Archive for October, 2009

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Stay out of e-mail hell

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Top 10 e-sins, and how to avoid them

The days of thoughtfully crafted notes with a fountain pen on finest vellum are over. Almost all of us use email, and most of us have much to complain about. You can ensure impeccable style in your electronic communications if you follow these pointers.

1. Use a pleasant greeting to start your email, close it off equally pleasantly, and put your name at the end. A short, one sentence email without a salutation or a sign-off appears terse at best, and demanding and rude to the reader.
2. Always have something in the subject field, make it clear and concise, and make it relevant to the current topic. (Using ‘Reply’ without changing the Subject Field for a new topic is viewed as lazy, or may be passed over as an old message.)
3. To ensure your mails are recognized as legitimate and not spam, make sure your mail program shows your proper name in the ‘From’ field. Cutesy names, or your name not properly capitalized – or even worse, all in caps – are all more likely to be filtered into ‘Junk’ or identified as spam.
4. If you’re sending the same email to several people who don’t know one another, it’s far more considerate to use the BCc (blind copy) field. If you put them all in ‘To:’ or “Cc:’, this exposes email addresses to strangers which would be viewed as a breach of privacy.
5. Choose your words carefully to mirror your real intent and meaning, and refrain from using bold text, or much, much worse, using CAPITALS for emphasis. It is frighteningly easy for your tone or meaning to be misunderstood by the reader.
6. Forwarding an email to a group of friends, especially one that you preface with “I don’t usually pass these on, but this one was so funny/interesting/shocking/meaningful” is a horribly irritating and impersonal action. If you really think someone would be interested, then forward it to him or her individually, with a thoughtfully crafted note at the beginning. Chain e-mails, ugh!
7. Our age group prides itself on ability to communications. There is therefore no excuse for lack of spell checking, grammar and proper sentence structure because this reflects a lack of education or concern, and will not please your friends. More importantly, you will want to ensure that your emails can never be misunderstood or ignored. And, you will never, ever, send an email written in anger. If you’re angry, call someone. Or if you’re writing late at night, save and don’t send until you’ve re-read it in the calm of morning light.
8. Check the Junk/Trash folder first to see if any emails from others were filtered there by mistake. You wouldn’t want to accuse others of not responding to a communication when they did so promptly, yet your email program filtered them out.
9. Acknowledge receipt of emails that contain useful information, or have helped you in some way, even if you can’t act on the contents right away. You know you’ve received it, and this is reassurance for the sender, who does not. It’s good etiquette to thank anyone who has helped you by email.
10. Before you send large attachments, first ask the intended recipient if they would be interested in what the attachments contain and when would be the best time to send them. Some files are bigger than the space for which recipients’ mail servers allow, and this can clog up their ability to receive other emails. If you ask first, the other end can keep their inbox clear.
Email is no different. It’s a case of common courtesy, consideration for feelings, with a “please”, “thank you” and “have a great day” thrown in for good measure.

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What, no rinse?

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Tempo Toronto tries SOAK on its finest lingerie

Tempo Toronto bumped into the CEO of Toronto-based Soak, and she handed out a few sachets of Soak™. We gave it a try on our most precious ‘smalls’, because that’s what it’s for. And, let’s face it ladies, we do love to have at least one ridiculously expensive (overpriced?) and glamourous set of underwear.

The website describes Soak, as a gentle rinse-free wash. According to the Globe & Mail, Soak is “so gentle, it doesn’t need to be rinsed out”. Apparently Toronto knitters, quilters, cross-stitchers and weavers are  using it for their much-loved (‘Soak worthy’) projects. And it’s said to be great for fine lingerie, baby clothes, and even for washing your grandchild’s grubby teddy bear that won’t make it through a rinse and spin cycle.

Soak comes in three fresh fragrances (Flora, Aquae, Citrus) as well as scent-free. You can find it in  yarn retailers, knitting boutiques, lingerie boutiques, apparel stores and online retailers across North America and around the World.

This is for washing by hand only, so you’d only use it for fine items you love, such as the hand-crocheted baby shawl your mother made and which you’re passing on to your own grandchildren, or the bra and panties that cost you $300 and would be ruined by a washer and drier cycle (please tell us you don’t put your fine underwear in the drier … that’s a death sentence for lace and elastic).

We tried it out. We’re not sure about the ingredients in use, but the product is really easy to use, and effective. You fill a bowl with cool water, swish through the liquid Soak, and dunk in your undies, leaving them for 15 minutes. The you squeeze them out and air dry them. The only thing is, at first, you really, really want to rinse your garments at the end. We’re so conditioned to doing that! But, once you’ve tried it a couple of times you get comfortable with it. For sure Soak makes it so easy that you’re guaranteed to wash (SOAK) your unmentionables daily, happy in the knowledge that, as well as always being fresh, your $120 panties or $250 bras will last longer.

www.soakwash.com

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