Just thought you might like some helpful hints on how to identify hoaxes and other useless eMail that comes your way. Please trash and ignore any eMails like these (your friends will be happier ;-) :

• promising you money for forwarding
• promising any rewards for forwarding, including trips, cars, merchandise, or little animated doggies who dance on your screen
• asking you to contibute money (unless it's a close friend)
• anything about Bill Gates or Microsoft (no, they CANNOT trace your forwarding and pay you for it)
• anything about Walt Disney Jr. (Walt Disney Sr. had no sons)
• promising to donate 3 cents to a fund for poor little sally or johnny. There is no way for the charities to collect anything.
• any virus reports. And i do mean ANY virus reports. Even the ones that say "This news just released by IBM and AOL". If any company was going to release reports of viruses it would be the makers of anti-virus software (McAfee, Norton, etc.) and they do so by posting reports on their websites, NOT through eMail.
• any chain letter that promises to reward you in some way.

Also keep in mind that even the real heart-breaking pleas to pray for some poor child (unless you know the original writer of the eMail, not just the last person who forwarded it on to you) have probably already been seen by most of the people you know and are just as likely to be pranks as to be honest.

Now, if you decide that you simply must send that forward anyway, here's some etiquette notes to keep in mind:

• It's better to copy & paste than to forward. Highlight just the part of the letter that you want to send on, then create a new eMail and paste into that one. Forwarding often adds the "chicken lips" > >> > >> > > > >> > thingies that we all hate so much. Forwarding also includes all those hundreds of lines of eMail addresses and other headers that you have to scroll through to finally get to the actual message. Using the copy & paste method avoids both of these problems (or at least prevents them from getting worse).
• Speaking of all those hundreds and thousands of eMail addresses, have you ever wondered who they all are? Have you ever thought about the fact that your address and the addresses of all the people you've just sent that forward to are now visible to many many other people? Not all of these people are ones you'd necessarily want to have your eMail address. Some of them may be spammers or worse. And i'm sure your friends don't want their addresses given away so freely either. The solution to this is to use BCC: (Blind Copy To:) instead of the regular To: or CC:. This way the list of people you send your letter to is hidden from all the recipients. It also makes the letter much shorter on their screen and smaller in their inbox too.
• HTML formatted mail may look snazzy (of course, sometimes it may not) but, it is a much larger eMail transmission than plain text eMail. It takes longer to send, longer to receive, longer to display, and often doesn't really get the point across any better than plain text does. Also, it's quite possible that many of the people you send eMail to have software that doesn't support viewing HTML codes so they see a mess of HTML tags on their screen. Think twice before sending HTML formatted mail. Think three times even.
• Pages & images - Many eMail programs allow you to send entire web pages as attachments to an eMail. I'm not sure why. As with the paragraph above, it makes for a larger eMail that takes longer to send and receive. Since the page is on the web, send only the URL (link) to the page. That way your recipient may choose to look at it at their convenience rather than having to deal with it when they open the letter. The same applies to pictures that are on the web (as opposed to pictures that are stored locally on your own drive). Save yourself and your recipients some time and send just the link instead of the entire picture.

Anyway ... now that i've talked your ear off, i'll let you get back to whatever you were doing. Thank you for being such a polite and patient audience!

Remember ... this is IMPORTANT stuff! Forward this letter to EVERYONE on your mailing list!!! You'll receive 172 cameras and a schnauzer for every 300 people you forward this to!!!!! Remember, little Billy's tonsils depend on this letter reaching as many people as possible!!!!!!!

Or maybe not.

- Kelly            

• Snopes - find out if it's real or not
• F-Secure Corporation Hoax warnings
• McAfee Virus Hoaxes
• Stiller Research virus Hoax News
• Symantec AntiVirus Research Center