Blog Training and How-To Guide for Business Blogging

Just got up and took out the trash.  I loved the pre-dawn desert chill - cold air is a rare delicacy in southern Arizona.

(Testing Performancing for Firefox again here - I really, really love it.  Now if someone could explain to me how our other authors, not having admin logins to our Movable Type interface, could also use it - right now they're unable to login through Performancing.)

Checked through my emails - had 19 unread messages (last checked it yesterday evening - don't you sometimes get an anxiety attack if you don't check your email before bed?).  At first glance, that might seem substantial, but upon closer inspection:

3 were spam (thanks to me leaving my email address all over the Web and some unscrupulous spam-monger clutching it to his foul bosom).  Set phaser to deep-fry and blast 'em to smithereens.

7 news alerts of sundry kinds (Technorati Buzz Monitor, Google and Yahoo! Alerts, an announcement from some beta service, a mailing list item).  Skim and dump in the trash.

2 light personal emails from non-Know More Media bloggers.  Read, quickly respond, archive.

4 comment notifications for new Blog Chalk Talk comments.  I see that my ginormous good link pile actually helped a soul or two.  I know it helps me breathe easier to not have that lying unappreciated in my browser toolbar.  Open the post in a new tab and deal with it in a moment (visit the blogs of the commenters to see what's new there, leave a follow-up comment at the post).

1 notification that the F500BP wiki had been changed by Li Evans, bless her heart.  Li has been one of the project's most prolific participants and deserves a gold star by her name.  Mention her in this post :).

1 blog-related email from a Know More Media blogger.  Quickly respond to let him know I'll get right to his request.  Leave the email in my inbox so I don't forget it.

1 fun email thread among the Know More Media full-time team, responding positively to the Orange County register article yesterday that got us some visibility in that community (our company is "based" in the OC in Southern California, but is essentially Web-based because of the hundreds of miles of desert and mountain roads separating most of us from each other).  Read, chuckle, archive.

Inbox now has "only" 18 messages - most of the older ones serving as placeholding reminders that something needs to be done before I can archive 'em.  Whack-A-Mole was never funner than Archive-An-Email.

Done with the email for the moment.  Now on to chart the day.

THANK HEAVEN for fixing up Akismet again - my life no longer revolves around spam-slaying like it did yesterday and last weekend.  You should have heard me walking around the house singing pop songs with invented "rock the spambot, rock the spambot" lyrics (that one's the Clash).  More available upon request.

So ... what's your inbox look like today?  How do you handle different types of email?

Technorati Tags: blogging, email, blog, spam, know more media, easton ellsworth, akismet