FreeLists / arachne / [arachne] Re: coollist gone, freelists available.... (was: dealing with winmail.dat and unreadable email attachments)

["Samuel W. Heywood" <sheywood@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 11:56:09 +1000, da Silva, Joe wrote:

> [Attached file: HJ7A8O01.txt]

> [Attached file: winmail.dat]

Your attached base64 encoded text file says:

========================  begin what it says ============================

 Hi all,

Actually, I'm quite pleased the text of the e-mail was readable - that's
the part I feared would be Base64 encoded. As for any "winmail.dat"
attachment, I wasn't aware there would be such a beastie - just ignore
it, it is/was not the subject of the "Base64 test" - as I've just explained,
the message text itself was.

Unfortunately, the "test" part of the e-mail seemed to have served as a
distraction. The real purpose of the message was to point out that there
_already_ exists another arachne list, based on a different server (lest
this one fall over, as coollist has).

So, for those that missed it, here's the URL for the arachne list, that
Gregy set up over five years ago (reminder, you don't need a Yahoo ID
or to become a fully-fledged group member to participate via e-mail) :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arackne/

Now, some final comments on the "Base64 test" ...

People always seem to think the various problems I've had with this
list, particularly the base64 encoding of plain text, are due to my
e-mail client and that Microsoft (aka Monosoft;-) are responsible. No
and no! They are actually due to my e-mail server and in particular,
to it's crappy firewall software - by Symantec, not M$!

As for what e-mail client I'm currently using ... well right now, I'm not!
I'm just using a web browser (M$IE as it happens, although any
JavaScript-capable browser would do just as well, I think).   <G>

Hope that clears things up.  <G>

Joe.

________________________________

From: arachne-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Rob
Sent: Sat 24/09/2005 12:38 AM
To: arachne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [arachne] Re: Dealing with winmail.dat and unreadable email attachments

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

I should have mentioned, if you have any contacts
in your Outlook address book set to receive HTML,
ALL contacts will receive winmail.dat.
Rob:
P.S. Why not just use a different email client?
Foxmail, and Thunderbird are both good. Eudora?

--

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On Fri, 23 Sep 2005, Rob wrote:

> Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!
>
> When using Outlook, send messages as plain text,
> rather than RTF, HTML, or DOC. Outlook is the
> only email client that sends winmail.dat, and does
> it for the above formats.
> Rob:
>
>

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=========================== end what it says ===============================

We are not going to just ignore this crap.  Your attachments are a
real PITA to deal with, including even the base64 encoded text attachments.

Anyone who sends text attachments in emails without any good reason
for sending the text stuff as an attachment will be flamed for it.

Your "winmail.dat" files are a total waste of band width.

As for your text attachment, it is also a waste of bandwidth and a very
pompous-assed thing to do to append the very lengthy boiler plate of
incomprehensible barratry.  Does your ISP mess with your messages also by
appending all that crap?   If so, maybe you should sue the bastards.

You cannot get away with this simply by blaming your ISP for the problems.
You can dump your current ISP and subscribe to a normal ISP.  Alternatively
you could just simply use an smtp server other than the one belonging to
your ISP.  There are some free email services which offer authenticated
smtp services for free to their subscribers.  If you are a subcriber to
such a service you may use its smtp server instead using the crappy smtp
server belonging to your ISP.

Sam Heywood
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