On 14/03/2008, Andy Chaplin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > By self-contained, do you mean an executable file? I hope not. > > Basically, it's a powerpoint presentation with an embedded player. > > > > Of all the reasons that you don't want to send a presentation as an > > excecutable, I'll only list two. One, I cannot run it (I don't use MS > > Windows). So if you sent it to someone like me, then you would get a > > letter back requesting the file in another format. > > Maybe from you, but not from any major company I work with. And although I > and a number of friends use Linux exclusively at home, I have yet to find a > company that has refused a file because I've sent it in a windows format.
That sounds about right for corporate IT policy. Firefox is off limits because it cannot be remotely maintained like IE, yet executables from any random joe off the street are fine. I happen to know that this is the case. > > Two, executable > > files can contain all forms of malware. Nobody would run it, even if > > they could. > > Don't take offence at this, but I have never in the past 6 or 7 years sent a > pack & go file to a customer who has then refused it. I'm not offended. Why should I be offended? Because you disagree with me? You should meet my wife! I'd be offended all the time! I don't want to say anything bad about your customers, so I won't say anything at all specific to them. However, in general, someone who will run an executable from any joe deserves all the keyloggers, spyware, trojans, viruses, rootkits, and other assorted malware that their system is infected with. > > Impress can export to PDF, shockwave flash, and even an animated gif. > > Not that I would recommend those formats, but they are all safer and > > more portable that a Windows executable. > > That's very nice for you, and whilst I agree with you in most respects, the > rest of the business world is not ready to change. Until they are, I am > forced to work with their standards whether I like it or not (and unless open > source software is prepared to play by those rules it is going to take it a > very long time to make serious inroads into the Microsoft-oriented > dominance). If a user can run any old executable (such as a prepackaged powerpoint presentation) then what is stopping him from running Open Office Portable (http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable) and seeing the Impress presentation? Wait, I'll answer that, it is ignorance. That is why I have no problem sending people odf files with a link to openoffice.org. Although I have had a few replies of WTF I have discovered that most people are very appreciative of my suggestion to use Open Office. In any case, any odf file that I send is accompanied by a pdf as well. Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
