HerringLaw: Civil Rights & Discrimination Law in Iowa

Applications for the iPad [and also the iPhone/iPodTouch]

There is a discussion going on on the listserve for MacLaw.org on whether the iPad is useful [“productive”] or merely a media consumer.  My response was that it’s a computer which can be what you want it to be, depending on what applications you will have.  Then thought it might be interesting [or helpful] to go through and note some types of applications on mine.  [Remember that there are apps specific to the iPhone/iPod Touch and also those which can be used on the iPad as well]  So, in sequential posts I’ll discuss them.

Utility Applications:  These applications are often already part of the iOS applications provided initially but some are new:

1Password-great creator of or access to all those passwords and user IDs we need to know.

AppBoxPro-great collection of all sorts of applications which are useful but you want to have in one place not twenty on your screen

Billings - timekeeping [in conjunction with the desktop program, Billings]

There are various other utility apps:  measure and unit conversion apps, scanning apps, remote controls, etc.

more to come. . . .

The Recipient, part II

3.  If you reply [as in Reply All]  to an email which has a bunch of emails in the TO or CC lines, all those persons will get copies, whether you want them to or not.  If you're sending something important to everyone, fine;  but if you're doing an RSVP, saying you can or cannot make a meeting, doing a comment on bad weather, bad food, making a comment to only the sender or one person, or whatever, is that what you want everyone to have?  Would  you want all that sort of stuff clogging up your email?

4.  Your email program has an internal system to remember email addresses, so you shouldn't have a problem sending emails to people individually.  If you don't know how it works, find out because it'll save you much time.  And it will be respectful of others who really don't need to be, or want to be, in on the conversation.

Again, the main thing to remember, Recipient or Sender alike, is to try to cut down on email traffic by using BCCs, Replying only to the Sender or whoever really should know of your comment, foregoing any response at all if not called for.  Be as respectful of others's time by curtailing unnecessary emails and then ask them to do the same.

The Recipient: They also have responsibilities for handling email

Once an email is sent, the person receiving it also has to understand why it was sent and how best to handle it.  Forwarding on may not be a good idea, a Reply to All might not, a response may not even be needed.  Again, we are all drowning in email and anything each one of us does to cut down the traffic is, really, much appreciated by the rest of us.  It's sort of like doing some small thing that really adds up to a larger thing.

1.  Some of what follows depends on what your email system is and how it is configured.  Even if you don't intend to Reply to All, some systems might have that as a default.  So, if you want to only reply to the sender and not everyone in the CC line too, you need to find out what your program's default is and either adjust it or be aware of it.

2.  Most programs/systems have the default as a Reply to the Sender only....but some do Reply All as the default - if that is true, you need to adapt so that your replies are to Sender only and not everyone.  [One way to do that might be to Forward the response to the Sender instead of just hitting Reply, it accomplishes the same thing.  A Forward = a Send TO.  As with every email, the question is why was it sent to you and why should you respond or forward at all?

 

The Sender, cont'd part III

5.  Every email address in the TO and CC lines is open to the public, is not private, can be used by anyone who gains access to the address, deliberately or by theft.  The BCC line names are private, and can only be known to the sender and, if the computer is stolen or hacked, that thief.  It's as secure as the USMail - not 100% but like Ivory Soap, 99.44/100 pure.

True Story:  About 5 or so years ago a good friend of mine was moving on to a new job.  She sent out her email - in the CC line it went to 1,000 people [no joke] - those 1,000 people no longer had email privacy; if any of them were to forward on the email to someone, that other person would be able to harvest all the emails.  So, it was good to learn of the new job, but it was terrible for the 1,000 of us whose email suddenly became less private.

 

 

The Sender, cont'd.

3.  If at all possible, when sending to a group of people, send to them in the BCC line:  Blind Carbon Copy.  [Those old enough will remember that letters would be sent to people with 'blind carbon copies' sent to others through using carbon copy paper - ancient technology!]  That means that people in the BCC line don't know who else got the email.  It also means that hitting REPLY shouldn't spread it beyond who needs to be replied to [the sender].

4.  When you send email to a group of people, everyone on the TO or CC line of the email sees, can copy, can reply to, can use, every other person's email address even if that person would prefer not to have it spread so wide. Everyone placed in the BCC line is [as much as possible] shielded as from unnecessary responses or from having their email addresses sent onto others.

 

N'etiquette for the Sender

The Sender:  Most senders are originators of the email, and these suggestions are directed at them.  But for those who are Forwarding-Senders just remember one point:  when you receive an email you want to share, don’t just forward it.  Trim parts of it so you’re only sending on what you intend to share:  delete email in the CC line, in the body if contents have been copied there, and any parts of the body which are irrelevant, such as duplicate contents. Get in the habit of only forwarding the specific item or information you want to send.

1.  The best practice is to have a fail-safe, so that you create the email and it sits in the out box until it is to be sent, by schedule or manual click.  Sometimes you might want to stop it from going out, and this is a good practice - give yourself 15-30 minutes or more between creation and sending.

2.  Another good practice is to think about who really needs to receive the email:  a person, a small group of people, a whole group of people.  Not every communication has to go to the widest group;  narrowly target who you send to - you can always send to others later.

 

Email N’etiquette - some suggestions for Senders and Receivers

As a result of some email communications to/from friends of mine in a group, I put together some suggestions for positive email communication.  Email etiquette asks that each of us, sender and recipient, be responsible for what we send and how we send it.  So, in a series of blog posts, I thought I would share suggestions on Email N’etiquette for people who want to spend time communicating while not being overly technical in figuring out how to do so.

The first point to realize is that how your email works is controlled by the system you are using [your email program, whether it’s in the cloud or on your computer] as well as by how you use it.  You probably can’t control the former other than through setting up its preferences, but you have total control over the latter.

 

More over the following days

 

Shutdown?

Those who say 'shut it down' don't much care about whether the Federal Government goes out of business, for a few days or forever.  And they certainly don't care about the people who will be affected.

The Harpy is back at it....Back up!!!!!

Have you ever made a mistake?  I made a huge one the other day, but was saved!  So my cautionary tale is being shared, not to paint myself as incredibly stupid but to demonstrate that even being that, one can be incredibly lucky.  

The other day I was doing some cleaning up and moving things on my computer, folders that were also being synced to a cloud site.  Long story short, I ended up deleting not only those on my own computer but also those on my cloud site.  One minute I had folders of information [much important stuff] and the next, poof!!!, everything gone.  Totally.

One lesson:  if you're syncing with a cloud site, don't delete your computer data because it'll sync and overwrite the cloud site copy too [I compounded it by also cleaning out the deleted files off the cloud site]. The cloud site is now clean, but that is what caused the problem.

Fortunately, I have a Mac and am running OS X and knew that I kept TimeMachine backups.  TimeMachine is part of OS X and does an hourly incremental backup to an external drive so that when you act stupidly, you can go back in time and correct the problem [if you set it up right!].  So, with some trepidation, I went to TimeMachine and went back in time to a few hours before my screwup.  I found the now-missing folders and restored them to my computer.  You can choose to replace/overwrite or to save both and I always choose the latter, figuring I can clean off the 'original' later.  

I am here to report success.  Everything in those folders has been transitioned back onto the computer and onto the cloud, to which it syncs.  

Lessons learned:  always always always backup incrementally and don't work with your computer and data in the wee hours of the morning.

Painless Buying Experience

Here's a prescription for buying something you really want relatively painlessly:  set up a savings account at SmartyPig...let the savings accumulate and interest too....get a RewardsCard [a debit card tied to the money in the SmartyPig account]...buy at one of the many retailers with which there is a SmartyPig link....pay for it with the RewardsCard [which has been filled up with the account money once your goal is met] .... get cash back for the purchase, which goes back into the RewardsCard account.

The saving was painless, since it was done monthly [a friend years ago told me the thing to do was to 'pay yourself' first, then the rest, making saving a high priority], the buying was easy and getting both interest and a refund amount to do so was a great thing

I have a number of accounts at SmartyPig, one for computer and camera items, one for household, one for travel, etc.  When I need/want something, I look to these savings for funds and avoid the credit card.