The ultimate pedant

All of us know someone who just can't let those little things go.

For me, that IS me.

I am the stickler. I've been outed by the TV show Futurama* and have frequently annoyed myself with the things I feel must be obeyed...but I don't think I am OCD...

Anyway, if you think you know a pedant, well you don't. Your PC will prove to be the ultimate pedant and there's no way to get around it.

I've had a cluster of queries lately about bouncing emails and people being unreachable.

In each case it has been a very quick and simple matter to point out that someone, in the loop, was using the wrong email address.

Sure, what they had used looked similar to the right email address, but "similar" is not good enough for computers.

[caveat: most computers these days are happy to ignore the difference between upper case and lower case in things like email & web addresses. BUT, your passwords are ALWAYS case sensitive.]

Combined with how often people change email addresses anyone's first port of call for email problems should be to check that they are using the correct email address.

A dash (-) is not the same as an underscore (_). An uppercase i (I) can often look very much like a lowercase L (l) depending on which font you are using. Zeros (0)and the letter O are also big problems. And so it goes on.

Often people put the wrong email address in the reply address field of their email program when they are setting it up.

This means that every "reply" to one of their emails goes to the wrong place.

I've found people in the middle of these dramas to be very good at blaming everyone else when often the truth is, if it is only happening to you, then it probably isn't the other person's fault.

Even when emails "worked yesterday but not today" it is worth double-checking the to and from addresses to ensure a typo hasn't crept in.

There are a myriad other things that can go wrong with email, but your first port of call when things start bouncing is a good old fact check.

Happy posting.

David

* I was watching an episode of Futurama where the characters were visiting the moon and in particular the landing site where man first set foot on the moon. For some reason their oxygen ran low so that ran to the lunar lander, got in and were OK.

I was shouting at the screen "that wouldn't be there, they needed it to take off and go back to the lunar orbiter to head home..."

My wife suggested that it was just a cartoon and maybe I should care less just as the image included here appeared on the screen.

The bastards knew we were watching :-)