Endless Knots

"Texting is email - only with bad grammar"

Had the chance to speak to a group of execs this week who are worried about, well, everything from their kids doing outrageous things on Facebook (one took a pseudonym to spy but the kid quickly figured it out) to how to load his iPod to what-the-bleep is Twitter. After some table discussion about their worst recent moment with technology, they reported back. One clever guy stood and said this (see subject line).

I didn't get to tell my worst. Daughter and I were watching TV a few weeks ago. The outrageously large number of clickers that seem to litter the TV room were unfortunately on the sofa between us. One of us, probably I, inadvertently grazed a hand over one of the aforementioned clickers. Disaster. Screen goes blank but not completely - it's a hazy blue with words in the corner that mean nothing to either of us: "Input 2." You tell me. Both of us were clueless, of course. We pressed everything in sight and then miraculously we got the channel back. But not before both of us were near tears. Which reminds me...when I got my first cell phone, I cried. Just looking at the instruction book.

Email is obsolete

Really? According to Bombay's Business Standard, "'Obsolete tools' like e-mail and instant messengers could act as roadblocks for the growth of web collaboration, say experts." Experts cited in this article come from some technology companies purveying different gadgets for getting along online so reader beware. Still, this notion that email is on its way out (first time I've heard it applied to IM, though) continues to pop up in odd places...not including the enthusiastic email defender I recently encountered in a workshop.

Email: friend or foe?

Just spent the past couple of days with a group of dedicated public servants giving a "teamnet" workshop - teamnet* meaning "network of teams" as there were five teams in this session together comprising a major governmental initiative to increase knowledge sharing. I know there are readers thinking "government" and "knowledge sharing" must surely be an oxymoron. But once again, I come away from a few days with government folks revering their commitment to a life that is not glamorous, that doesn't pay much, that is often frustrating, that perforce means working in a system that is unbearably slow but which offers rewards of a different kind. Service. Thanks to all involved.

We talked about email a lot. The complaints are familiar, the sheer volume, the endless cc:'s, the wonton use of attachments...but there was one voice, one strong voice for the power of email as an information sharing vehicle - rather than as a communication device. This fellow has been on listservs for a very long time; people in his network depend on them for conveying truly useful information. I agree. There are good uses for email. We just need good operating agreements that people need to do their best to adhere to.

What about you? Are you tapped out on email, wish it had never come into existence? Has your organization come up with some good guidelines regarding attachments, cc'ing, subject lines, and the like? Has anyone out there tried what Intel has, "Zero email Friday", which I mentioned here once before?

*We coined the word "teamnet" in our 1993 book, The TeamNet Factor (Wiley).

Oh, my aching email

Just for the record, I turned my machine on five ten fifteen twenty (switching to numerals now) 25 30 minutes ago and I still don’t have my mail - nor have any web pages loaded. Comcast? Idearc? Both? Anyone want a couple of computers? Where’s one of those pencils I once had boxes of, the implements without which I could not write? And where’s my library card?

PS: I’d call it a fluke and reboot but this is the norm of late. OK, 45 minutes and I’m restarting. And this post is going up an hour and 20 minutes after I wrote it.

Update: One hour and thirty minutes after restarting, my email has arrived.

Or so I thought, Superpages - don't cancel Ticket #2280341

Being an apologetic person, I just wrote to Superpages, admitting my mistake about the time stamp problem.

AND THE AUTO-MESSAGE THAT CAME BACK FROM THEIR SERVER HAS THE WRONG TIME ON IT!!!!!

So now I've solved the problem for the NetAge generated messages...but not for the ones coming from my email provider. Everyone else who loves me: please send me a message right now so I can prove, yet again, that this really truly is not my problem.

I mean I really goofed - cancel Ticket #2280341

Forty lashes with a wet URL for me. Or I'll take crow with a side of crow.

I did get a call this afternoon from Nadim, a supervisor with Superpages. He said he was calling to update me and that he'd tested my mail and found no problem. I quickly accused him of being on a Windows machine, but he said no, that he was using Mac Mail 3.2, and, for the record, what version was I using? Wow, I'm really out of date, Mac Mail 2.1.3, I said.

So I quickly searched for an update (which I'd done earlier in the day) and alas nothing more recent. How could that be? Turns out he was on a machine running Leopard, the new, as of last October, Mac OS (operating system, Em, Jude, and friends). Well, I'm not on Leopard (I'm on Tiger), I said, and not planning to be on Leopard. (Holy Cats, I thought).  Both of us were troubled that even if he could clear the problem with Leopard, why was it still happening when messages originated on their server? All in all, it was a rather unsatisfactory call, we agreed, and Nadim said there'd be another update tomorrow. (He also said he'd heard about my blog posts - ah, bloggers, we are powerful after all.)

I felt bad when we hung up. What if it was an email version issue after all and I'd caused all this fuss for nothing? I decided to search yet again, something I've done before, only this time I chose the very canny terms "mac mail timestamp problem."

First hit's a charm. According to Philip-Elmer DeWitt, there's a known bug in Mac Mail that creates my very problem!

Mail is plagued with a bug that users have been complaining about, to no avail, since the release of Tiger: when it receives mail on a POP account, it stamps it as incoming in Greenwich Mean Time, no matter what time zone you've set your clock.

Here's the workaround:

In Mail, go to the View pulldown menu, select Columns, click Date Sent and unclick Date Received. For reasons unexplained, it now does the right thing, more or less.

How many years has it been since Tiger was released? Geeze, guys, it's not as if Mail is an obscure app that nobody uses.

Good point, Philip. Thanks for the tip because I followed the instructions and alas it cleared the problem.

Thus, my apologies to Verizon and Idearc.

Now how to feed this info back so the next poor person who experiences this can be spared my  pain? Apparently this known bug is a Great Big Secret. The Apple Support people I spoke with any number of times didn't know this nor did Derrick, the great guy at the Apple Genius Bar last week, who did clean up some other problems for me (thanks). And certainly poor little Idearc and its ex-parent Verizon didn't know. What's the knowledge management solution to spreading this little bit of critical info?

And the quandry remains: why did this happen first when I switched to Verizidearc, affecting all my mail and then, with the  recent time change, affecting only mail coming from their servers? Methinks there might still be a bit of a problem there. For now, though, I'm happy. (And feeling a little silly.)

"Something will be calling you shortly"

Latest from my new friends at Idearc, requesting the long headers for the umpteenth time:

Hi Jessica,

We are actively looking into this issue for you. I have one request of you at this time, can you please send me the long headers of the three messages that came in from Superpages Hosting Support. I know that you have already sent it but I would like fresh info.

Something will be calling you shortly to assist you.

Thanks,

[Beleagured tech person]

Ok, I goofed - it's not Verizon's fault, no, no

So it turns out that Verizon bears no responsibility for my email problems. They spun off Idearc and now only market Idearc's email and web hosting. A friendly fellow with the title of "Executive Customer Relations" responded to my email to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg with this: "I will refer your issue to their CEO, Kathy Harless' office for handling."

You can write the next sentence yourself. Nothing has happened.

Except for this: continuing email from Idearc's Tech Support explaining the difference to me between GMT 0 and GMT -4, telling me that I don't know how to attach documents to email, asking me for the same long headers of emails that I've sent multiple times....AARRGGHHH!!!

But there's a bright side. I'm gathering terrific material for an article (never mind all these blog posts).

One last thing: I've looked at Idearc's site and cannot figure out what this company actually does. Can you? "Idearc consists primarily of assets, liabilities, businesses and employees engaged in the delivery of our multi-platform suite of advertising products."

If anyone has a suggestion for a good email/web hosting solution for small business, please let me know.

Ivan Seidenberg, hello? Ticket #2280341

Periodically, I have to bow in the direction of Tim Berners-Lee. The web makes it so easy to do what I am about to, taken from the Verizon site:

"For millions of customers every day, a Verizon network -- wired or wireless -- is the gateway to communication, and our fundamental mission is to make that connection as powerful and reliable as possible."   

Verizon CEO, Ivan Seidenberg

Unfortunately, Mr. Seidenberg, I'm not one of those lucky customers. We switched our email provider to Verizon about 18 months ago. There were problems, as in I randomly couldn't receive certain people's emails - like Harris, not a known spammer, at least to his friends and colleagues where he is highly regarded as a board chair, former CEO, dean, and all-around helpful person. But could I receive email from Harris, even when I wrote to him and he replied?

I made many calls to Verizon about this, of course, where I was repeatedly asked to send the email I hadn't received. No comment.

Eventually, I wrote to Mr. Seidenberg <ivan.g.seidenberg@verizon.com> and, within 24 hours, four vice presidents had called me but alas the problem remained unsolved.

Many calls later, a savvy tech figured it out and all was well...except for the other problem:  since switching to Verizon, the time-stamp on my email has been set to Greenwich Mean Time. Doesn't sound like much of a problem until someone refers you to the time they sent you an email and you have to do the math. You shouldn't have to do math to read your email or, the newest permutation of this, go on a treasure hunt to find your new mail. Because as of daylight savings time this year, now everyone's email comes through time-stamped properly, everyone except for the people at NetAge.

I, by the way, am the only NetAge person suffering from this. What this means is that my email doesn't show up in sequence in the queue, and if I skip around, reading the most important email first, for shame, then I forget about other email unless I reorder the queue every time I want to read. And do the math for the sending time of the NetAge email. Do the math, categorize, and then I can read my mail. "Powerful and reliable."

Last Tues, Verizon promised me it would be resolved within 24-48 hours. On Thurs, Verizon promised to resolve it within 24 hours.   It's Sunday. I've called Apple Support to make sure it's not a problem with my machine, gone to the Apple Genius bar with my machine, reinstalled my mail application, updated all my software, and checked every setting known to woman.

Ivan, my problem is coming from your server. Fix it, please. Ticket #2280341.

For the email afflicted

Had it with your inbox? Scottish researchers at Glasgow and Paisley universities have found that more than a third of those studied find their email stress inducing. But the study also reports that an equal number of people have the discipline to let a day or more pass before responding. And, in a finding that likely will surprise no one, women feel more compelled to respond to email than men. Web Worker, of course, has some remedies, including declaring email bankruptcy.  Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford professor and far-sighted Internet strategist, coined the term after clocking more than 80 hours in one week dealing with email. 80 hours in one week? That's two work weeks.