Date: Fri 07-Aug-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-file-attachments

Full Text:

INTERNET INFO FOR REAL PEOPLE: File Attachments

By Bob Brand

Time for some plain talk about file attachments. The popularity of e-mail

continues to change the Net landscape. Until recently, it was commonplace to

receive only plain text messages inserted smoothly into a favorite e-mail

client -- Eudora, Pine, Juno, Netscape Communicator, Hotmail, and a host of

others. Gradually, strange epistles started to appear. What in the world is

going on?

With the arrival of new people to cyberspace, many surf with little or no

training. ISPs (Internet Service Providers), in an effort to keep their costs

down, often stop providing browsers or communication application software

(such as Eudora) to new subscribers. Rather, they expect the customer to use

Windows 95/98 that includes several tools for the Internet. After just a few

minutes of orientation by phone with tech support, the browser, dialer and

e-mail settings are established. This is usually the extent of training.

Newbies then start roaming around.

Quickly, new people realize they can use the Internet Explorer mail program to

send attachments -- pictures, files, music and more. Once in the mail program,

a click of the paperclip icon on the "command row" at the top of the mailer

means "Insert Attachment." They search the hard drive and automatically attach

a file to the e-mail message. Simple. Here is where the trouble begins.

Frequently, no thought is given to the notion that the person receiving the

e-mail can read (or decode) the file attachment. A few simple guidelines can

avoid many of the more common problems.

Rule 1

Make sure the receiver can handle the message attachment. Netiquette suggests

you first send a plain text file to the recipient and ask them politely which

e-mail program they use. If the receiver uses Juno or an e-mail client at a

university/government site (often Pine), the picture (in gif or JPEG format)

must be converted from binary to ASCII. Two popular formats are MIME format

and UUencoding. Many e-mail programs cannot smoothly handle attachments. In

that case, suggest that the recipient set up a Hotmail (one of the many free

e-mail programs) account on the Web. This only takes a few minutes. Send the

file there. The recipients can then cut/paste the attachment from Hotmail into

their computer.

Rule 2

Do not open file attachments from strangers. Virus scares have become a

permanent fixture on the Internet. Almost all are hoaxes. A virus can only be

spread with binary (non-text) files. However, should you receive a Word

document file (something like FREEMONEY.DOC) as an attachment, after decoding,

an embedded virus would remain intact and capable of infecting Microsoft Word

or Excel files. Don't let this happen to you.

Rule 3

Keep attachments short. Pictures, Real Audio and other non-text files are

often large -- in excess of 100k bytes. A person receiving a monster file is

likely to become annoyed when the beast arrives over a slow Internet

connection.

Rule 4

When in doubt, first send a message to yourself. If you have difficulty

handling a file attachment, the person on the other end will experience the

same.

A Pet Peeve

Far too often I receive e-mail that contains HTML tags. This occurs because

the careless sender has not changed the default Microsoft Internet Explorer or

MS Outlook setting (rich Text-HTML) in the mailer. It is an easy fix. In the

MS Internet Explorer mailer (or Outlook), click: Format, click: Plain Text.

The Future

Here is a harbinger of the importance of file inclusion in e-mail. Starting in

early August, Juno, with a base of over 5.5 million users, will offer JUNO

GOLD, an enhanced e-mail service that allows file attachments. It will carry a

cost of $2.95/month and will be restricted to people using Windows 95/98 and

Windows NT. In addition, Juno will join the ranks of over 4,500 ISP (Internet

Service Providers) by offering a service they call JUNO WEB. Before you can

use these services, however, the software must be upgraded to Juno Version

2.0. More bad news. The program has ballooned to 3.9MB (megabytes) in size.

Ouch!

Users of Microsoft Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook 98, and Netscape Mail

should be aware that these e-mailers contain a flaw that could lead to buffer

overflow. This weakness could be exploited to transmit viruses over the

Internet via e-mail. There have been no reports of this happening to date. If

you use one of these programs, apply the appropriate software patch (available

on the websites) as soon as possible.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest: http://www.hotmail.com

http://www.juno.com

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_display/0,3440,337392,00.html

This is the 115th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, Away from Home is the subject on tap. Stay tuned. Until next

week, happy travels through cyberspace. Previous issues of Internet Info for

Real People (including links to sites mentioned in this article) can be found:

http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to:

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.