your DV camcorder; but if you put it on YouTube, you can simply send friends the link to view it online. Maybe it will go viral and make you an Internet superstar.

If you absolutely must get the original file or media to someone, use drop.io, which lets you upload a file up to 100MB in size. The address to download it from is yours to distribute as you see fit (but eventually it will expire).

At the very least, compress extra-large files before attaching them. That's no longer as important in this age of broadband, but recipients with limited space for e-mail storage (even Gmail isn't unlimited) or a restriction on attachment size (10MB is typical) will thank you.

14. Attach what you promised
We've all been there: "Attached you'll find a copy of the most important proposal of my lifetime." Off goes that message—and there's nothing with it. You send a sheepish follow-up message and feel like a fool.

We can't improve your memory for you. We can only say "it happens" and pat you on the head. We can, however, point out tools that may help. Gmail, for example, has a Forgotten Attachment Detector available through Gmail Labs (click the green beaker icon at the top of Gmail to access). It looks for words like "attachment" or "attached" in your message and warns you before sending. Thunderbird has an add-on called Attachment Reminder that handles the job; a utility with the same name does the same for Outlook.

The 25 Golden Rules of E-Mail

New users of all ages and experience levels hit the Net every day. They're so new that even the most well-established netiquette can seem arcane and nonsensical to them. Especially when it comes to the killer app of all time: e-mail.

We've put together this list of advice and tips that you can send to your favorite relative, your verbose coworker, and that former frat brother who's found you on Facebook. It will teach them how best to get their missives to you in a way that won't annoy you, won't break the Internet, yet will get a timely, satisfactory response.

1. Beware of hoaxes
People have the best intentions when forwarding dire warnings about the latest computer virus, telemarketer con jobs, extreme gas prices, and whatever chicanery the current political administration is trying to pull. The problem: The vast majority of e-mail about such topics is utter fiction.

We implore you: Whenever the opportunity strikes to pass on some juicy tale of woe that has hit your inbox, first visit Snopes.com. This is the Internet's master repository of what is a hoax and what isn't. Bookmark the site. Visit it and do a search. Whatever outrageous message you just received may, in fact, be only an urban legend. Other sites to check: The AFU & Urban Legends Archive and The Straight Dope.

2. Don't perpetuate pointlessness
Here's news you may not believe: Most people don't necessarily share your sense of humor. Or your belief in chain letters that can cause bad luck involving your reproductive organs.

Your friends and family are too polite to ask you to stop, and everyone else is far too busy dealing with important messages to want to wade through that nonsense. They all know to hit the delete key, but that doesn't mean receiving these messages isn't annoying.

At the very least, give your recipients the option of not being subject to your forwards. You'll be surprised how many people cheerfully say, "Hell, yes, take me off your list."

3. Get a permanent address
There's no such thing as a truly permanent and forever e-mail address. For most of the history of the Internet, people got e-mail addresses through either their Internet service provider or their employer. But few jobs or ISPs last forever, so that means changing your address, which means putting your friends through all the annoyance and hassle of updating their address books.

You can minimize the chances of going through that change by utilizing an e-mail from a provider you believe will be around a while. Gmail, Yahoo, even Hotmail are all good bets—even AOL is still around, assuming you stuck with it.

The only way to be sure your e-mail address is truly permanent is to control it. That means registering a domain name and buying e-mail service to go with it. If you want to be found by the same people forever, that's the only way.

4. Consolidate addresses
Got a 15-year-old AOL account you don't use? Have you signed up for every free Webmail in existence? Have a work address, ISP address, and maybe even one attached to your long-dead blog?

It's too much: Too many addresses for you to check, and worse, too much for your correspondents to keep track of. Narrow things down to only two addresses: one for newsletters, another for real people. You probably can't get rid of your work e-mail address—just don't give it to anyone outside of your industry. Delete your accounts with all the old services so that messages to them will bounce—but first, take a quick spin through those messages and be sure to inform anyone important to you about the change.

5. Don't hand out your address like candy
Your e-mail address is a precious commodity, assuming you don't want an inbox filled with spam, phishing schemes, and advertisements. Give it only to friends and coworkers. Eventually all addresses get spammed, but keeping it close will delay this for a while.

Many online services want an e-mail address when you sign up. But you don't necessarily want to receive e-mails from the service, much less spam from whomever they sell their mailing lists to. If you don't have a spare account for that purpose, use a temporary e-mail service. Such services provide an address good for a limited time—just enough time to sign up—and then it goes away, never to bother you again. Mailinator, 10MinuteMail, and YopMail are all good choices.

to be continued..........