Let's face it, in today's frantic pace of life people have even less attention to spare than ever before, and even though you've taken all the right steps to ensure your email campaigns reach your recipient's in-box, the real moment of truth is whether or not the recipient reads it.

For all the effort you put in -- providing truly valuable content, segmenting your list, etc. -- make sure you don't inadvertently put up any barriers that prevent your recipients from seeing the value.

There's a lot of real value in hidden treasure.

The trouble is the "hidden" part.

If you've no map, no machete or no burly assistant willing to chop down lianas until dusk, then the treasure stays hidden: its effective value is a big fat zero.

So it is, unfortunately, with email.

With marketing emails, most of the attention barriers arise when the recipient doesn't recognize that the email you send is one they want and expect.

Read more at Email Marketing Reports

Those of you hanging on to boxes of 5-inch floppies collecting dust in your basement might be curious to know yesterday marked the 30th birthday of MS-DOS.

Originally manufactured by Seattle Computer Products as QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), the product was acquired by Microsoft on July 27, 1981, for $25,000.

Many of us who came of age along with personal computers have fond memories of pounding away at the C:\> prompt to cajole our PCs into doing things like printing "Awesome!" onto the screen in infinite loops.

It was BASIC, but it didn't seem basic at all, at the time.

After a handful of versions, MS-DOS would die a slow death in the '90s after Microsoft's Windows gained a stronghold.

For the record, the Signal office is powered by Apple's Mac OS X, but it's always good to remember from where we came.

Read more about the evolution of MS-DOS

New findings from Pew Research Center show people who take part in social networking — Twitter, Facebook LinkedIn and others — are more trusting and engaged.

The results, from a national survey of how adults use social networking sites, show social networkers:

1. Tend to be 23- to 35-years-old
2. Have more close relationships
3. Are more trusting

The folks at Good and Column Five Media have converted the numbers into some tasty visuals.

View the Pew social media research findings

More proof there's a day to commemorate just about everything, today is the 12th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day.

Don't know what a sysadmin is? Then you're off the hook for this one.

For the rest of us, today's a day to thank those people who keep our hard-drives humming and our servers serving. (Thanks, Sue!)

As a public service, the official System Administrator Appreciation Day Web site has published a tongue-in-cheek list on the proper use of the System Administrators' valuable time.

Learn how to be loved by your sysadmin