New emails are usually marked in bold. Those that have already been replied to or read become ‘un-bold,’ which means they require no further action. To most of us, emails in bold are those which require action. What happens if messages are marked as Read before an action has been taken?

This is exactly what happens in most email clients. It marks messages ‘Read’ immediately after you have opened an email. This overly smart feature has to be turned off.

To do it in Outlook, go to ‘Option/Mail/Reading Pane/Mark item…’. In Mac’s Mail, you need to install a plugin called TruePreview in order to disable this feature.

Mac’s Mail using TruePreview plugin

Postbox with ‘Mark message read’ disabled

After you have disabled the feature, you need to learn a new practice – to mark messages as read manually. The keyboard shortcut for Outlook is CTRL-Q. In Postbox, it is ‘m’. In Mac’s Mail, it is Command-Shirt-U (we prefer to replace it with just two buttons: ^A)

Assigning new keyboard shortcut in Mac’s Mail

Don’t just hit “Reply,” but hit “Reply all”.

Very often, the sender who sent you an email would also include other email addresses in the Cc. If you hit Reply, only the sender will get the reply. In other words, those people in the Cc’d list won’t receive your email. In order to overcome this problem, please hit “Reply all” instead of “Reply”. Make this a habit!

'Reply all' helps keep everyone informed

View “Unread” messages only.

None of us has the time to go through each email to decide which requires a response. Chances are, we are most likely to just pick those ‘Unread’ message and start working on it.

In Outlook or Outlook Express, this can be done by choosing ‘Hide Read Message only’ in the View menu.

Newer email clients such as Mac’s Mail or Postbox has a feature called Smart Folder. You can define rules in a Smart Folder in order to find only unread messages.

Mac’s Mail with a Smart Folder called ‘Unread’

Rules are defined in the Smart Folder

Sorting emails using folders is old fashioned.

Many email users create lists of folders to group their messages. Senders are sorted by company names. It is a hassle to drag each message into the correct folder.

Messages sorted by folders in company name

Newer email clients are equipped with advanced search options which eliminate the need to sort messages in folders. In other words, you can just search to find an email instead of sorting them by company names.

Searching an email with the build-in search feature

Emails sent using your phone should also appear in your Outlook.

Working on multiple devices and still keeping your emails synced is now possible. All thanks to faster Internet connections and the advancement of IMAP protocol.

IMAP allows you to view your messages directly from the server. By configuring all your devices such as notebook, smartphones or tablet to use IMAP, you can have everything in one device to be synced automatically to your other devices.

Previously, email users chose POP over IMAP. In POP, one downloads the message and works locally. Today, with improved Internet connection speeds, IMAP is an affordable option.

Configure Mac’s Mail to use IMAP

Configure iPhone to use IMAP

Signatures, Disclaimers and Email Receipts are dead.

Email isn’t dead yet, but it will die, eventually. Don’t believe us? Well, look at the fax machine. Let’s face it. Facebook email, Apple’s iMessage, Tweets and many other means of communication is pushing email out.

Soon, email features like subject, signature, disclaimers and email receipts will become a thing of the past.

Keep emails short. Ask one question at a time.

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The best email client? Mac’s Mail!

I have tried Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Mail, Thunderbird, Mulberry, Netscape Mail, Eudora and Postbox but none of them come close to Mac’s Mail. Mac’s Mail comes with Mac OS X as the default email client. What makes the difference? It has one of the greatest user interface with good IMAP support. It has accurate and fast email search features and handles plain text and HTML email better.

Email addresses are better in small letters.

Never write your email address in capital. Well, it still gets delivered but it’s just not right to write it that way. Just remember this: USE SMALL LETTERS FOR EMAIL ADDRESSES.

Example of bad email address

3 ways to send “really huge” files over the Internet.

Emails are not designed to deliver huge files (over 5MB) via the Internet, but there are a dozen other ways to do it.

Use Sendspace.com to attach files up to 300MB

Install CloudApps in Mac to deliver files up to 25MB.

Shared folder using Dropbox

This article is written by Pin. If you have any questions, please email pin@1.com.my

Pin’s company does just one thing – email hosting. In Pin’s own words, it is “the email experience” that virtually no other email provider in Malaysia cares as much about.

Think of the cheque deposit machine at the bank, it replaces a bank teller at the counter. Since the machine can’t talk to people, it has a computer screen that you interact with. The screen serves as the bridge between you and the machine. It displays a set of instructions that tell you how the deposit can be made.

Although the system works, these machines aren’t intuitive and user-friendly. For example, some machines use only English; some are difficult for first time users to figure out; and some can only accept one cheque at a time, which causes long queues. The overall experience translates into – poor interface design. The person to blame – the interface designer.

Poor interface design can affect us in other aspects of our lives too, not just at the bank. My mum once burnt her cake because the oven only had instructions in English, and I don’t know how many times I’ve found it hard to find the expiry date on food packaging. In the latter, it seems the interface designer thought it’d be clever to hide the date, print it in some faded colour or use a ‘code’ like 030411 instead of 3 April 2011. And, who needs a remote control that comes with 20 button on the panel? Why does Microsoft insist on asking you to configure the sensitivity of your mouse? (Apple products would never ask you to adjust the sensitivity of your touch screen).

It’s obvious that these interface designers have failed to understand consumer needs. So who’s the best interface designer? Well, maybe my mum would make a good oven designer, I could be a good cheque deposit machine designer, and my dad could be the best handphone designer… We all know what we want in a design, the so-called experts just need to tap into that.

Agreed?

About The Author

Are you a web or apps developer? You are invited to join http://groups.google.com/group/friends-1-com-my

Pin is the founder of 1.com.my. He hosts email and websites for his customers on Cloud. He has written two books on Online Business and Linux, and he also founded a Web Developer Group that has over 100 friends. To learn more, please visit his website at http://www.1.com.my

How many times have you lost your email, and when you turn to your email provider, you realise that their promise to serve you 24×7 is an empty marketing ploy?

How many of you know how to monitor the uptime of your email or website? To show your providers that their servers are down and make your claim according to SLA, you’ll need proof.

Need someone to stand up for you? Just ask Pin.

About The Author

Are you a web or apps developer? You are invited to joinhttp://groups.google.com/group/friends-1-com-my

Pin is the founder of 1.com.my. He hosts email and websites for his customers on Cloud. He has written two books on Online Business and Linux, and he also founded a Web Developer Group that has over 100 friends. To learn more, please visit his website at http://www.1.com.my

And just when we thought that the “1″ fever was losing steam, “Cloud” becomes one of the most hyped terms today. Of course, the Cloud we’re talking about here isn’t the “visible mass of water droplets or frozen ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body.” We’re talking Cloud computing.

You could say that Cloud reached a climax when iCloud was finally revealed at Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference 2011. Then, all of a sudden, books, music, files and photos are all on Cloud. Fortunately, Malaysia isn’t far behind when it comes to technology. After all, we have the tallest building in the Clouds and we can even have roti canai above the Clouds.

So, what is Cloud?

Steve Jobs says don’t even need to know what Cloud is, because you never interact with it – your apps do.

End users shouldn’t worry, however, because the moment you upload a picture on Facebook, navigate KL using Google Maps or play Angry Bird on Google Chrome, you are in fact, in a transition to Cloud. To you, it is a matter of experience which makes sharing faster. It also makes life easier and fun! So don’t crack your head trying to understand Cloud, it exists in the background. Think of it this way, you don’t need to know how a car works in order to drive a car, and remember Web 2.0? Who gives a hoot about it now?

It’s wise for businesses to make the change, however. You can be a mover and shaker by helping your customers make the transition to Cloud. Ask yourself these questions – Is your website hosted on Cloud? Does your product require an additional hardware to run? Think again and check out Cloud Computing, as well as this article.

About The Author

Pin is the founder of 1.com.my. He hosts email and websites for his customers on Cloud. He has written two books on Online Business and Linux, and he also founded a Web Developer Group that has over 100 friends. To learn more, please visit his website at http://www.1.com.my/, or join his Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pin.my.

He has been using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software for this purpose.  He created a specific directory on his web server, uploads the files into that directory, and asks clients to download from that directory.

While this has been working for his purpose so far, it is not a very good way for file sharing.  For one, non-technical users may not know how to download files using FTP.  Either they need to know what to type on the address bar in Windows Explorer (such as ftp://user@ftp.domain.com), or they need to install and use some FTP software to download the files.  Worse, some companies do not allow employees to install new program without proper authorization.

Also, if the files are to be shared among more than one client, a client who can access the directory can often see the files shared to other clients.  Of course, my customer can create different directories for different clients.  But it’s simply more work.

Also, his clients just want to look at the photos.  By using FTP, they need to first download the files in order to view the photos.  But download wastes time, especially for large files.

FTP as its name suggests, is used for “file transfer”, that is to upload and download files from and to a server.  It is not really meant for “file sharing”, which is to share files between and among more than one user.

Since my customer needs to share photos, instead of using the more technical FTP, why not use Flickr instead?  Just upload the photos to Flickr, decide who can view the photos, and share the web address which contains the photos to the clients.  The clients will be able to view the photos without needing to download.

I don’t like hackers’ act of hacking web sites. They are only creating nuisance for people and economic waste for the soceity, yet gaining nothing for themselves. Yes they may feel an empty sense of achievement, but it’s vanity, just like going after the wind. Even if they are paid for the job, deep down in their heart they know they are breaking the law and doing something wrong that they will not like to tell their children.

Anyway, like it or not, hacking is already being used as a tool to advance one’s propaganda, to bring down one’s business rivals, or even enemies in war. I have customers who asked how to hack their competitors, for business or even political purpose.

Perhaps in future wars, where cyberwar is a main feature, hackers will be the ones very instrumental. I’m not justifying for hackers. But my point is that hacking is here to stay.

But in a broader sense, “hacking” also means playing around with technologies, possibly to improve them. There are many scientists and inventors we acclaim who were actually “hackers” (not computer hackers) at their times to “hack around” to see what works better. Without their “hacking” skills, we would not be enjoying the standard of life we have now.

We don’t need the computer hackers. But they are not going away and we have to accept the fact. But we need the “hacking” culture, without which our society will not advance.

Looking at the development of Internet in the past one and half decade, we can see the role of Internet users changing, from mere consumers of information in the 90′s, to producers and publishers of information on the Internet nowadays!

Just think about it.  In the good old days, we surfed the World Wide Web to read up what the site owner wrote. Then with the development of web authoring tools, the more technical people among us learned to design and publish web pages on the Internet.  Around the turn of the millennium, any IT student (including me) could do up a web page!

With the flourishing of social networking web sites in past few years, even non-technical people got to express themselves on the Internet.  Nowadays, more than 9 out of 10 college students own a piece of virtual property on Facebook or Friendster!

When blogs were popularized in more recent years, we change from owning a member page on Friendster to owning a blog!  Now virtually any Internet user can express themselves and shout on the Internet by blogging.  Even those who used to consider Internet as a scary place started to speak up!  Think about it.  It’s easier to learn WordPress than Microsoft Word!

So the Internet population has been transformed from content consumers to content “prosumers” (producer-consumer).  The technologies have turned non-users of the Internet to voice our thoughts, to using the Internet to rave about anything!

But many people in this country are still not using the Internet yet.  But watch and see.  When mobile Internet becomes so pervasive in our mobile phones, there will be more people surfing the Internet on mobile than through PC.

If most mobile users know how to send an SMS message now, they will know how to “micro-blog” in the future.  Microblogging tools such as Twitter may not be so popular and useful now.  But it will be in the future as more non-Internet users become Internet users via mobile phones.  At that time, even more people will publish content on the cyberspace!

For example if you fill up an enquiry form on my web site, you will not only receive a confirmation by email, but a thank you message by SMS instantly as well.

In another example, if you make payment for a product, you will receive a confirmation message by SMS immediately. You will also receive a follow-up SMS exactly one month later, reminding you of my brand

Some customers think I send out every SMS message manually from my handphone. But sooner or later they will find out it’s all automated. I can’t be sitting there to sticking to my phone to send out every SMS so quickly in response to every enquiry, 24 hours a day!

How to create such autoresponders by SMS? There is actually nothing complicated. You just need to subscribe to a bulk SMS messaging system, and then program your system to send out SMS messages using the system’s application programming interface (API). My system has been so programmed to make heavy use of SMS for customer service, branding and marketing as well.

There are many SMS bulk messaging service providers out there. Each SMS message sent costs money. Some charge very cheap rate per SMS, but your message might not reach your recipients at all. So don’t just look for cheap providers.

For me, I’m happily using Redisoft SMS System at the moment. Their system is good and stable. Macrokiosk is another good choice. Are you using any better provider? Please share with me.

Giving instant feedback to your customers can “wow” them and make them think your response is so prompt. So surprise your customers by innovating your online business by SMS today!

In tradition Web 1.0, it is like a class where the teacher teaches the subject matter and students receive.  Students may ask questions occasionally and the teacher will answer.  It is basically a one-way or two-way communication.  Relationships exist between the teacher and each individual student.  The teaching materials are produced by the teacher him/herself.

But in Web 2.0, the teacher plays more of a facilitator’s role.  The students discuss among themselves on the subject matter.  Communication flows to and fro in many channels.  Relationships exist not only between the teacher and students, but among the students as well.  The teaching materials are produced by the students themselves as they learn and are guided by the teacher.

This is just an analogy of Web 2.0.  What do you think Web 2.0 is like?

SMS is easy to implement in an online business. But it seems many people still do not know about this and so under-utilize it. Recently I helped develop an online registration system for a sports event and proposed using SMS in the system. The idea wowed many people thinking it’s one of the latest technologies!

Here are a few ways I’m using SMS to help automate my web sites and improve customer service. Let’s see whether any of these can be helpful for you too.

• Whenever you have got a new enquiry, a new order, request for support or any other matter that requires your immediate attention, use SMS to notify you. Time is money!
• Whenever your customer does something important on your web site, such as registering as member or placing an order, send an acknowledgment to them by SMS. They could be wowed by your immediate response!
• Whenever you need to send a reminder to customers, or want to do follow up, send them SMS!
• Build a permission-based SMS mailing list and broadcast to your prospects or customers for promotion and branding reasons. But don’t send too frequently.
• Use SMS so that your users can register with your service by SMS, instead of going to your web site!

SMS can be sent from mobile to mobile, mobile to web, and the other ways round. There are many potential ways of using SMS to innovate your business. Why not contact me if you are interested?