Re: LIST REQUEST - no email attachments

["Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>]

      Please please please please please don't attach documents to your
      email message. Email programs don't interchange with other program or
      between platforms. Please scroll down and read the whole message I
      received. You'll understand why I make this request.

I scrolled down. Not only did I scroll down, but I saved the file, decoded
it and virus checked it -- elapsed time, about a minute. (And yes, I found
the virus in it.)

What you saw is what you can expect to see when an attachment is sent
either to a listserv or a mail client which is not MIME-compliant. I've not
tried sending attachments to the list (or to Betsy) so I'm not sure whether
it was the Listserv or Betsy's system that failed to properly handle the
attachment.

Yes, it's not Acceptable Practice to send attachments to a list. Mainly
because you're using a lot more bandwidth sending an attachment as opposed
to text, and you're sending it to people who don't necessarily want to see
it. Also, as we have noted, it's a great way to spread viruses.

<Learning Opportunity>But things like this happen, and occasionally we get
gobbledy-gook in our mailbox. What to do?

Look at the first few lines immediately preceeding the mess. If there's a
"begin" statement just before the mess, and every line in the mess begins
with "M" (except for the last line) then it's uuencoded. Use something like
WinCode or uuUndo to decode it. If it says "This file encoded with BinHex
4.0" or something similar, then use something like Stuffit to decode it.

If we look at the first few lines of this particular attachment we find:

      This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

Oh, this is fun. It's MIME-compliant (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions). Looking farther into it:

      Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="Bus Writing Svc
      Concept.doc"
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

identifies the type of file and encoding used. In this case it's "base64,"
which also serves as an indicator that the message is MIME. I've yet to hit
base64 outside of MIME. Munpack, YA64, or one of several other packages
will decode this.

(All decoding software mentioned here is freely available off various
Internet sites, though it may be shareware so be sure and pay your
shareware fees, if applicable.)

Next, since the attachment is in a format from the International House of
Viruses, aka Microsoft, you should run a virus scan on it before doing
anything with it. (This last is only semi-facetious. The last couple of SAM
virus definition updates consisted almost entirely of new MS macro viruses.
We should all be sure to thank Mr. Bill for giving the vandals yet one more
means to trash our systems.) In this case I turned up an example of the WM/
XL virus.

<Here endeth "Attachment Decoding 101">

Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
----------------------------------------------
In God we trust; all others must provide data.
----------------------------------------------
Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html