Scot’s Newsletter Blog

Those of you who have been reading this missive for a long time can probably recall that every two or three years, I try to come up with a new plan that will save me time on producing the newsletter. My life has become more complex over the past three years. I now have three children. I no longer work out of my home. And I have a challenging management job with a lot of responsibility that eats up my time. It’s no longer possible for me to describe my work at Computerworld as just a “day job.”

When I started the newsletter in 2001, it was a weekly. A few years later I had to cut back to every other week. A few years ago, I was forced to cut back to monthly frequency. This year I’ve only been able to publish six issues counting this one.

Other issues make the newsletter business very tough. In my Let’s Fight Sp@m series, 2002-2004, I more than once articulated my concern that spam — and the way ISPs, the government, anti-spam solutions, and corporations are attempting to fight it — will eventually kill the viability of email-based newsletters. I was clearly right about that. On the Internet, email is guilty until proven innocent. And most people don’t care enough to ferret out the truth. Four years ago, many people believed that RSS would replace email newsletters. And in a way, that’s partially true. What has actually replaced newsletters is blogs (most of which have RSS feeds).

So, let’s cut to the chase: I am once again considering relaunching Scot’s Newsletter as a blog, using the Scot’s Newsletter HTML and Text lists as announce-only notification of major blog entries. The last time I suggested something along those lines, I got bags of mail about it that split into two extreme camps. Many of you preferred that kind of approach; but many of you really hated the idea when I asked a similar question about two and a half years ago. I’d like to check the point again, so please send me your vote.

Should Scot’s Newsletter become primarily a blog?

Vote Yes (click to email your vote).

Vote No (click to email your vote).

The subject line of your email will tell me your vote, but inside the message, I have a question for you to answer:

If You Vote Yes: Do you like the idea of being notified via an email when a significant new blog entry or entries have been posted? Or would you prefer to stop receiving email entirely?

If You Vote No: Would you be willing to switch to the HTML format?

(more…)

Doesn’t it figure? I haven’t put out a call for monetary contributions to Scot’s Newsletter in roughly a year. In the last issue, I finally did. And, of course, that request ran into a snag.

There are two ways to send your donations to Scot’s Newsletter. All PayPal contributions reached me fine. But I can’t say the same about checks or cash sent via conventional postal mail. At some point in May or June, the UPS Store terminated my account for failure to pay the next year’s annual fee. I didn’t know about it because the company contacted me by sending the bill to my UPS Store box, not my address on file. Before the UPS Store bought out Mail Boxes Etc., I received notification if I didn’t pick up my bill before the due date. Not only had the UPS Store terminated my box, it had already re-rented it. When I walked in a week or two back to pick up my mail, the clerk handed me some other guy’s package.

In the end, the clerk found a small stack of letters to me in the back room that they gave me, all of which had June or very early July postmarks. If you’ve sent me something recently to the old address, I’m not going to get it.

(more…)

It may help you to keep something uppermost in mind while reading this list: There are almost 50,000 subscribers to Scot’s Newsletter:

10. Don’t send an email to 400 people, including me, telling me that you’ve changed your email address. Please use the appropriate Change Your Email Address Wizard.

Never send email to more than 20 people, unless it’s in a corporate setting. I’d prefer not to have my email address among a long list of others.

9. Don’t expect me to click a link and enter stuff to approve the delivery of the newsletter because you’re using a permission-based anti-spam service. If you saw as many of these as I do, you’d know why the whole idea is a bad one. But the real point is: If you use this kind of service, you better whitelist the newsletter yourself because there’s no way I can click all these anti-spam links. Just imagine how many I get every single time I send the newsletter.

8. Don’t send me an email asking for me to unsubscribe you without trying to do so yourself. There are no operators standing by here. The newsletter is free, and I expect you to read the one-paragraph directions and please unsubscribe yourself.

Look, sometimes people have trouble and want help. I’m always willing to help in that case. But most people who send me this request never even look for or try the subscription center. It’s easy to use. Please try it.

(more…)

It’s been a long time since I put out a call for contributions to the cause here at the newsletter. But it’s time for me to do that again. If you enjoy this newsletter and would like to help me keep it going, I could use your help. This is a one-man-band operation. I do the work on weekends and evenings, and I don’t get paid. The research I do often costs money that comes out of my own pocket. The ads help but they don’t pay the full freight.

You have two choices for how to send your contribution:

1. Send your contribution with PayPal. (You can use a credit card through PayPal.)

My PayPal email address is scot@scotsnewsletter.com.

2. Send your contribution by postal mail.

Thanks for your support.

Get access to all the Back Issues of Scot’s Newsletter dating back to April 2001.

Get access to all the Back Issues of Scot’s Newsletter dating back to April 2001.

Get access to all the Back Issues of Scot’s Newsletter dating back to April 2001.

Get access to all the Back Issues of Scot’s Newsletter dating back to April 2001.