• Intro
  
• Featured Comments - Automated sp^m tools: Janet Attard
  
• The Office Corner
  
• Fr~e Stuff
  
• Grammar Question of the Month: Academic Degree Tips
  
• Tech Tips: Claudia Slate - Microsoft Security Bulletins
  
• Tech Corner
  
• Writing Corner
  
• Trivia
  
• Word of the Month: Leery
  
• Recommendations
  
• Judy's Corner
  

* I've been following a lively discussion on sp^m tools in a list hosted by IVAA (www.ivaa.org), and when member and small business guru sent in her comments, I asked for--and received-- permission to reprint them in this month's edition. I'm still using odd characters in certain words that are often blocked and filtered, but may not continue: spammers are now using odd characters too. Sigh.

* THE WINNER of our monthly book drawing is Melody Campbell of: www.GiveAwaysPlus.com, who chose Janet Attard's Answer book. Congratulations, Melody! Do you want a chance to win a book? Go to: http://www.ossweb.com/freebook.html.

* Recently, author and marketing expert Bob McElwain offered to give away one of his ebooks. The winner was Jim Nugent, who chose "Your Path To Success." Check out endorsements for this dandy ebook at: http://sitetipsandtricks.com/webways/path/message.html.

Find Bob's site at http://www.sitetipsandtricks.com - and while you're there, sign up for his dandy ezine!

* If you don't already subscribe to Will & Mari Bontrager's excellent ezine, WillMaster Possibilities, do so! Will develops fantastic software and for the month of December all commercial Master Series CGI titles can be purchased by subscribers at a 30% discount. This does not include ProLinkz. Only titles beginning with "Master" are discounted. Subscribe, then you can go to: http://willmaster.com/possibilities/members/, and sign in with your subscription email address. Questions? Contact them at possibilities@willmaster.com.

And if you want to see a photo of Will (our subscriber) sitting alongside Martha Retallick (our subscriber), go to http://BontragerConnection.com/ontheroad/tucson.shtml Will and Mari are currently RVing, and they're spending several months in Casa Grande, Arizona. That's just an hour or so from where the Vorfelds live.

I finally got to meet them in person after years of acquaintance on the Internet. They're now officially "family."

* Got questions about writing, running an office, tech issues, or how to relate well to your granddogs? Write me, and I may publish your question and my response or I may ask an expert (from our subscriber base) to respond. Contact me at: ezine-question@ossweb.com

The automated sp^m tools are becoming as much of a problem as sp^m itself. As Sharla notes (read Sharla Price's comments in the next issue), they can cause you to get seen as a sp^mmer just because of where your article appeared. They can cause you to be seen as a sp^mmer if ONE out of thousands of people using a mailing list service sends sp^m once.

They can cause you to be seen as a sp^mmer if you use too many words the company that makes the sp^m software think are sp^m. So, for instance, email that included words and phrases any place in it such as "grow," "home business," "money," "business," and a lot of other words including a lot associated with p~rn. The filters do not look at the content or context.

They simply count the words on their hit lists and assign values to them. If the value adds up to more than whatever limit is set, the mail is rejected as sp^m - whether the recipient wants the mail or not.

About articles and sp^m: Don't be a sp^mmer yourself when you're sending articles out, either. Read the publication, don't send what they can't use (you'd be surprised how many people send me general health articles to run in Business Know-How) and make sure the articles actually have something valuable to offer readers of the publications you are targeting. If they are primarily an ad for your services, the kinds of publications you'd like them to appear in won't run them.

Janet Attard (attard@businessknowhow.com)
Business Know-How® - small business, career and self-employment resources Providing content to the online world since 1988
http://www.businessknowhow.com
http://www.careerknowhow.com

1. FINE PRINT: I've saved so much money on paper and toner-- especially when printing lengthy documents--by using Fine Print. For most of the pages I print I use "2-up" format, but the choices are many. Print booklets, create electronic letterhead, preview before printing, print multiple pages onto a sheet, and superimpose watermarks.
http://www.fineprint.com/

2. INTERNATIONAL ADDRESSES AND SALUTATIONS: International business address formats and personal salutations is a powerful resource if you or your clients do business with people in other countries.
http://www.bspage.com/address.html

3. FOREIGNWORD.COM: Translates from many foreign languages into English. Not perfect, but worth a try if you need a translation.
http://www.foreignword.com/Tools/transnow.htm

FR~E BOOK! Subscribers are eligible to sign up to win a fr~e copy of "The Home Office and Small Business Answer Book: Solutions to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Starting and Running Home Offices and Small Businesses" by Janet Attard a Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, or Allan Wyatt's book, Word 2002 Beginner's Guidebook. Everything the novice needs to learn to use Word 2002. http://www.vitalnews.com/wordtips/ Sign up once a month at http://www.ossweb.com/freebook.html - Winners announced here!

Q. If I'm writing about working toward an academic degree, is it master's degree, Master's degree, or Master's Degree?

A. The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition says that the names of academic degrees and honors should be capitalized when following a personal name....but when academic degrees are referred to in such general terms as doctorate, doctor's degree, bachelor's degree, master of science, they are not capitalized.

Unfortunately, it doesn't refer specifically to "master's," so I grabbed The Copyeditor's Handbook by Amy Einsohn. Whew. It uses the example, "She has two master's degrees."

Definitely use lower case.

PUNCTUATION TIP: All my styleguides show academic degrees punctuated with periods, e.g., M.A., B.S., Ph.D.

Further references:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~uopubs/grammar/capitalization.html
http://www.cmu.edu/styleguide/capitalization.html
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/style/stylesheet.html#aca

Microsoft has just informed its partners that in response to complaints about the difficulty end users have experienced trying to understand the technical issues reported in to Microsoft Security Bulletins, they will now create a less technical end-user security bulletin that they will host at: http://www.microsoft.com/security/.

Claudia Slate
Dakota Technics
clslate@dakotatechnics.com
http://www.dakotatechnics.com

1. MICROSOFT WORD MVP FAQ SITE:
Valuable for Word users.
http://www.mvps.org/word/footer.htm

2. PRINTING ALL PAGES ON A WEBSITE AND A TABLE OF LINKS:
Internet Explorer 6.0 offers these options from the Print dialog box:
      Print | Options Tab
      [X] Print all linked pages
      [X] Print table of links

This prints only the current page and any pages linked from that page. This works particularly well from a site index page.

3. BACK UP YOUR INTERNET EXPLORER FAVORITES FILE:
Go to C:\WINDOWS\Favorites. You can also click File | Import and Export, then use the Import/Export Wizard to move the folder to your floppy or CD.

1. ASK OXFORD:
The One Step Ahead series is for those who want and need to communicate more effectively in a range of real-life situations.
http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/

2. BOOK PUBLISHING AGREEMENTS:
What You Absolutely, Positively Must Know. By Daniel Steven.
http://www.publishlawyer.com/carousel2.htm

3. MICROSOFT MANUAL OF STYLE FOR TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS:
Now available as a free downloadable HTML Help file (.chm format). This file contains the same content as the second print edition. To download, go to http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/education/ and follow the link at the bottom of the page. Microsoft is currently at work on a third print edition.

1. ORIGIN SEARCH:
This specialty search engine is designed to find web pages that contain genealogical information and covers over 300 million names from around the world.
http://www.originsearch.com/

2. COLLECTOR'S GUIDE TO VINTAGE GASOLINE ADDITIVES
http://www.oldgas.com/info/additive.htm

3: LEARN ABOUT AGENT 99 (BARBARA FELDON):
http://www.wouldyoubelieve.com/99.html

This adjective means "suspicious," and is often used with "of." "Leary" is a variant of "leery." To be safe: use "leery."

1. BEST AND WORST STATES TO RUN A SMALL BIZ:
Philipp Harper gives his analysis. He's primarily talking about bricks-and- mortar business.
http://www.bcentral.com/articles/harper/141.asp

2. NEW, FASCINATING SEARCH ENGINE:
Kartoo is not to be missed. If you have a website, type in your name or the business name. If not, type in my name. It comes up with a fabulous graphic full of connections, and when you run the mouse over one, it gives info about the site. Not to be missed!
http://www.kartoo.com

3. WAYBACK MACHINE:
Find archived versions of websites.
http://webdev.archive.org/

* Would you like to have a monthly site analysis of a subscriber site? Many of us are close to being on track, but sometimes it's difficult to focus when it's your own site.

If you'd like help, send an email with your most penetrating concerns and I'll publish them. I may do an extra each month with just this one subject, depending on response.

Our subscriber base posseses a wealth of knowledge. It's comprised of people willing to take a few minutes to help others operating a small business succeed.

WARNING: If you ask for help, make sure you're willing to take constructive criticism. Write to: sitereview@ossweb.com

* I hope those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving enjoyed your special time. And now on to turkey omelettes, turkey sandwiches, and turkey casseroles! Got any good leftover turkey recipes?

ARCHIVES FOR ALL COMMUNICATION EXPRESSWAY ISSUES
http://www.ossweb.com/ezine-archive-index.html

Questions, comments, recommendations?
Contact Judy Vorfeld at www.ossweb.com.contact.html

TO SUBSCRIBE TO COMMUNICATION EXPRESSWAY
go to http://www.ossweb.com/ezine.html