On 4 Nov 98, Cyberspace Publishing wrote:
> Although normally, I would agree with Brent, in this particular instance,
> I am grateful to Andreas for sending it to the list and thank him. It is,
> I am sure, of benefit to other readers as well.
The content was very good, agreed. Useful to almost anyone on this list.
However: it is a major faux pas (a) to send attachments to a mailing list,
especially (b) binary ones, and in /particular/ (c) MS Word binaries. As I
say, I'm sure Andreas sent it inadvertantly; but I want to make sure
novices on the list fully understand why Attachments Are Baaadd.
Attachments generally are bad because of the bandwidth waste: if I take
a 40K file like the one in question and send it to 2,000 people, that's 8
megabytes of data needlessly circling the globe until it gets to its
destinations, and taking up mail-server storage space. Binaries are worse
because some mailers don't know what to do with them, and simply spew
out hundreds of lines of code as part of the message. Or choke. And MS
Word binaries are worse still because they can and (do sometimes)
contain macro viruses that users might execute simply by clicking on the
attachment to see what it is.
Yes, the contract was very helpful. But such files should under no
circumstances be sent to a mailing list. Better to put them up on the Web
and let users download them if desired, with the appropriate caveats
issued first.
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Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Town of Almonte site: http://www.almonte.com/
Business site: http://www.federalweb.com
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