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I don't do texting (SMS). Email keeps me connected enough. No idea how long this hack has been in use, and I'm usually on top of this stuff, but I recently learned a new method for accomplishing what texting can do while still using email. Note: this only applies to short messages.
In the subject line of the email, for example, "be there @ 7 pm" or "meet you at the pub after work" or "sorry, can't make it" simply append an EOM at the end of that subject line.
EOM = end of message.
First time I received one of those EOMs I had no idea what it meant. That was maybe 6 months ago. So I opened the email as usual, only to find the email had no other text content beyond the subject line. At first I thought it was an error on the sender's part, but still wondered about that EOM.
So I went to AcronymFinder.com to learn what EOM meant, and sure enough, it was at the top of the list. That ranking indicates EOM is pretty popular these days. I know I'm seeing it more often since my first encounter.
Given its popularity, I'm guessing other forum members have seen this? And are you using it yourself?
I was introduced to it about 10 years ago by a boss who liked not having to open her e-mails on a Blackberry. I use it rarely now, and almost always in my business e-mails. We still use e-mail more than texting in a business context, since the device of one's focus could be fixed or mobile. It is also a good way to get a short message to an entire group involved in the same e-mail or calendar event.
e.g.
2PM mtg is moved to CR 5! EOM
Reminder: Get me your expenses by COB today. EOM
Lunch? EOM
[edit: added the following]
I last used it on Oct 7, a month ago, in an e-mail subject to my boss who I knew was mobile.
Are you typing in Capital E, Capital O, Capital M, or are you entering a single EOM character? The EOM character is represented in ASCII with a byte of value 3, and it's more commonly called ETX instead of EOM. In PC-DOS's command processor, Ctrl-C gives you an EOM character. Some software accepts that, others do not.
The RFC 822 standard doesn't allow command characters in the subject line of an email, and RFC 8322 goes a littler further, limiting characters to values 33-126 followed by CRLF (Ctrl-D, Crtl-A).
Since software commonly interprets a Ctrl-C as "punt!", it may be a non-codified convention that if it's encountered in that field, it does what you want. If you run into an email client that doesn't follow the convention, you can't legitimately complain that the software is "broken" but I imagine that every cell phone programmer tries to make it easy for competitors' customers to switch.
I use Google Voice to ring both my cell phone and my VoIP phone with one number, and to send/receive texts. My vision makes a cellphone problematic even for voice. I used to use EOM, EOF, ASCIIZ all the time before I retired, though.
Nope, just plain ASCI text. Capital EOM. Nothing fancy. You gotta remember that many people still have their email clients set to display "plain text" as opposed to HTML. And I think most of them are just too paranoid to allow HTML, as it can carry viruses and scripts. Personally, I prefer HTML. But then, I know what to click on and what not to touch and what attachments not to open.
I did get nailed once about 8 years ago, when I clicked on an email from my niece with the header "fundraising request" (she was in the Girl Scouts). Turned out my mom had a virus on her machine, and it was randomly emailing this scam to people in her address book, and using her addresses to spoof the sender.
When I clicked to open it, all that happened was a busy clicking sound from my hard drive. Took me only a few seconds to realize what was happening. I punched the power button and did a quick "hard shut down" (which Windows doesn't like). When I rebooted, not only was Windows damaged but emails had been deleted and my antivirus crippled. Took me a few days to recover, but the emails were lost for good.
FYI, this was a "new" virus that Norton hadn't yet incorporated into their virus signatures. I was scheduled for an update later that day, but missed it by a few hours. That's how they got to me. But it hasn't happened again since. Lesson learned.
Ron Draney said
I think this is a version of something my last boss started. Any email with a subject line containing NNTO had all its content in the subject line.A few days after we started seeing it, we finally learned it stood for "No Need To Open".
I *like* that.
The old rule was that if you didn't click on a MIME attachment, it couldn't give you a virus. That's not true of HTML emails. They load what are supposedly images, and run javascript, either of which can be hazardous.
If I ever see No need to open it'll be too much to resist the reverse psychology .
But don't most mail viewers automatically display your mails' contents anyway?
Virus ? For home computing I had long adopted the foolproof strategy of neutralizing the threat of the enemies by not bothering to fight them. Very simple: I regularly archive anything important, and reload the OS whenever there is any sign of slowness or anything unusual. I've never bothered with antivirus software.
Robert said
But don't most mail viewers automatically display your mails' contents anyway?
Most email clients understand HTML.
But not all. Twenty years ago, none of them did. If you wanted to send a picture to someone, you had to use an external program, UUENCODE, to convert your picture to octal, including error detection code, and on the other end, the recipient would feed that octal to UUDECODE in order to see what you sent them.
I reluctantly switched to Gmail, a few years ago, assuming Google would catch most of the malmails. I got tired of the fact that Pegasus corrupted folders if you put more than 64,000 emails in them. Pegasus was very cautious about how it handled HTML mails, but it was the most powerful email client I've ever used.
Robert said: If I ever see No need to open it’ll be too much to resist the reverse psychology.
Depending on the person, and depending on how much free time I have, I have occasionally included the following text in a NNTO email (I use the EOM variation):
What are you looking here for? I said EOM.
Probably funnier to me than the recipient. I've never had anyone email me back and tell me they opened it and saw that message and thought it was funny. It could be their first experience with an EOM, sending them to acronym.com, learning the error of their ways, and then being too embarrassed to comment.
Robert asked: But don’t most mail viewers automatically display your mails’ contents anyway?
That would depend on whether you have the email client set to display what is usually called a "preview pane" in the layout. It's generally recommended to turn this feature off, since it essentially automatically opens the top email in the inbox (or whichever is highlighted). Some email clients can be set to show a snippet of every email in your inbox. Either way, if the email is HTML the preview pane could run a harmful script. Good antivirus software would prevent that script from running, but these days I tend to play it safe.
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