The Hindu Business Line : Saying it right

If you are sending e-mails to the boss, mind those uncrossed `t's and undotted `i's. He might remember missed punctuation more than your ideas. Here's more on e-mail etiquette, wireless communication and data recovery.

WIRELESS communications are increasingly binding us, like the invisible strands of a giant spider. S. Ruseyev puts together the technique in action in WAP Technology and Applications, a book from Eswar Press (www.eswarbooks.com) .

A myth about wireless application protocol (WAP) is that it provides delivery of the entire content of the Internet to wireless terminals. Also, all the media hype about these wireless wonders glosses over the limitations of wireless networks. "The wireless channels' capacities are less, their inactive period is longer, their connection is less stable, and service accessibility is not as predictable." Plus, wireless terminals have a host of problems such as smaller screens, processing power, RAM, battery power, and keyboards. "Hence, there will always be a wide gap between the best PC and the best wireless pocket device." Yet, one should understand that the requirements of a wireless terminal owner are different from those of PC user. "Wireless terminals are useful companions when you need prompt information or want to get access to corporate data while on the move."

For language buffs, WML — the markup lingo for wireless applications — can be interesting. It has the same syntax as XML, and is very similar to HTML. "Therefore, all Web developers who studied these languages over the last 10 years may promptly apply their knowledge to using WML."

If wireless became the standard, as it threatens to evolve into, all that is wired may seem too weird to accommodate.

Etiquette for the e-men

An anecdote: "A young married woman sent her husband an e-mail, recounting the pleasures of their preceding night in some detail. It was an innocent and romantic gesture.

Unfortunately for her, he wasn't the only one to read it.

The e-mail went public somehow — the `how' doesn't matter — and before she knew it, 15 million around the world knew the full story of her romp with her husband, all because she broke the cardinal rule of e-correspondence: e-mails are public documents."

This is from Peter Post's Essential Manners for Men, a book from HarperCollins (www.harpercollins.com) . This is no IT book, one might say, but, like it or not, tech stuff has gone into lingo and communication.

Speed kills is a traffic warning that could apply to electronic missives. The speed we love about e-mail is also an insidious danger, Post warns. "The problem with any immediate response is that it invariably will be much more about your anger than about solving the problem at hand. When penning any sort of message, take your time." Remember, you are what you write, warts and all. "Typos, misspellings, malaproprisms, grammatical errors — they all stand out. These mistakes reflect on you, so make a point of carefully reviewing everything you write, even informal notes." How about quick despatches to the boss? Won't he look at the ideas you present rather than frown at the undotted i's and uncrossed t's? Wishful thinking, according to the author. "If you send your boss an e-mail containing misspelled words, your boss is likely to focus on and remember those misspellings — and the content you worked so hard on will be compromised as a result."

Elsewhere in the book, Post lays down e-mail rules that include the suggestion to use the `draft' or `send later' facility so that you can proof-read and reread your cyber-communication before sending. Use fonts that have serifs, is another advice. "They help the reader to scan the line. Also, avoid using all capitals in your e-mails. They indicate yelling and are also difficult to read."

Another child of technology, the cell-phone can do with a good measure of lessons in etiquette. "Commuters are starting to rebel against cell-phone users who insist on talking on a railway car or bus," states the book. "If someone's cell-phone use on a public conveyance is disturbing you, make your complaint to management. Never try to approach the offender directly."

Good read for women too, if only to see what they can expect of well-mannered men.

Route to recovery

Whether there is life after death is not so important a question for computer users. They would be keener to know if there is recovery after a crash. Data loss and disk crash are accidents to live with if you dabble with bytes and files, PCs and other comps. To reduce the trauma, here is Do-it-yourself Data Recovery in easy steps by Saurabh Gupta, and brought out by Ranee Publications (raneepublications@vsnl.com). It is "intended to help you recognise, react appropriately to and resolve a data emergency," and has inputs on data storage technology, types of file systems, data loss situations, and loss prevention techniques.

Two don'ts that the book begins with are: "Do not write anything onto the drive containing the important data that you just deleted accidentally. Do not try to write data that you found and are trying to recover back onto the same drive." More tips are sprinkled all through the book, such as: "Do not power up a device that has obvious physical damage. Activate the write-protect switch or tab on any problem removable media such as tape cartridges and floppies; many good backups are overwritten during a crisis."

There are also dos: "When facing data loss, stop and review the situation. The process of reviewing and writing down a synopsis of the situation has the dual purpose of preparing for a recovery and inducing a calm." Also, "Do no harm." A lesson from the medical profession.

Contrary to popular belief, CD audio is "remarkably resilient to data loss," informs the author. "Bits of dust or dirt on the surface of the disk, or even small scratches, will often not impede the performance of the CD player or the CD-ROM."

One of the techniques that makes this possible is ECC (error-correcting code), "a special data encoding protocol that uses a combination of redundant information and special data positioning, to make it possible to detect and recover from missing bits of data."

Useful reference material to be equipped with just in case...

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