Before you email Jim…

First, let me apologize for the rules; however please understand that I get hundreds of e-mails daily, and although I do my best to answer all of them, it's sometimes difficult.  More often than not, the e-mail is a request for some sort of support; or has been answered elsewhere on the web, hence the rules.

Please read the rules below, and if you still need/want to e-mail me, please click on the link at the bottom of this page.

Before you email me

  • If you need someone to find something for you about some arbitrary subject (travel agents, or parakeets or whatever), don't ask me, but try the Virtual Library for example, or your favorite search engine.
  • If you want to know how to run a server, or how to edit HTML, check the W3C web or your local bookstore. I'm sorry I can't answer individual requests for help.
  • If you are having problems with your Axcess Internet account, please contact our Support Staff before contacting me directly. 
  • If you are a member of the press and need clarification or an interview, please email press@axcess.us (for Axcess business) or cityclerk@sunnyside-wa.gov (for City of Sunnyside business).

If you have a serious comment on things I have signed, written or co-authored, then please do email me.  I am also always open to discussion with Federal, State and local legislators and their representatives and of course my constituents.

What not to email

Email is safe unless it contains programs. (Data and documents are fine, programs are not). If you send me a program, I will not run it, as it could damage my system and could be a virus.

  • If you are sending text, please send it as plain text or HTML. If you use your favorite word processor, slide tool, etc, and send it in that program's format, then you are forcing me install proprietary software on whatever machine I read them on.
  • If your email is sent from Microsoft Outlook, and contains an attachment, it's possible that attachment may be destroyed during the Axcess Internet Mail Server scanning process.  If you haven't learned about using WinZip or WinRAR yet, you need to.  It will protect the integrity of your attached documents and will make the email smaller.

What you can email

  • These are all good document standards: Plain text messages, HTML (sometimes called rich text) pages without scripts, Photos (JPEG files, PNG, GIF), SMIL, RDF/XML N3 and so on. All these can be sent as messages or as attachments to messages. I can read them with a variety of software programs, and they cannot contain viruses, unless there is a serious bug in the code I use to read them. If you don't need anything else, then use plain text.
  • Microsoft Word, Excel, and other Microsoft Office programs are also acceptable, provided you use the Microsoft Office 97-2003 compatibility mode; although I use Office 2010, not all of my colleagues do and I may want to share the information with them.

That's it – promise no more rules, thanks for taking the time to read this, and for respecting my wishes.

Click here to email me.

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About jim®

James A. Restucci is the author of this blog. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Internal License.

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