On 16 Feb 2001, at 10:36, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Amidst everything else that sucks about HTML email, I just found a new
> > one (new to me at least): one person has a fancy HTML-ized .signature
> > that includes both a .jpg. and a .gif. So every message he sends
> > includes about 40K of base64-encoded junk...
>
> How much worse is that, really, than the guy who had a .sig over 1000 lines
> long?
None, of course, BUT: just as with everything else to do with HTML, the
tools make it easy for the clueless to cause trouble. .sigs that long in
the text-email era were, at best, rare. The problem is going to be that
just as most of the html-email crowd have no clue that their 50-char [as
it looks to them] email message actually took up 250 chars of s and
multipart-alternatives and such...it'll probably just be a draganddrop or
two together with a few mouse clicks and you, too, can have a 250K
.signature and be the envy of all...
At least with the old text based clients you had to work at it to get a
huge sig [and actually animating it was beyond the skills of most]. HTML
email isn't breaking any particular new ground [indeed, as I've already
posted here several times, folks have been at work trying to make better-
than-plain-text email virtually for as long as there has BEEN email] ---
What's new and different is the general level of expertise/cluedness of
the newest wave coupled with the nature of the tools they find themselves
using that'll cause a new wave of headaches...
And as a side note, I bet that even a 1000-line text .signature isn't as
large as (or certainly not much largef than) the .sig that the sysadmin
sent me [without any real effort on his part and without even giving it a
thought]. A behemoth, rare, you hardly ever see one such, 1000-line sig
was probably 35K or 40K long and probably required some effort to compose
[I remember 40-screen-long ones with things like D00DZ in multi-line
block letters and such]. That stupid .sig I got today, with the .jpg and
the .gif, was 45K. I can only imagine how large it is going to get when
he figures out to drag-and-drop a .mp3 sound file (or .mpeg animation)
into his .sig template... it's all the same to him and none of it is a
problem for HIM, so why should he care...
Contemplate the digests when every 10-char submission includes a behemoth
.signature [and the 'reply at the top, include the ENTIRE original at the
bottom' crowd will have the copies of the behemoth .signatures of EVERY
PRIOR post bundled along with theirs, adding to the fun]. If your MLM
has a 50K limit per-digest, you might find that you're sending out "one
message" digests...
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--
