Email lists, often called "Listservs", are useful tools for gathering and disseminating information. They are like a telephone "party line" comprised of like-minded individuals, but greatly enhanced by the international power of email. Users subscribe to an email list, or group of email lists, according to the topic areas that are of personal interest to them (there are thousands of email lists worldwide on various topics). When you subscribe to a list, you will begin to receive messages posted to the listserv by all of its members, and you will be able to send messages to the entire group.

Anyone who subscribes to an email listserv receives any and all information posted to the list. Most discussions will be tightly focused on your mutual interests, but be warned, sometimes heated discussions can arise :)

Mobile Informatics Listservs

palm-med
Nursing PDAs *
Wireless Medical Applications
PDA-Med-Developer
PalmVet
DoctorPalm
peds-pocketpc
PDAs for Emergency Services
AMIA Mobile Computing SIG

* very active lists

"Netiquette"

We encourage debate, discussions and the posting of strong opinions ...after all that's part of the fun of a listserv, however please maintain a high level of professional courtesy during discussions with your colleagues.

• Replying to messages

It greatly enhances the readability of your reply to a post when you delete all of the original message's extraneous content and leave only the relevant sections in your reply.

• Sending and receiving HTML messages

Should you choose to receive messages from any listserv in "digest" format you may also receive the accompanying HTML.

It's generally considered courteous to send messages to a listserv using "Plain Text" settings only. This greatly reduces the amount of "clutter" the subscribers to the digest format receive. Be kind to your colleagues, please send only "Plain Text" messages to a listserv.

Listserv Vs Forum

A listserv is a discussion carried on via email. A forum is an on going discussion carried on via the Internet.

Mobile Informatics Forums

PDA cortex
pdaMD
Medical PocketPC
HandEra Zone

Listserv Vs Newsletter

A listserv is an open discussion where all members can post and receive messages, sometimes resulting in high volumes of incoming messages.

A newsletter is a one way flow of information, which is generally sent out on a scheduled basis.

PDA cortex provides a newsletter for those of you who wish to stay informed, but do not wish to participate in the ongoing discussions. We will send you a brief newsletter about once a month or so, with just the highlights of the previous month's developments. This is a good choice for people desirous of staying on top of what's going on, and wishing to minimize "inbox clutter". - BUT it's not as much fun as a listserv :)

To subscribe to the PDA cortex newsletter click here