[WinMac] Re: HTML,MIME,PLAIN TEXT,BASE64 ETC.:bottom line please!

Tom Roth(tomroth[at]wfubmc.edu)
Wed, 27 Oct 1999 08:51:25 -0400

"Robert F. Crean" wrote:
>
> Both Bruce Johnson and Leonard Rosenthol kindly responded to my question
> about all of different options for sending Email and attachments. Thank
> You!
>
> Now, how about a bottom line? We send and receive email and lots of jpeg
> photos. Thats it.
>
> If I set up ALL copies of OE and Netscape (both platforms) to send email
> using plain text, and for attachments, Base 64, and where possible ask our
> clients to do the same, will that work? I mean is that the thing to do?

We receive a lot of files daily and we always try to encourage our
clients to NOT use email. Attached files to email have to be encoded
and then decoded and of course email was designed to send plain text
messages, not huge binary files. Now I don't mind getting a small file
via email but when there's a lot of them or they are large 2MB or
greater then FTP is really the way to go.

Uploading files via anonymous FTP can be done with Netscape (I don't
know about IE) which most everyone can figure out how to use with a few
instructions. FTP clients can usually be had for free and are not much
harder to figure out and better still because you can upload many files
at once. Anonymous FTP with Netscape can only do one at a time. Of
course a zip or stuffit file can fix that.

I even went the extra step and setup a CGI script on our web site to
where anyone with a web browser can upload 5 files at a time to us. The
files then land in our FTP directory and we ask them to fill out an
on-line work order. Even a computer idiot can figure it out (though I
admit I still get a phone call a couple of times a month.)

Check it out at our web site http://www.wfubmc.edu/biomed/ . Click on
the upload link to get to the page with the CGI script. I also have
instructions for anonymous ftp with netscape and for a FTP client.
   
 ______________________________________________________________________
 Tom Roth Wake Forest University School of Medicine
 tomroth@wfubmc.edu Dept of Biomedical Communications
 http://www.wfubmc.edu/biomed/ Medical Center Blvd
 Tel 336.716.4493 Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1011
 ______________________________________________________________________

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