Email signatures = Online header note-paper...

...or does it?

Actually, sometimes it does.
Actually, sometimes it doesn''t.
Actually, sometimes it's the same as header paper which a helpful colleague has doodled on/ changed your fonts, colours and sizes then cut it all up and then randomly sellotaped it all back together again.

So why the rant then? Well, once again, this is all down to the issues with the big guys (and littler guys) in the software industry who churn out email-clients - the likes of Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, MAC Mail, Entourage et al. The big problem is when a company/ client says "I'd love to have my headed paper as my email"...  which in this day and age shouldn't be too much of a problem or indeed too much to ask for: should it?

The guys across at the Email Standards Project are hard at work to try to resolve/ unify all of these issues so we can all make our communication as personal/ corporate specific as we wish. Don't get me wrong, there's something to be said for the good 'ole plain text email... all in its place.

So what can we look forward to, and when can we look forward to it? Well next week Microsoft and Apple have agreed to standardise all of their software and to let all others follow suite so life will be glorious and we can just concentrate on the wonderful content of our emails knowing that all and sundry who read our prose can do so just as we intended.

DOH! I just remembered... that was just a dream I had. Well, it looks like for now we're left with signing up to the Email Standards Project and letting them do their stuff whilst writing a million tutorials on how to setup/ install email signatures on each and every client.

It could be worse... [insert your own worse case scenario here]...