Saturday ramble

[rolanni]

Sat around and typed. Despite this, I didn't gain as many words as I had wished for, due to the necessity of re-writing a bunch of the words that I'd written last night. Ah, well.

In an around word-writing, I found a spiffy new icon -- see above. *has Marvin love* And! I found the perfect desk, but! it's in California and I'm in Maine and they don't ship. Back to the drawing board. *mourns SCAN and the loss of her beloved teakwood table*

As September approaches, I'm going to have to figure out a way to validate all the addresses in the Fledgling subscriber file. I should say -- a way to validate the address that consumes as little of my time as possible, because I'll also be revising a book and going to WorldCon in roughly the same time frame. Suggestions?

...and I'm going to have to cut this short, because -- thunderstorm! Yay!

Progress on Mouse and Dragon

74524 / 120000

bye!

Comments

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

When I teach risk management, I always point out the four typical ways to deal with risk events -- avoid, minimize, transfer, or accept. In this case, transfer looks like the best for you. Delegate, get someone else to take care of it. You don't have to do this personally, do you? So don't.

As for ways and means -- how much do postcards cost nowadays? Or do you have email addresses to go with all of our snailmail addresses? Send out a ping ahead of time?

In case you're wondering -- avoid means ducking the problem altogether, minimize means reducing the impact as much as possible, and accept means you just take the chance and smile.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think we just had your thunderstorm rumble through. Nice light show.

[sraun]

As mbarker says, validating the snailmail addresses is something you could delegate. I'm certain you could find volunteers - especially since I'm potentially one of them!

If you've got e-mail addresses for many/most of them, I'll volunteer to handle a 'send them all an e-mail, tally the responses' project. I won't volunteer for potentially sending postcards - but I think that will be a good way to start checking the ones that can't be validated by e-mail.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I've got email addresses for most of them, all stored in a nice .db file.

Some folks subscribed by snail-mail and didn't feel safe sharing their email address. They'll obviously need postcards, but they really are the minority.

Let me drop you an email a little later today.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Secondary thought -- for some of us, you could even put up a notice and we'd probably report ourselves. Don't even really need to send an email, just tell us where to send the info (and what info to send).

[drammar.livejournal.com]

I have a Scan teakwood desk that I can no longer use. Interested in photos? I know that you and Steve occasionally get to MD where said desk is located. If you're interested I'd love for it to go to someone who will appreciate it.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I have a Scan teakwood desk that I can no longer use.

Are you serious? I had to sell mine to a dealer before we left Maryland, and I've missed it ever since.

Interested in photos?

Yes, please!

[drammar.livejournal.com]

I'll get it out of storage and set up for pix. Send them to rolanni AT korval?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Send them to rolanni AT korval?

Yes, please!

Email Validation

[stick-breaker.livejournal.com]

How are the email addresses stored?

If they are in some electronic format, I can write a conversion, and send out automated messages. The recipient just needs to reply with the same subject line and their current address(physical and email). The program reads the email account identifying returned messages then updating its address database. the Application can generate reports of all received address, mailing labels, not received.

if you are interested drop me a note and the email list. I should be able to get you a working conversion by the end of June.

Chuck.

Re: Email Validation

[sraun]

Sounds like you're set up to do more automagically what I'd be doing manually!

Because of my peculiar paranoia's, I'd probably send out 'current address is Number Street Name, if this is an old address please let us know'. My presumption would be that they entered accurate data initially, and the most likely - and most damning! - typos would be in the building number or street name. As long as either City/State or ZipCode are accurate, it'll get to the correct building sooner or later. If it's an apartment building, my assumption (I admit it, I'm assuming!) would be that either the mailman or fellow tenant would get it to the right mailbox, even if the apartment number is wrong.