EMAIL FACTS OF LIFE FOR NET-NEWBIES AND LESS-SOPHISTICATED USERS 1. Big companies don't do business with email chain letters. Bill Gates/Microsoft is not giving away $1000 and Disney is not giving away a free vacation to anyone on a chain-email list. 2. There is no baby food company issuing class-action checks. You can now relax! There is no need to pass it on "just in case it's true." Furthermore, even if someone did say in the message, four generations back, that "we checked it out and it's legit", that does not actually make it any more true. 3. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in a bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened to their cousin. If you insist on believing the kidney-theft ring stories, please see: http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm A quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued requests for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward to tell their stories. None have." That's "NONE," as in "ZERO". Not even your friend's-cousin's-friend came forward. 4. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. You can get a copy of the rumor recipe at: http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html Then, if you make the recipe and decide the cookies are truly awesome, feel free to pass the recipe on. (But I hear they stink.) 5. We all know all 500 ways to drive your roommates crazy, irritate co-workers, gross-out bathroom stall neighbors, and creep out people on an elevator. We also know exactly how many engineers, college students, Usenet posters, and people from each and every world ethnicity it takes to change a light bulb. 6. Even if the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain plutonium that went to particulation over the eastern seaboard, do you REALLY think this information would reach the public ONLY by way of an AOL chain-letter? 7. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever, ever forward any email containing any virus warning unless you first confirm it at an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with viruses. Instead, try: http://www.symantec.com/ [ And even then, don't forward it. ] 8. If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your message, you're probably going to be punished eternally. (Ever heard of BCC:? If not, LOOK IT UP!!) Every CC: list winds up as a SPAM list sooner or later. 9. If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write email, TURN OFF "HTML encoding." It sends both TEXT and HTML and can triple the size of any message you send. Only newbies have HTML in messages. The rest of us get "mailbox full" because of them. Also...: Those on Unix shells can't read it and won't care enough to save the attachment or view it with a web browser since you're likely just forwarding a copy of the Cookie Recipe anyway. 10. If you still absolutely MUST forward that 10th-generation message from a friend of a friend of a friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight miles of headers showing everyone else who's received it over the last 6 months. Spammers love to receive all those new addresses... ALSO, if something has gone around THAT many times, we've probably already seen it too often. It's only new to you newbies. Indexes to my other articles and ebooks may be found on my websites: Abintra Press! and