Ask Leo! #617 – Travel, Repairing Office, Reinstalling Windows, (Learning Excel Macros), and much more…

If you know the ip address of the culprit then use https://geoiptool.com/

That's not a bad tool to determine the general area of the IP address, but not for finding out who the IP address belongs to. That would only give a rough estimate of where the IP address is located. Today it got mine pretty close, only 15 miles away. I've seen it off by several hundred miles in some cases.

What can people tell from my IP address?

I would add that Snopes can be a good resource, but they also have a bias and aren't always completely forthcoming in their assessments.

They've been accused of bias over and over and over again - usually by people with agendas that are, to put it politely, not in alignment with facts. This so-called bias has, itself, been debunked time and time again by other third parties. Bottom line: no one is perfect, but Snopes is pretty darned good.

Good list Leo. When it comes to emails and new people entering the business world, it's good to learn some "good practices". These may seem silly when you're a newbie, but they'll pay off as you move up in the world. Here is my list of good email practices:

(a) Always write a subject line for the email.

(b) Do read the entire text of a received email before replying or acting. The subject line wasn't meant to be the entire email. It's embarrassing when the sender points out that he or she already addressed your issue in the original email - which you never read.

(c) NEVER send an email with just the subject line and no text in the email body. You do that a few times and your emails won't be opened.

(d) When you're feeling pressured or perturbed, write your email (or reply), but don't sent it. Save it and read the next day before sending. Chances are that you'll decide to tone it down.

(e) Sometimes in the chain of replied and forwarded emails the subject matter morphs and changes. Take the time to change the subject line or add to it. Also, take the time to pare down the list of recipients who will no longer be interested in the new topic.

(f) Use proper English and complete sentences. If you write like you speak, don't expect people to understand you (they don't see your expressions, hand gestures or hear your voice intonation). If you're not understood, you won't be heard - and eventually you'll be ignored. To err may be human, but too many of such "errs" and you're unprofessional. To say another way: Forget your smart phone texting habits for (business) emails.

(g) When sending an email to a large number of people, introduce the topic and say why you are including all of them in the email. Not everyone has been following your hallway conversations.

(h) If you want something from someone, state that explicitly. Ask a question or tell them to do something. If you're sending an email for information, then say this is FYI only - no action is required. As a corollary, if you're describing something and expect the recipients to reach a conclusion, then explicitly state the conclusion that you want ALL the recipients to reach.

(i) If your topic is complex and has a lot of data associated with it, don't just cut and paste a large volume of gibberish into your email and expect the receiver to decipher and understand it. Summarize the topic at the top of the email (like an executive summary) and say the details are attached.

(j) Never respond to an email with a one-word or brief reply, such as "Yes", or "I understand". This type of response gets lost in translation and the other guy is never sure what you understand or you're saying a "yes" to which part of the original email.

Finally, even if you think you're the big boss, do practice proper email communications, otherwise there is a good chance that you'll look silly.