13 Email Newsletters I Subscribe To

I subscribe to a number of newsletters for work and play. Here is a sampling of some of them:

1. Thought Of The Day, by the RefDesk

2. Site Of The Day, also by the RefDesk

These two newsletters are short, sweet, and to the point. The Thought of the Day is a quote, and the Sites range from the useful to the entertaining. I have found some incredible websites this way; I highly recommend it.

3. Outward Bound Quote of the Day

I did an Outward Bound expedition in March of 2006 and enjoyed it immensely. When I got back, I found out their website offers an inspirational quote daily. These are great fun.

4. Writing World Newsletter

I’ve talked about Writing World before, but I find the site enormously helpful. The newsletter is always full of helpful information about the world of writing. I recommend it highly!

5. Crain’s Chicago Business

Crain’s is a major business news publisher, so there’s bound to be one for the metropolitan area nearest you in the U.S. I’m not sure about overseas, but try Financial Times or the Economist. I use this site a lot and it customizes for industry and type of news that I want updates on.

6. Windows Secrets

I subscribed to Fred Langa’s LangaList newsletter for many years, until he joined forces with Windows Secrets. I have been just as impressed by WS as I was by LL, and recommend this newsletter for anyone needing to stay current about technology. While some articles target a more technical audience, the bulk of them are understandable by the tech-aware consumer and, if one isn’t yet tech-aware, can help one become so. A paid version of this newsletter is available (and worth the money); however, there is a free version to which I subscribe that is perfectly adequate for my needs.

7. American Management Association Newsletters

I subscribe to “Moving Ahead,” “Leader’s Edge,” and “Administrative Excellence.” You can read more about each of them on the subscription page and see what else AMA has available.

8. The Art Institute of Chicago

Many major museums in the U.S. and overseas offer email updates about their attractions. Even zoos get in on the act. If you have places you’d like to visit, this is a good way to keep them top-of-mind for yourself so “gee, I should go see that” becomes “wait til I tell you what I just saw!”

9. Mike’s List

Mike’s List is hard to describe, so here’s all about it. I’ve subscribed for a long time and love it. It’s a technology newsletter, but that’s like saying the Hindenburg was a big balloon.

10. Scientific American Newsletters

I love these. They always have interesting material and its presented in an accessible manner. They cover all aspects of science including politics, which can be fun to read.

11. TidBits

TidBits is the single best news source for all things Mac and, quite honestly, a lot of tech. Started in 1990 by Adam C. Engst, author of the The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh (and a Windows version as well), it has been published continuously on Monday nights. I recommend this list particularly if you are a Mac user, but even if you’re not, they’ll have interesting things about technology (iTunes and iPods, particularly) that you’ll value. The issues always have an informative table of contents, so you can jump to what most interests you.

12. Tourbus

These guys are goofballs. When they say Tourbus, they ain’t kidding. They mean the Internet Tourbus, and this baby goes ALL over the web. They find more interesting, offbeat, practical and enjoyable stuff than anybody I know. I’ve been a subscriber for years and their newsletters have a personal tone that lets readers feel like they’re actually acquainted. For example, from the current issue: “Sorry it’s been a while since the last issue. Other projects have kept Patrick and I very busy, but now we’re back at the wheel. One of the reasons I’ve been extra busy is my new puppy. Get a look at Bonzai here: http://askbobrankin.com/bonzai_its_a_new_puppy.html That’s all for now, see you next time! — Bob Rankin”

13. SciTech Daily

This is kind of cool since you can choose the areas of science and technology you wish to keep abreast of. There’s a lot of information here but if you’re at all interested in the topic, this is for you.

Bonus: I don’t have all of these pop into my inbox when they arrive. I’ve set Outlook to automatically put them in their own folders so I don’t get overwhelmed and can always see my important messages. You can do that in most mail programs, but here’s how to do it in Outlook: In the main email screen (your inbox), go to Tools Menu, Rules and Alerts. This will launch a dialog box. Click on “New Rule,” and select the first one, “Move messages from someone to a folder.” Supply the information and click okay.

The other way to do it is when you get your new newsletter, on the button bar, there is a button for “Create Rule.” Either click that button, or go to the Action Menu and select “Create Rule.” Outlook will automatically populate the window with the information about the email’s sender, and you can tell it when you get messages from that sender to put them into the folder you select.

The nice thing about Outlook is it will display a folder, “Unread Items,” on the left side of the screen. Even though the emails are no longer in the inbox, they’re still unread. When you’re ready to look at them, just click on the “Unread Items” and go through them, one by one. Voila!

Happy TT!

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