What
are the two biggest problems facing email users today? Ironically they are:
- spam
- spam filters
Unsolicited
email, or spam, is flooding our in-boxes. Unfortunately, while trying to fix
the spam problem, spam filters are often creating worse problems: frequently
they are actually blocking some of the mail we want to receive, even (gasp!)
this newsletter. It's a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bath
water.
All
sorts of things are being deleted from your in-box. Deletion happens more often
on the Plus Edition newsletter because it is longer and is more likely to
"trip" some of the spam filters' triggers. However, even the Standard
Edition newsletter gets deleted occasionally.
The
worst part is that when wanted mail is deleted from your in-box, nobody tells
you about it. You don't know what is missing if you don't see it.
So
what's an email publisher to do? Rescue the baby, of course! To this end, many
newsletters, newspapers, stock market reports, weather reports, and other
publishers of periodic information are turning to a new delivery system: RSS.
The Washington Post provides 138 RSS news feeds in different 15 categories. The
New York Times offers a similar wide variety of RSS news feeds, as does CNN,
the BBC, Time Magazine, and dozens of other major news publishers. They have
all learned that RSS is much more reliable than e-mail.
Smaller
publications have learned the same lesson. I, too, have realized that e-mail delivery
is not reliable. As a result, this newsletter is now available in three
formats: on the web, in email, and in RSS. The web and RSS are both far more
reliable than e-mail.
You
can read this newsletter on the web at http://www.eogn.com.
You
can obtain an e-mail subscription to the Plus Edition or to the Standard
Edition at the same web address if you click on the subscription links found
there.
This
newsletter is also available in RSS. For those already familiar with RSS and
who already have an RSS newsreader, here is the direct URL to use in your
newsreader: http://eogn.typepad.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/index.rdf.
By using an RSS newsreader, you will never need to be concerned about spam
filters again. Every newsletter article will appear in your newsreader shortly
after it becomes available, seven days a week. You do not need to wait for the
once-a-week e-mail delivery.
Please
note that this is a full-content news feed with every word of every Standard
Edition article. It is not just a list of headlines and links like you will
find on some other news sites.
For
details about RSS, including an answer to the question "What is RSS?"
and a short list of recommended RSS newsreaders, read the details at http://www.eogn.com/rss-newsreaders.htm.
