>The idjits just don't think. Our organization's three year computer
>upgrade was at the same time MS 98/Office 97 came out. People who got
>the new computers started sending out documents in the new format which,
>in the beginning, only a tiny percentage could read. So, not only were
>the lusers idjits, the admins were also lusers.
Thus the importance of standards. ASCII text is ASCII text. A
message sent now will be readable 100 years from now, and a
message sent 100 years from now as ASCII text will be readable
100 years ago (in terms of then). ASCII doesn't have version
numbers, and email is strictly defined in RFC's. Attachments are
not email, they are attachments.
Therefore an email only containing attachments does not contain
any email at all, just file attachments. Without valid ASCII
text in the message, as far as I'm concerned it is not email. If
I have an application that can look at an attachment, I may or
may not go through the trouble of viewing it. GIF/JPG's
purposefully sent to me with specific intent for me to look at,
such as jokes from friends, etc... are welcome and I'll save and
view with zgv/xv. GIF/JPG attached to email in mailing lists is
violation of netiquette IMHO unless it fits the particular list.
Likewise are other formats such as HTML, and other attachments.
I regularly delete HTML, Wordperfect, Word, etc documents sent
out, because it is obvious to me that the people sending them are
not sending me a webpage/wordperfect doc or word doc, but are
rather sending me an EMAIL MESSAGE stupidly written in one of
those formats.
The only HTML/WP/WORD attachments that I will in fact save, are
ones sent as attachments to an ASCII text message telling me what
the attachment is, and why it was sent. So for example, someone
sending me a Resume in WP format and telling me so in the mail it
is attached to - would be considered acceptible. Someone writing
me an email message in WP is not acceptible. Email is not
Wordperfect/WOrd/HTML, it is ASCII. Programs that send email as
non-ASCII, are non-standard, and such mail goes unread to
/dev/null, and always will do so, unless PINE gets a built in WP
or HTML viewer anytime soon.
-- Mike A. Harris - Computer Consultant - Linux advocateLinux software galore: http://freshmeat.net
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