Last week I posted a 123Hints.com segment on eMail Filters. There were actually two segments; a primer on email filters (what they are, how they work, why they are useful) and a segment on how to set-up email filters within Apple Mail. I had a lot of fun creating the primer presentation in Keynote and trying to eliminate the use of bullet points within the content of the slides – an idea that I got while watching presentations from Merlin Mann and Craig Syverson during my trip to MacWorld 2008. The intent of this visually oriented presentation format is to break away from the traditional PowerPoint and connect with the audience in a more engaging manner. Due to this self-imposed objective, finding pictures to tell the story took considerable longer. While Flickr was a great source of Creative Commons licensed pictures, it still takes time to find just the right picture. Overall I was pleased with the final product with the exception of a couple animation layer issues.
Filters are a great way to pre-process your email – bring attention to things that you know you want to look at right away and file other stuff for later processing. While email filters are not a cure-all, they are one more valuable tool in how I manage my email. Just as I preached in my post “What content did you create today but threw away?” I am posting a Keynote version (includes all animation) and a PowerPoint version (scaled down, no animations) of my presentation under Creative Commons license. They don’t stand alone very well since there is very little text, so please view the video online or download the original version.
