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Rodney9
June 21st, 2010, 08:28 AM
What would be a good email signature that I should send to my friends who use other OS's to advertises Linux ?

samalex
June 21st, 2010, 02:36 PM
I'm not a huge fan of putting personal views too 'out there' in an email sig in general, though don't mind it so much in forums where there's a general topic, like this one. The main reason is when you correspond to someone via email what difference does it make that you're running Linux? Most just want their system to work, and in the cases where they're happy with Windows or have never heard of Linux, it's a moot point. If you correspond with IT people who have drawn their OS line in the sand years ago, putting something like "I use Linux so should you" as your tag line in every email make you look like a fanboy.

The simplest medium I could suggest is just have a quote from someone in the open source community. Something like "The desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity. " by Richard Stallman or "Any program is only as good as it is useful." by Linus Torvalds. This way you have an awesome quote that hopefully others will take to heart, but for those who do know about FOSS or Linux, they'll know you're 'one of them', if your goal is to advocate the meaning of FOSS or to let other like-minded open source users know you're one of the gang.

Personally I've used the Cliff Stoll quote "Data is not information, Information is not knowledge, Knowledge is not
understanding, Understanding is not wisdom." in my email sig for years. He's one of my favorite authors and also I like the message his books convey, even though they're more than 10 years old.

Sam


Sam

K.Mandla
June 21st, 2010, 02:57 PM
What would be a good email signature that I should send to my friends who use other OS's to advertises Linux ?
Something like this.

http://folk.uio.no/hpv/linuxtoons/dilbert-unix.png

Simian Man
June 21st, 2010, 03:02 PM
Don't. Email signatures beyond just your name are irritating. People who try to push their views on others are irritating. Operating system fanboys are irritating. Do you want to be irritating cubed?

ve4cib
June 21st, 2010, 03:22 PM
Don't. Email signatures beyond just your name are irritating. People who try to push their views on others are irritating. Operating system fanboys are irritating. Do you want to be irritating cubed?

I'll refine that opinion by saying that business/contact information is fine in a signature. Having your name, e-mail address, phone number, and company mailing address in the signature is fine in my books. It's neutral information, but useful to have, especially if you print the e-mail out or forward it to someone else who will need to get in contact with you.

The key there is neutral information. Personal views are not neutral, and therefore belong in the body of the e-mail, not in the signature.

If you could hook up a fortune-cookie style message generator to your e-mail signature that could be amusing; every time you send an e-mail the recipient would get a different fortune. Could be fun for personal e-mails, but I would certainly never do it for anything business-related.

Barrucadu
June 21st, 2010, 03:24 PM
For a while I just had my name, a link to my website, and a random quote from `fortune` in my signature, but a while ago I changed it to this:


Michael Walker (http://www.barrucadu.co.uk)

Arch Hurd Developer; GNU Webmaster; FSF member #8385
http://www.archhurd.org http://www.gnu.org http://www.fsf.org

Given that most of the people who I email / email me are (F)OSS users, it's ok. However, when emailing, say, a teacher (or anyone else completely unrelated to free software), I just use my name.

RiceMonster
June 21st, 2010, 03:25 PM
Don't. Email signatures beyond just your name are irritating. People who try to push their views on others are irritating. Operating system fanboys are irritating. Do you want to be irritating cubed?

/thread

donkyhotay
June 21st, 2010, 03:30 PM
If you could hook up a fortune-cookie style message generator to your e-mail signature that could be amusing; every time you send an e-mail the recipient would get a different fortune. Could be fun for personal e-mails, but I would certainly never do it for anything business-related.

Thats why you have a dedicated "business" Email account seperate from your regular personal Email address.

samalex
June 21st, 2010, 03:36 PM
Given that most of the people who I email / email me are (F)OSS users, it's ok. However, when emailing, say, a teacher (or anyone else completely unrelated to free software), I just use my name.

I live by this as well. Emails that are work related, for school, and to friends all get different sigs. Friends get a quote and maybe some customized info, work has business info and title, and school is more basic with just name, email addy, and location (online course so students are from all over).

Sam

Dayofswords
June 21st, 2010, 03:58 PM
hows just simply:


Sent from my Ubuntu box.

Cam42
June 21st, 2010, 04:19 PM
Signatures usually tend to just annoy me. I knew a kid who had 5, count 'em 5, lines of complete crap in his signature. Then another who had the entire lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody.
Also: See my forum sig.

samalex
June 21st, 2010, 05:12 PM
Signatures usually tend to just annoy me. I knew a kid who had 5, count 'em 5, lines of complete crap in his signature. Then another who had the entire lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody.


Yeah email sigs like that are crazy! At work I often see emails come across with literally 10 or more lines of disclaimers, which is nuts! Email is plain text traveling across an open, unencrypted network. A little disclaimer isn't going to stop someone from reading it mid-stream, and 99% of the time it's nothing important anyway.

I do think it'd be funny to put the entire GPL on the end of email messages (or at least snippets or a link - guess entire thing is nuts) to some just to note that the content is open to share with anyone :)

Sam

McRat
June 21st, 2010, 06:18 PM
hows just simply:

That sounds good. Or:

Generated from Ubuntu Linux 10.04.

Put it in a small italic font like a footnote.

I routinely get business emails with more than 7 lines in them, including the corporate logo.

Do you put headers on your snail mail letters?

Signatures and letterheads are a COURTESY you extend the reader so they do not have figure out who you are, what you do, or how to Call/Fax/Find you.


I often get:


From: Sexy69r@AOL.COM

Is my tune ready yet?

Josh.

Hey Josh? WTF are you? And how come you don't know how to write a letter?

ve4cib
June 21st, 2010, 06:47 PM
hows just simply:
Sent from my Ubuntu box

Because that's not tacky at all. It's pretty much just as bad as the "Sent from my iPhone" signature Apple uses. Every time I see those I cringe.

I don't care what kind of computer you use to send your e-mails. I doubt the recipients of the e-mails do either. You sent it. They got it. Does it really matter what you used to write it?

Nytram
June 21st, 2010, 06:56 PM
ive been using the following sig in my emails:

--
Powered by Ubuntu Linux

McRat
June 21st, 2010, 07:06 PM
"Sent from my phone" is actually useful to me.

If I see an email that is short, with grammar and spelling errors and I don't see the note that this was done with keyboard smaller than a pack of Marlboros, I assume the sender isn't good at writing, and I reply accordingly:


"blew up
can u get me turbo tomrow
ray"

I'd reply:


"Please call me on the telephone 555 555 1212"

if I don't see that 'sent from phone' sig. I will assume the person should not be emailing to communicate transactions.

If I see that phone sig, then I reply:


"Thanks Ray,

I have -

A) A HTT 66 low hours, $600
B) Garrett 4094 new, $1900

My paypal is xxx@xxx.com"

Ray gets his parts faster when I don't assume he must call me.

insane_alien
June 21st, 2010, 07:07 PM
from my work email i am required to have a signature explaining that the email content may be regarded as confidential and so on and so forth and all that businessy junk.

on my personal mail i just put my first name at then end.

lisati
June 21st, 2010, 07:15 PM
Hey Josh? WTF are you? And how come you don't know how to write a letter?
I get enough emails with variations on "This will come as a surprise to you" that it's no longer a surprise, not that it was in the first place - for a while the rejection message my email server put out for such a message was "Email rejected due to overload of surprise daemon." I doubt that the bot bothered paying any kind of attention to the non-delivery report.

As someone else mentioned, some disclaimers are plain silly. If I'm not the intended recipient, then why send me the email?

WinterRain
June 21st, 2010, 07:20 PM
I use: "Just say no to the Microsoft tax, use Linux"

betrunkenaffe
June 21st, 2010, 07:26 PM
Thanks for the reminder, updated site sig :)

whiskeylover
June 21st, 2010, 07:37 PM
Yeah email sigs like that are crazy! At work I often see emails come across with literally 10 or more lines of disclaimers, which is nuts! Email is plain text traveling across an open, unencrypted network. A little disclaimer isn't going to stop someone from reading it mid-stream, and 99% of the time it's nothing important anyway.

I do think it'd be funny to put the entire GPL on the end of email messages (or at least snippets or a link - guess entire thing is nuts) to some just to note that the content is open to share with anyone :)

Sam

Whats funny is that they think that by adding a disclaimer the recipient is bound by their arbitrary rules. For example, this is an actual quote from an email disclaimer.


Any use, disclosure, distribution, or copying of this e-mail or the information contained herein by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited and may be a violation of state and/or Federal privacy laws.

Excedio
June 21st, 2010, 08:30 PM
I just use a simple:


~First Name
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/6341/leafh.pngPlease consider the environment before printing this message.

whiskeylover
June 21st, 2010, 09:31 PM
This

This is a shareware signature. Send $5 to use it. Send $10 for the manual.

McRat
June 21st, 2010, 09:40 PM
This
:lolflag:

"I was going to send the attachment, but I forgot."


This signature is good for signing Birthday Cards:

"I was going to put $20 in with the card, but I had already sealed the envelope."