Topic two

First thing I note is the discussion on the email topic. Although I had previously realized it was important; I had not really ever considered it with any more depth. To divide the topic into two separate parts is a great idea (urgency or action required, and further information). I can see how it will be useful when composing 'work' emails. Another important point is to specifically mention what is required rather than a general comment. This would save considerable time and highlight the importance of the email for the receiver.

I thought the replying to emails section was very much common sense and have no comment about it. As far as quoting goes I would only quote the appropriate passage. If the whole text is quoted often it becomes unwieldy and loses its meaning. I use quoting extensively on another news site I post to and recently discovered a new term: QFT (quoted for truth). QFT is a statement of 100% agreement with what the previous poster has said (but I will stop wandering off on this tangent now).

The section of text largely agrees with my own views (simplicity is beauty). Having an easy to read email with appropriate paragraphs is definitely a good thing. I wouldn’t however not use caps for the reason provided (hard to read). I think caps look aggressive and symbolize 'shouting' at somebody and therefore aren’t appropriate for most situations (unless of course you're in the middle of a flame war on a political website (etc)). For emphasis I prefer bold or italic which are less aggressive.
RE: Attachments

A major source of frustration for me when emailing is usually the build in firewall/antivirus that is included with most email accounts. Hotmail seems to be especially annoying. Problems occur (for example) when sending a .exe file to a friend as .exe files are automatically labeled as potentially dangerous and filtered out. WinRar works wonders to bypass the antivirus/firewall however this is obviously also a weakness in the firewall/antivirus defense system that could be exploited. Be very careful running exe files and ensure it is reputable first! Generally I only run a file I first requested a friend send me. Sending zipped files also seems to reduce the chance of decoding errors (in my experience).

The multitudes of formats are definitely an issue when transferring a file to somebody else. I try to use formats that are suitable to the receivers’ ability. Thus I try to stick to word 97, pdf,rtf,txt,mp3, and possibly excel files. It’s only to fellow geeks that I would send (for instance) a mp4, mkv or other codec requiring file. If I had to urgently send a text file to someone I would likely send the file in two different formats attached to the same email. Alternatively I would request a immediate reply if the attachment doesn’t work and resend it in another format.